Smart diaper tech: an idea that really stinks

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/01/2019 (2734 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I am feeling pretty smug about the fact that I no longer have to engage in any serious parenting activities now that both my kids have moved out and have careers that I barely understand.

For the record, I am as hip and happening as the next old geezer, but it has been drawn to my attention that I no longer have the technological know-how to cope with state-of-the-art modern babies.

This became apparent when I stumbled on several news reports about the latest high-tech parental aid unveiled at the prestigious Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the world’s largest technology expo.

As many of you have already deduced, I am referring here to the ultimate wearable device — a smart diaper. Seriously, we are talking about a baby’s diaper equipped with the latest in artificial intelligence.

Q: A smart diaper! Is that great, or what?

A: No, it is not.

Look, in recent years I have become comfortable in the knowledge that all my “smart” appliances are far brighter than I am. It is strangely comforting for me to know that my refrigerator is capable of going online and re-ordering Cherry Garcia ice cream when our stocks run low.

But, while my big-screen TV and my two-slot toaster are both better candidates for the game show Jeopardy! than I am, I’m not prepared to admit that I am no longer as intelligent as a standard baby’s diaper.

Tragically, however, I doubt I will be able to match wits with a new device unveiled at the tech expo by a South Korean startup company called Monit.

According to a gaggle of news reports I am holding in my hands, the Monit Diaper Sensor is a small disc, about the size of a chocolate chip cookie, that clips to the outside of a baby’s diaper. Inside, an array of sensors detect when the diaper has been soiled and a Bluetooth transmitter buzzes the parents’ phones (or the phones of up to five caregivers) to alert them the baby needs to be changed.

Q: How has humankind survived to this point without an artificially intelligent device to inform parents it is time to change their baby’s diaper?

A: It is clearly a miracle.

According to what I have just read, the sensor’s companion app analyzes all the data so parents can track diaper consumption, pee and poo patterns and sleep patterns. Based on my own experience as a nurturing, caring parent, I am not sure exactly who the smart diaper is intended to help.

Based on every woman I have ever met in my life, the last thing mothers need is a device to tell them when their baby has a dirty diaper. As much as I hate gender stereotyping, science has shown your standard mom can detect a soiled diaper from three football fields away, without having a computerized sensor buzz their smartphone to say: “Poop! There it is!”

In fact, any human being equipped with eyes capable of spotting a low-hanging diaper, ears that can hear an infant squealing like a wounded woodland creature and a nose capable of inhaling eye-watering odours can determine when a baby needs to be changed.

Which brings us to modern fathers such as myself. The last thing dads like me need or want is an artificially intelligent diaper that will call up our cellphones to inform us that we are supposed to perform a parental activity that, deep in our fatherly hearts, we do not want to perform.

If I am going to be honest, we dads already know when our kids’ diapers need to be changed. If you look at your baby as it waddles around and it appears as if the kid is smuggling 25 pounds of potatoes inside its diaper, then chances are junior needs a fresh Huggie.

We sensitive dads do not need to get up close and personal to perform the dreaded “sniff test,” because if you enter a room and are bombarded with stink molecules that are visible to the human eye — causing your home to smell as if someone has just buried a rotten egg inside an old gym bag under a chicken coop — then your baby’s wardrobe status is readily apparent without the intervention of technology.

The creation of a smart diaper that can send alerts to our cellphones will destroy what we dads like to call “plausible deniability,” wherein we are able to avoid ever changing a dirty diaper in our lives provided we can pretend, with a reasonably straight face, that we had no idea any diaper in the immediate vicinity was besmirched with toxic substances.

I can recall looking my wife in the eye and saying, “Sorry, sweetheart, I had no idea that (baby’s name goes here) needed to be changed,” even though our living room smelled like a stockyard, if you catch my subtle drift.

So, the last thing modern dads need is to be ratted out by a diaper that is smarter than they are. The mastermind behind this invention, Tony Park, told reporters he gave birth to the smart diaper because he wanted to be able to better understand his own children.

“It gives instant notification to the parent’s mobile hand cell so that they can understand when is the best time for changing (the) diaper,” Park chirped. “Parents can understand baby’s status in the meantime, baby’s surroundings, so they can raise their babies with strategy, not by just instinct or a feeling.”

Strategy? Seriously, Mr. Park, we’re talking about changing diapers, not winning the Super Bowl. And, speaking on behalf of most human beings, I am pretty sure we can handle that without constant reminders on our cellphones.

We would be well advised to remember that diapers are a lot like politicians in the sense they need to be changed on a regular basis. It might even be more accurate to say diapers are a lot like newspaper columnists, because they’re both full of… opinions.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca