In 2019, Forbes estimated that the US Baby Tech market has reached about $46 billion. According to software company Lvivity, approximately $42 billion had been spent annually on early childhood development (CSCCE) around that period. Lvivity considers this technology sector to be in a nascent state and cited multiple factors contributing to growth facilitating its further emergence:
- An increased number of births among millennial generation families, who are accustomed to utilizing high-tech devices, apps, and social media to support daily living tasks and activities, including raising children
- Higher incomes among young households that exceed the incomes of the previous generation, meaning they can afford the Baby Tech solutions
- A greater number of working parents, particularly working mothers as compared to the few prior decades
According to the Centers for Disease Control, approximately 4 million babies are born in the United States each year, meaning that theoretically companies have around that many new customers annually to market their products to. Lvivity posited that companies operating in this sector can target two main groups of people: future parents who are planning or expecting children and families that are already raising kids. The product categories within the baby tech sector include fertility and pregnancy tracking, baby care, and smart parenting solutions, as well as educational devices and platforms.
Pregnancy trackers, heart rate and breathing monitors, and EduTech solutions are the most prominent products within the baby technology market. Monitoring systems and smart devices can track newborns and toddlers health and safety and help parents take care of their babies. These include wearable oxygen and heart rate monitors, non-contact body temperature thermometers, connected scales, and smart breast pumps.
Fertility and pregnancy trackers are aimed at women who are planning to get pregnant and want to monitor the process of their pregnancy. Examples of fertility and pregnancy tracking devices include the following:
- Apps for menstrual cycle tracking
- Smart devices for predicting optimal days for conception
- Gadgets and apps for monitoring the health of a fetus
Apps for period tracking, such as Clue, Flo, and Cycles, calculate the average length of menstrual cycles based on the user's menstruation history and evaluate associated health parameters to forecast their fertility window. Multiple studies have concluded that apps using only cycle length make inaccurate or imprecise predictions; however, women's health apps remained popular despite these findings.
The Flo app, for instance, has been downloaded over 137 million times. Alternatively, smart devices can aid women before and during pregnancy. For example, Wink is an oral thermometer that helps the fertile tracking app Kindara monitor basal body temperature. The fertility tracker by Ava is a smart bracelet worn during nighttime. While a woman sleeps, the bracelet measures multiple physiological parameters such as skin temperature, resting pulse rate, and perfusion, then predicts the optimal days for conception based on the gathered data.
Photograph of the Maternal Pod and Patch from Philips
Prenatal monitors allow parents to gain insight into the well-being of their child in the womb. Multiple fetal doppler solutions use soundwaves to listen to a baby’s heartbeat, beginning from nine to sixteen weeks into the pregnancy. HeraBEAT is among such solutions, which usually consists of a portable device and mobile app and offer users the option of sharing pregnancy data. The alternative tracker, such as the Avalon CL Fetal and Maternal Pod and Patch from Philips, monitors a child's heart rate and uterine activity with special patches placed on the mother’s abdomen. Philips released this product in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Infant care solutions comprise devices with the main purpose is to provide child care and health monitoring. Examples of solutions in this area are listed below.
- Devices for blood oxygen levels and monitoring the baby's heart rate
- No-touch smart thermometers and smart scales
- Smart breast pumps tracking the feeding history and controlling milk volume
- Smart feeding jars that can sync with a dedicated app
Baby monitoring devices such as the Owlet Smart Sock track the oxygen level and heart rate of a sleeping child and alert users in case of heart rate fluctuations and breathing difficulties. The sock uses pulse-oximetry technology, connects to a smartphone, and features wireless charging. The SNOO smart bassinet can detect crying, rock infants back to sleep, and be controlled remotely via a mobile app.
The Kinsa Smart Ear thermometer takes a one-second reading by being placed in an ear; other solutions such as TempTraq come with a wearable patch that sends results to the selected device via BLE technology. Among the selection of hands-free breast pumps there are devices like Elvie and Willow that use wireless connectivity and can be worn inside a bra. To help women monitor milk volume and track feeding history, the pumps connect to dedicated mobile apps.
These Baby Tech solutions, which vary from robotic toys to AI-based educational platforms, are intended to support the development of children's cognitive and social skills. The Starling wearable clip aids parents with tasks related to early child development. The clip tracks metrics on verbal engagement, motion, noise, and sunlight exposure, and the associated app encourages parents to have conversations with children, providing tips on how to sustain them.
