Announced by TOMY International recently, the company has released a new smart car seat that syncs with your smartphone in order to provide vital safety data about your child during travel. Called the IAlert convertible car seat, one of the smart functions of the seat will send a text message to the owner if the car has been stopped for a while and the child is still strapped in the seat within the car. If the parent or guardian doesn’t respond to this alert immediately, the seat will automatically notify multiple contacts via text or email basically treating the incident as an emergency. Conceptually, this is designed to cut down on the number of parents that purposely or accidentally leave children locked in hot cars while running errands.
However, there are a number of additional smart functions that can be useful to parents. If the child manages to unbuckle themselves from the seat and jump out while the car is in motion, an alarm will go off on the synced smartphone.
When installing the car seat in the vehicle, the iAlert app offers real-time data about the angle at which the seat is installed. If the seat is installed at the wrong angle, the child could suffer serious injury in the case of an accident.
After the child has been placed in the seat, the application will remind the parent to secure the buckles over the child. In addition, the temperature of the seat will be displayed on the smartphone, thus allowing the parent or guardian to make adjustments to the climate control system within the vehicle. For rear facing installations, the IAlert car seat is suitable for babies between 5 to 35 pounds and toddlers between 23 to 65 pounds should be placed in the front facing position. According to the press release, the IAlert convertible car seat will retail for approximately $350 on Amazon.
