Mimo Smart Baby Monitor - Rest Devices Inc.
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
1,907 words · ~9 min read
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parents already know this but for the uninitiated among you stick around for a
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second and I'm going open your mind you know when you put gaming Edition and
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some flashing LEDs on something it makes it worth twice as much for some reason
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putting four babies on something automatically makes it in order of
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magnitude more expensive 8B box of Rags
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for cleaning tough spills like paint 25
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bucks special Rags with adorable phrases
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on the front for cleaning spittle and mushed peas wow a a whole three pack for
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only $20 however will you make a profit on that all right so I guess you get the
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point parents are used to getting fleeced on anything that someone can
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convince them makes life better for their little bundle of joy so when I saw
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the mimo smart baby monitor with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi powered by Intel
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Edison The Geek and me went OMG it goes on my baby and it has Bluetooth and
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freaking Wi-Fi are you freaking kidding me sign me up well the parent and me
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went really another $200 for like a
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starter pack are you kidding me oh well I guess I could sell my 5960x and get a
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Pentium anniversary edition and then I could have this for my baby which by the
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way we'll be doing a head-to-head comparison of soon in gaming so make sure you're subscribe for that and then
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I clicked the checkout button so here we go is the rest devices memo an amazing
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blend of technology and cuteness or is
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it another scam to steal copious amounts of money from casuals just like Fitness
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wearables let's find out shall
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we Corsair gaming RGB keyboards feature
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Precision cherrymx RGB key switches for 16.8 million color per key backlighting
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for virtually unlimited customization click now to learn more we'll begin with
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what you get in the starter box a lily pad that charges the monitoring turtle
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and acts as a a Wireless Communications basee station for Wi-Fi to interact with
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your phone and Bluetooth for the turtle a wall wart and flat green USB cable to
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power the lily pad a 3 and 12 mm audio cable that you'll use to program the
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lily pad and three cotton machine washable onesies or kimonos in either 0
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to 3 3 to 6 or 6 to 12 month sizes and
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of course the aforementioned Blu tooth Turtle I guess that's also in there
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putting the kimono on is as easy as any other baby clothing so a piece of if
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she's not fussing and squirming but otherwise a bit more challenging just
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lay her down on it put her arms through the appropriate openings do up the two
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buttons on the right side do up the buttons on the left side then pull the
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bottom under the diaper and do up those three buttons at the front if you can
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I've been using these kimonos for a couple weeks so they've been through the washer and dryer and even though my
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little one is a bit tall for her age um my not quite 3mon old um is not really
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fitting the 3 to six month onesies very well they're quite snug and I think it
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would be a bit better if they were pre-shrunk out of the box to give a better idea of what sizing will be like
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so I left the three bottom ones undone in my testing let's move on to the app
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which is available for iOS and Android go through the wizard to create an
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account and then use the 3 and 1 12 mm cable with the volume turned up to Max
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on your phone to connect the lily pad to your home Wi-Fi network and bind your
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lily pad and turtle to the phone with the codes on the bottom all of which
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worked pretty seamlessly on iOS between
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my Droid Turbo and 1 ma8 and xeria Z2 I
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borrowed and my wife's Moto G only two of them were able to program the Lily
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Pad but the good news is that the share feature makes it easy to add another
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device for monitoring that can't program it or just a device that would have
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worked but one that belongs to a less tech-savvy parent or caregiver so I used
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that to generate a custom link that I emailed to my wife so she could easily
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monitor the same turtle on her Android phone next to share is the alert button
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which lets you toggle your notifications on iOS and configure them on Android so
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you'll be warned about various baby status changes but it didn't work very
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well on Android unfortunately overriding
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muted system volume so it actually as she stirred a little bit putting when my
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wife was putting the baby down to sleep after rocking her it detected a wake
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event causing her phone in her pocket to go off and actually wake the baby again
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iOS didn't have that problem though then there are three tabs at the bottom the
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live monitor tab shows you the position the baby's in monitors her temp
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temperature and the temperature of the room that the lily pad is in as well as
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letting you listen like a normal baby monitor by pressing the play button but
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while the position detection Works reasonably well for Rolling it's pretty
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useless for upright detection the and the wakefulness detection is actually
