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Ask HN: Baby monitor for hard of hearing person
2 points by jelling on Jan 14, 2019 | hide | past | favorite | 3 comments
I am trying to design a baby monitor solution for my hard of hearing friend (HHF).

Design criteria: - HHF needs vibrating alerts when the baby monitor is triggered - Ideally, these should happen on his person so his spouse can sleep - Spouse wants a video screen / the usual stuff

I've divided the problem into the baby monitor and the on-person vibrating device.

Baby monitors: the Arlo is supposed to work with IFTT but does not in practice. The Nabi Artistole worked with IFTT but it was cancelled after announcement.

Vibrating device: the Ditto wearable device looks perfect, has a long battery life, and works with IFTT but it's "Sold out" on their website. That makes me think they're a zombie company and the next iOs update might make their app obsolete. Other wearables, such as FitBit, don't seem to vibrate much or at all.

Any ideas? I can code something if needed.



Can the vibrating device be a cheap cellphone that vibrates when it gets an SMS?

Something like this https://www.olimex.com/Products/ARM/ST/STM32-E407/open-sourc... on the baby monitor side coupled with your own DSP code listening to the speaker could generate the text.


Is there a wearable baby monitor your friend could sleep with? Try opening it up and melting candle wax onto the speaker. You want it to vibrate instead of making sound. If the candle wax doesn't work, there's probably a similar hack that will.


I had deaf friends who had a flashing light baby monitor (flashed a light in their bedroom)... in 1985. There have to be better solutions now.




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