Update-Page

Oct 3rd - Interview with Fox 6 in Birmingham, AL - Two of the 16 children who died this summer were in Alabama. The first wa an 11 month old little girl on July 17th. She was forgotten when her mother stopped by the nail salon she owned. The second was a 4 month old little boy on August 9th. He was forgotten on the way to the day care. The parent, a National Guard member, spoke about what happened that day in an interview weeks later on Fox 6. I have included a link below the photo on the top left here to that interview and encourage you to watch it. It is not easy to watch but a serious reminder to all of us how this can happen to even the best parents in just one fateful, devestating moment of distraction.

With events like these in the news it must have really made an impact in Alabama. Somehow Fox 6 in Birmingham got wind of the Backseat Baby Alarm and contacted me. They originally were just going to have me send them a unit to test and show. But knowing what a great opportunity this was, I offered to drive down and demonstrate it to them in person. So I drove from Cincinnati on a Wednesday and went to the station the next morning. I met with Ronda Robinson, their consumer reporter. She had arranged for a young couple with a child to be there also to test the device and give their opinion. Little nervous about that. But, I went ahead and demonstrated it and had them test it out in my own car in their parking lot. We went in then to the interview room and the father was asked by Ronda what he thought, etc.

I breathed a big sigh of relief because he really said some good things about it. And his remarks were not over the top and seemed very genuine. I don;t know what it it going to look like in the final cut but I am hoping it will lead to more interest and getting to the 250. Of course I asked Ronda when it would air and she thought at that time it would be sometime in the 1st week of November during their "sweeps" week.

Of course once I find out exactly when, will try to get a copy and put it up as a new update. Hopefully they really do decide to air it! Will be really disappointed if they don't. Ironically and sadly, I was to find out the next day that at the very time we were talking about these deaths at Fox 6 in Alabama, the 16th and last child's death of the year was unfolding in Greenboro, NC when a 3 month old little boy was forgotten in a shopping center parking lot.

Oct 12~19 - ABC Show in Las Vegas, NV L - The ABC (All Baby & Children) Show is the annual BIG trade show for all the manufacturers and suppliers of baby and toddler products. Normally there is now way I would be let in but for the first time this year the show had an "Invention Connection" pavilion which invited inventors to display at the show. I and about 16 other inventors exhibited during the four days of the show. As you can see from the photos I snuck (we weren't supposed to take photos inside but I did anyway!) we each had a 10 x 10 room to exhibit in. The reason we were in rooms rather than in open booths out on the main floor was because several of the inventions were not yet patented so they wanted to protect confidentiality. I spent a ton of time and effort to hand build a scaled down demo model of a 4-door car to demonstrate the alarm to the attendees (in right two photos above). I also hung maps of the US on the walls that showed the locations by state of the hot car deaths for each year since 2010, using stock photos of children close in age to the real children. Many people were just in disbelief when I explained what the maps depicted.

I learned a lot at the show. The day before the official opening owners of specialty stores and infant boutiques were allowed to enter to see all the new products coming out this year. Quite a few came by the Invention Connection. Of course I demonstrated it to them and I think everyone was quite surprised how simple an idea it was but no one had thought of it before. I was glad to get comments from many that it was something they could sell in their store. However, one comment/criticism that was heard often was about the need for a 3rd sensor so that both rear doors could be monitored simultaneously by 1 unit. I had always intended to do this in the future but seems like that it needs to be done from the get-go to have a better chance at getting it picked up by stores. Will post updates on the progress.

I also took the opportunity to ask the buyers and store owners what t they could expect it to sell for in their stores. They were surprisingly forthcoming. The input ranged from a low of $29.99 ~ $49.99.

Based up this, I have decided to price the units after Field Test is concluded on the low end of the range suggested to me at $29.99 / 1 unit and $$54.99 / 2 units to encourage persons who have 2 cars to outfint both vehicles. By the way, a couple of days later as I was showing a small "walk around" demo model to a distributor and maker of safety devices for baby proofing the home, he called over another rep he knew, had me demo it to her, and asked her opinion on price. She said "well, I would say "sub-$50". Turns out the person was the the buyer for Walmart.com. So, given who they worked for and their pricing philosophy and that they didn't say "sub-$25" or some other figure like that, i think the $29.99 is still very reasonable.

Also had a nice visit from the people at CarSeatBlog.com. They are a group of 4 persons who review and rate car seats and are well respected in the industry. I demo'ed the alarm to them and they were impressed enough to take a video on their Ipad. I have since spoken with them and was told they hope to post a story about the alarm sometime mid-November. No promises but hope they do and will of course post an update if it appears.

It was a very long, exhausting week but I tried to show the alarm to as many people as I could. Hopefully I planted "some seeds" that will bear some fruit in the future.

