If you’ve ever been given the fantastic opportunity to mind a newborn baby, then you’ll also be aware that it’s a handful trying to make sure they’re safe, they sleep well and that they are never alone for too long. It can be as demanding as it is rewarding, and both Max Mysechko and Artemiy Drobyazko understood this when trying to buy a gift for their colleagues’ recent newborn. Searching the web for hours, these guys found no luck of a playful baby monitor appropriate for the purchase, so in-turn decided to design one themselves – which is where the Strixie was born.
Equipped with a video streaming camera, microphone, speaker, built-in battery, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, the Strixie has what it takes to shrink you down to size and put you right there beside your baby. Strixie has some nifty tricks; it can play music directly from your smartphone, remind you to check in on your child, alerts you to excessive noise in the room like crying, allow two-way audio conversations and even enables the user to receive live feeds of the baby too. With design similarities to Vivien Muller’s Ulo, the Strixie carries some of the goals and visions from the Ulo with the specific use of newborn connection and safety.
That being said, there are things about Strixie that I’m not sold on, such as the ballast used to keep the device upright. Adding weight into a device that will be close to a baby seems dangerous and can be easily avoided by a broad base that tapers upwards. Also, having the camera so low on the body of the device is bound to be covered by cloth if it’s near the baby or bound to have the view obscured if it is sitting on top of a shelf/desk. This concept has a nice idea behind it, however, I feel some areas require careful and strenuous thought.
Designers: Max Mysechko & Artemiy Drobyazko for Qvarta
