Three women and a baby monitor

It was a “boring” party and a chat with a flat-mate that, in a sense, led three women engineers — Ranjana Nair, Aardra Kannan Ambili and Sanchi Poovaya — to start up a business centred around every parent’s concern that compels them to watch over their baby even as it sleeps.

Their product, Raybaby, a non-contact sleep- and health-monitor that can pick up even tiny respiratory changes in infants, was born off the young engineers’ work on sensors. Far from the informal chats and chance meetings that brought them together, the three women today helm RIOT Solutions Inc, a company they founded. After some preliminary exposure, Raybaby is today ready to ship to international customers, even as it is being readied for a public rollout in India, come September.

Raybaby involves a “patent-pending technology” that allows parents to monitor the sleep or breathing of their baby without having to be physically close to them, explains Ranjana. A mobile phone connected to the internet is all it takes, and the parent gets an alert if something is amiss.

Other baby monitors in the market are like video monitors, says Ranjana. Raybaby works on the radar technology. The baby is not exposed to any emissions, nor is there a battery-operated band looped around the child, she says, adding that the product is safe for the infant.

Healthcare multinational Johnson and Johnson is partnering with RIOT Solutions. J&J has products to help the child sleep, and Raybaby monitors the baby’s sleep, notes Ranjana. J&J is not invested in the company for now, but the start-up is supported by hardware investor HAX as part of its Joint Consumer Health Device Program. In fact, the start-up is one of six being supported by Colors Infinity and Ketto, a crowd-funding platform, for a round of funding to prepare for its India launch, explains Ranjana.

The product manufacturing is outsourced and is being done in Bengaluru, says Ranjana, who sees prospects for the product extend beyond just parents to hospitals as well. India has a high number of premature births, and these babies are not kept in hospitals for as long as it is required to monitor them. Hospitals can hand out Raybaby in their post-pregnancy packages, she says, and parents can monitor their premature child with this gadget.

Though the focus for now is on getting the product out to the first lot of international customers and on the India rollout, the team is optimistic that the product has additional uses — in children with asthma, for instance, or even for senior citizens, like those with heart problems, says Ranjana, giving a glimpse into what may lie ahead for Raybaby.

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