Nov 1 - Marketing to Texas & Alabama Daycares. - In late August of this year I went around to a few day cares near my home and demonstrated the alarm to the directors. All were very positive in their reaction and agreed to hand out flyers I had made. Well to my chagrin I got ZERO response from about 120 flyers. After doing some reflecting I realized my message in the flyer was too focused on the statistics and risks part of this issue. Basically, I have to admit I think it just turned off parents. No one likes to have it suggested to them that they could harm their own child. Also, the time of year was not the best as summer was nearly over.

This week I revised my whole approach after coming across by change a photo on Flickr. It is a photo by Glenn Fleischman and shows a mother sweetly giving her just waking toddler a kiss as he smiles and stretches as she gets ready to take her little boy out of the car. That's what I hope every parent will do every single time they take their child in the car somewhere and they never, ever "miss the car seat kiss".

As you might have noticed I included it in the website. I also used it as the centerpiece for a completely new 11" x 17" poster that I mailed out this week to 25 daycares in Texas and 5 in Alabama located near to where there have been "forgotten child" accidents this summer. I attached a cover letter and asked the directors if they would please put up the poster somewhere prominent where their parents would see it. I even pre-applied double sided adhesive strips to make it as easy as possible for them. I am hoping that parents in Texas and Alabama are more aware of these accidents and open to the idea of the need for such a device. I will be following up with phone calls next week to the day cares and introduce myself. Hope I just get a better response than I did in my own home state!

Proud (and relieved) to announce I wired funds to the manufacturer yesterday for the first snall production run of 250 units and we are officially under production!

You might have noticed the new photos and new video. This is "Generation 2" that I worked on all winter in response to comments and requests from everyone. These are major changes so please read. But before doing that, might be a good idea to watch the new demo video (it's only 4 minutes long) CLICK HERE TO SEE

DESIGN AND OPERATION CHANGES:

CHANGE 1: BOTH BACK DOORS MONITORED, MANUAL TOUCH PAD "OFF/SLEEP" SWITCH: The original design you saw previously monitored just one back door and as you recall, turned itself on and off automatically. However, many, many people commented that they would really like to see it be able to monitor both back doors so they could take their child in and out from either side.

The new design now does this. It has sensors on both back doors and like before, turns itself on automatically. However, it does not turn itself off automatically. Rather the new design now has two “Sleep/Off” touch pad switches located on the top edge of the door panel by the window. So now when you open the door to take your child out, you simply reach out and press it the “Sleep/Off” pad lightly. As before, you will hear the unit say, “The alarm is now off”.

Also, so you don’t worry as many people have asked this question, with the new design the alarm will still only sound 1x when you are getting out as your “reminder” sound. It does not chime continuously. Thus you can stop for gas and get out and not have to worry about it continuing to make sounds while you are pumping gas or needing to turn it off, etc. When you do arrive at your final stop - the daycare, store, home - and open up the back door it chimes 2 more times, but that is just to prompt you to hit the “Sleep/Off” button. And if you don't? No biggie, it stays active but does not continue to chime. So in detail, this is when and how often the chimes sound:

- When you open the back door, you hear a double ping sound 1x. This is to let you know the alarm is on and working.

- After putting your child in and then as getting in,yourself, you hear a chime melody of about 3 seconds plays 1x. This chime is a reconfirmation that the alarm is functioning correctly. If you don't hear it, it's a warning something is not right and you need to check it before leaving.

- You drive to your destination and open your door to get out. At that point a different chime also of about 3 seconds plays 1x. This is your "Look before you lock!" reminder chime.

- You open the back door to get your child out, chime plays 2x in a row and stops. This is actually to prompt you to press the "Off/Sleep" switch and put the alarm into sleep mode.

- While the chime is playing, you press the "Off/Sleep" switch and the alarm voice message cuts it off and says, "The alarm is now off", putting the alarm back into "Off/Sleep" mode till next time. If you don't hit the "Off/Sleep" switch, it remains active but not continuously sounding like an alarm would.

Why did I make this change? Three reasons:

I had 3 prototypes made with 2 backdoor sensors. Technically and manufacturing wise, it was simple as pie. However, when I had friends test them, it turned out to be problematical, especially in the case of families with a more than one child. What was happening was that the unit turned off just like I wanted when one back door was opened – but then, if someone got out on the other side, their opening the other door turned it back on!. Very frustrating! I experimented with various programming but the best solution in the end was to add a manual “Off/Sleep” switch so that both back doors could be used. The switch actually is adopted from children’s story books that make sounds when you press the button.

A 2nd reason for having a manual “Sleep/Off” switch was that it gave the advantage of allowing you to make the unit go into Sleep mode if you are just throwing a purse, laptop case, groceries, etc. in the back and don’t want it to be active. This was important for many people.

Without going into a technical explanation, the 3rd reason is that the new design does away with the need for a separate part that was previously needed for it to work with 2 door cars. One design works for any type of vehicle.

CHANGE 2: MUCH NEATER

About 24”~36” of ¼ “ (about the same diameter as a dime) black flexible tubing will now be included to hide the wires on the driver’s side. As you can see from the new photos, the tubing looks much neater than loose wires. By the way, the old ugly wires show up in the video so just ignore that.