Kickbee

Original design by Corey Lane Menscher

Kickbee is a wearable device that can sense the baby kicking in the mother’s womb and share that information with others. Each time the baby kicks, the kicks is being sensed and recorded through a belt that future mother wears, and then information about that is being sent to a twitter. In this way father and other people that are not physically close could still share the information about baby’s activity during the pregnancy and in this way try to share the experience of pregnancy.

Check out the video at http://kickbee.net/.

Technology

Kickbee uses the advantages of a wearable technology. Piezoo sensors that can sense small movements underneath it are placed inside an elastic fabric. Every time the movement is detected, after a baby kick, the info is being sent wirelessly through a Bluetooth to a Java application on computer near buy and then being posted to twitter through Twitter API.

Motivation & Strengths

We liked this device because it aims to enable parents to share the time of pregnancy and experience and exciting of expecting a child. We also liked that it is family oriented which is an area where we don’t see so many products. We find Kickbee to be a smart way of using a technology to assist and enrich everyday live, and bridge the limitations of physical separation.

Weaknesess

The weakness that comes from the technology used is that the pregnant woman that uses the belt has to be still. Otherwise her regular movements would be interpreted as baby kicks. Also in the current implementation, the message about baby kick could be sent too often and thus bore the user, with the same kind of repetitive information.

Furthermore the computer has to be in the close proximity to the Kickbee belt which limits the situations and the environment in which it could be used.

How would we improve it

Primarily, if the information is being shown on a computer or through a message, we would like to see a visualization of data, throughout the period. This would solve the problem of data sometimes being sent to often. Instead we could see how active the baby was that day: for example “Your baby was super active today” or “Your baby is a bit sleepy today.”

But more importantly we would like to have the feedback shown in another type of way: through a physical experience, rather than text message. The father could be waring similar belt, with sensors, which would trigger vibrations in places and with intensity in which the original kick was noticed. This would require a bit of change of technology in the original belt, because it would need to record the position as well. But we believe that in this way the experience of the pregnancy and baby kicks would be transferred and shared in the more appropriate way. For example, this approach of recording physical activity and recreating was used in Funambrella http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlFmwxYisP8.

• Visualization of the data received
• The feedback is expressed in the same manner as it was received – as vibration or touch, in the look like belt that daddy would be wearing. In that way they would be really sharing the physical experience.