Who would forget their baby inside the car? In the United States, as a matter of fact, it happens. That so many parents are so stressed out, and that infant car seats face the other way around, make it even easier for exhausted moms and dads to easily forget they have their baby in the car when they step out.
Walmart believes it has the solution to help remind parents that their baby is still inside the car. The big box retailer has teamed up with Evenflo to sell a smart infant car seat that issues a sound to remind parents that they have their baby in the car. Dubbed the Evenflo Advanced SensorSafe Embrace, the infant car seat wireless technology to alert parents about the presence of their child. For $149.88, the car seat can be purchased exclusively from Walmart from now until a year after.
The car seat uses a wireless receiver that is plugged into a car's On Board Diagnostic (OBD) and syncs with sensors that are placed inside the car seat's buckle that goes around the baby's chest. When the sensors detect that the ignition is off and the buckle is still closed around the baby, the buckle plays a tune, described as a jingle, to remind parents their baby is inside the car. The buckle also issues an alert when the sensors detect that the car has turned on and the buckle is unclipped.
"This car seat will eliminate the chance of a baby being forgotten in a car," Sarah McKinney, director of corporate communications at Walmart, stated. "Our hope is that no one would ever need the SensorSafe system, but the reality is that one child dies every nine days" due to heat stroke when left inside a car.
This is not the first smart car seat on the market, but unlike other car seats, this one does not need to be connected to a smartphone via Bluetooth to work, which means it will still serve its purpose even when a smartphone has drained its battery. There is one caveat to the system, though. The smart car seat is only compatible with vehicles manufactured after 2008, as the federal government has mandated new OBD standards for vehicles made from that year onwards.
While it seems impossible to forget ones baby, the National Weather Service says around 40 babies in the U.S. have died of heat stroke after being left inside a car. Most recently, an 11-month-old in Miami died while left inside the car as his parents went inside their home to unload groceries. Meanwhile, in Kansas, a couple were ticketed for child endangerment when they left their two-year-old cousin inside the car while out shopping. The baby survived thanks to bystanders, who smashed in the windows of the car.
