Might a car seat be designed in such a way to help prevent the tragic deaths of babies left in hot cars? A new seat designed to avert tragedies resulting from babies left in overheated cars is from Evenflo, which lists the retail price of its seat solution as $149.88.
The "Evenflo Advanced SensorSafe Embrace DLX Infant Car Seat" is being sold at Walmart. Evenflo said, "We see it as a social responsibility to offer caregivers and parents the opportunity to help prevent these tragedies from happening."
Walmart's site described the Evenflo Advanced Embrace DLX with SensorSafe seat as working via a smart chest clip for the child and wireless receiver auto-sync to communicate with the driver through a series of gentle tones. The receiver will tell the driver through sounds that there is a baby in the car after arrival at the destination and will also signal the driver through sounds if the seat gets unbuckled in transit.
A receiver plugs into the car's onboard diagnostic system. The receiver plug links to a sensor on a clip placed across the baby's chest. Tones are activated through the chest clip and wireless receiver. The chest clip transmits an extremely brief and low power signal "no stronger than your car's keyless remote entry," said Evenflo. "The transmissions are so brief that total transmission time in 2 hours of driving is less than one second."
Once the child is clipped in and the car starts rolling, an electronic link is established. When the driver turns off the ignition, the sensor immediately kicks in with an alert sound, using gentle tones, to remind the driver that a baby is on board.
The company said that The SensorSafe receiver plug will not interfere with the operation of the car or with other devices.
"The receiver plug uses the connector port for power to monitor the SensorSafe chest clip, and to determine if the car is ON or OFF. The SensorSafe receiver plug will not drain your vehicle's battery, as it only uses a tiny amount of power, the same amount required to run your dashboard clock."
As for chest-clip battery life, the site said it should last for the life of the car seat, but it can send an alert if the battery is low, transmitting a low-battery sound when the clip is closed. The sound is different from the tones heard when activating the system. If the clip accidentally is left buckled while not in use, the clip automatically shuts off after 12 hours, said the company.