Robotic toys with touch sensors and voice recognition capabilities, such as the fuzzy Wi-Fi connected robot Woobo, can recognize speech and answer questions, express feelings, and plays games with children. The Hero Vision Iron Man AR Experience game allows kids to assume the role of Iron Man by putting on a helmet, downloading the app, placing a smartphone inside the AR (augmented reality) goggles, and placing AR markers around the room. There are also board games with AR capabilities. Solutions such as Tacto AR combine digital and physical experiences by requiring both the tablet with the downloaded app and game pieces to be played.
Smart parenting Baby Tech solutions include devices designed to monitor kids’ condition and their environment remotely to ensure their safety. This includes:
- Video baby monitors with built-in video cameras, microphones, and speakers
- Smart GPS gadgets that keep track of the child's location
- Solutions for air and room temperature monitoring
- Smart seats for cars
- 'Play and Learn" technologies
Sirona M smart car seat by Cybex
Sirona M is a smart car seat developed by Cybex designed to ensure the safety of babies staying in a car. The device monitors the status of children via a smart chest clip synced to an installed vehicle receiver and a smartphone. Smart GPS trackers monitor a child’s location, send notifications when they leave a designated area, and allow the wearer to report emergencies using an SOS button, by sending a text message or by calling. To pinpoint the position and connect to smartphones, trackers use technologies such as GPS, LBS, Cellular, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth.
The form of the tracking solution may be different. Jiobit, for example, is a wearable device that a child can clip onto a backpack. The solution performs real-time tracking and connects to the phones of selected caregivers. To monitor a child’s location, parents can also use smartwatches like Lil Tracker and Mr. Securio. Mr. Securio stores movement history and sends written or audio messages from parents and Lil Tracker performs two-way voice calls and listens to surroundings.
A variety of solutions that help kids develop their cognitive and social skills can also be found in the Baby Tech sector:
- Robotic toys and educational construction kits
- Learning games, simulations, and educational platforms
According to Statista, the most significant segment within the industry is the baby monitoring market, which the data company predicted would reach $1.735 billion by 2024, growing at a CAGR of 8.6% between 2016 and 2024. Allied Market Research issued a report in April 2020 that shows a lower CAGR of 5.4% from 2020 to 2027, but predicted the sector could reach $1.9 billion by 2027.
Baby monitor market size worldwide from 2016 to 2024 (in million US$) according to Softeq
Research and Markets projected the smart baby monitor market to grow from US$ 989.38 in 2020 to US$ 1,815.31 million by 2028, estimating its growth at a CAGR of 8.0% from 2021 to 2028. The research firm cited the increasing number of working parents worldwide as a significant driver of growth, leading to adoption of smart baby monitoring devices. According to the firm, the number of working mothers is also on the rise in developed as well as developing countries such as the US, China, India, and Canada. Since smart baby monitoring products facilitate real-time communication between parents and their children through smartphones, the increasing penetration of smartphones, used to install baby monitoring apps, also supports the growth of the market.
According to Crunchbase and Forbes, investors put $500 million into companies within the Baby Tech sector between 2013 and 2019. As of 2020, Crunchbase listed leaders in funding as the following:
- Alcresta, a producer of enzyme-based nutritional products for infants (total funding: $139.4M)
- Prolacta Bioscience, a company that offers human milk-based nutritional products for premature infants in neonatal intensive care ($78M)
- ByHeart, an infant nutrition provider ($70M)
- Zum ($71M)
- HopSkipDrive ($45M)
- 4moms, a company that develops smart products (bassinets, seats, and playards) aimed at prenatal to preschool children ($60M)
- Happiest Baby, the world's first producer of smart sleepers ($45.2M)
- Nanit, a producer of smart baby monitor and sleep tracker devices ($49.6M)
- Owlet Baby Care, a company offering sleep monitors for toddlers ($48M)
- A platform for working parents Cleo ($40.9M)
- Preschool and child care management software Brightwheel ($33.8M)
- Kidaptive, a platform that introduces entertaining and adaptive content to help children learn ($38.7M)
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) hosts the BabyTECH Summit, which focuses on innovation in the areas of fertility, pregnancy, and birth. In 2019, the competition pool had nearly doubled, with an 88% increase in entries. At CES-2019 the audience selected the baby sleep monitor Miku as the best Baby Tech solution, which tracks breathing, sounds, and sleeping patterns. It connects to a smartphone to play sleep sounds and lullabies, stream real-time video and audio, play HD video, and view photos.
The people’s most-liked solution from CES-2018 is the under-mattress fertility tracker Percent from EarlySense. The company created the first contact-free fertility monitor that connects to a smartphone and fits under a mattress. The solution tracks heart and breathing rates to predict fertility windows. The list of past winners also includes a smart bassinet, sleep monitors, smart breast pumps, a smart bottle, a smart sock, location trackers, and smart toys.