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much worse reporting that the baby is asleep when she's doing anything from
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fussing on the ground to sitting in a chair to being rocked by yours truly and
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then the audio quality for the listen button is so terrible on the monitor
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compared to my Cheapo baby monitor from Toys R Us that I wouldn't consider it a
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substitute at all the timeline tab is
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much less refined and it's kind of clunky looking on Android and lacks the
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summary on the bottom that makes it somewhat useful but on iOS it actually
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gives you a pretty good look at recent sleeping and waking events on a little
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timeline which is a neat idea if you want to monitor baby's sleep schedule to
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try to optimize it but the problem is that while sometimes it works the Sleep
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monitoring orientation monitoring is so unreliable that I wouldn't count on this
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to give me any kind of useful information about my child's activity
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levels and obviously won't do anything while the turtle which needs to be
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charged every couple of days is not connected to the kimono so it's again
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not the kind of thing that I would rely on and the third tab is settings where
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you can see some tutorials manag your multiple lily pads and turtles if you
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have twins or very heavily invested in this monitoring ecosystem manage the
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notifications that get sent and change the monitoring temperature units or at
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least on iOS you can do that so at this
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point you're probably sitting there thinking gine is cute baby thanks by the
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way but that mimo thing looks pretty rubbish for something that you will get
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maximum one year of use out of even if
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you're willing to keep investing in more onesies and only onesies for 15 bucks a
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pop and lonus you're in pretty good spirits for someone who just basically
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threw away $200 of your hard earned money as far as I can tell well what's
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up and the answer is it's nothing personal against rest devices Inc
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specifically or even smart baby monitors in general but I'm actually happy
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because this product gave me an opportunity to make a little PSA about
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enticing new tech products especially
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lifestyle ones from companies that have no proven track record that hopefully
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you'll share with others you know when someone is trying to sell you something
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based on your insecurities and fears things like fitness trackers that help
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you lose weight or baby monitors that give you peace of mind take a moment and
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put on your common sense goggles and critical analysis caps and try and cut
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through the BS Peace of Mind from what
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okay so focusing back in on baby monitors here we know that monitors
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don't prevent SIDS so what are you preventing other than your own anxiety
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and is Conquering that anxiety just a natural step in the process of learning
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to be a parent are we using these gadgets as a crutch are they even a
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useful crutch if they don't even work that way well am I really gaining any
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Peace of Mind from something that doesn't even appear to monitor the baby correctly I mean I don't know I mean to
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be clear I'm not saying that every product is terrible you know like my
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battery powered audio baby monitor is super handy just CU it's not always
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convenient to room share with the baby it's nice to be able to go about your
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day with a thing clipped to your belt loop and know when the baby's waking but
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you know and who knows this sproutling ankle bracelet thing might be amazing
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but all I'm trying to say is be patient take the time to find some proper
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independent media coverage or user reviews of the finished version of this
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stuff before pre-ordering like everyone seems to be willing to do or you're
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going to keep paying $200 for half-baked products like mimo that in this case
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aside from their software just being plain not good enough for a finished
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product it just wasn't even that thought out in the first place I mean the turtle
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communicates with the lily pad via Bluetooth so the range drops out like
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basically outside the room I how is this useful if the baby is asleep in any of
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the places that a baby might fall asleep other than her crib like derp what am I
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going to do move around the entire station whenever I go anywhere so that I
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can track her wakefulness she's awake
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and it says she's sleeping I don't know
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so I think that's pretty much all I have to say about this guys thanks for
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watching like if you liked dislike if you dislike leave a comment letting me
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know if you've been suckered into buying some kind of baby Gadget or Gizmo that
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didn't end up being that useful and if you found this video helpful please do
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share it guys as always check out the link in the video description where you
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can support us you can uh give us a monthly contribution you can oh wow I
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our affiliate code so every time you buy baby supplies we get a small Kickback it
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helps us out a lot thanks for again for watching and as always don't forget to
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subscribe
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he