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Smart Pad Alerts Parents When Child Left in Car, Annoys Mom-Reviewer
Feb 06 2009 by Courtney Messenbaugh
Sleep-deprived or harried parents can make mistakes, sometimes fatal mistakes like forgetting their child in the backseat of their car. Baby Alert’s ChildMinder Smart Pad system is supposed to warn parents when they’ve left their child in their child-safety seat, so I put it to the test.
The Smart Pad system, which costs $69.95, only works when you’ve placed the pad directly under the car seat’s cushion. I wanted to test it out with my infant, but the system didn’t work well with her car seat, which I just click in and out of its base. My toddler’s convertible car seat became the proving grounds.
Anyone with a toddler will tell you that most of the time they don’t need an alarm system to let them know they’ve left their toddler behind. My toddler, for example, tells me at the top of his 2-year-old lungs that he needs to get out of the car before I even have the key out of the ignition.
Nevertheless, I ran through a few scenarios with the Smart Pad system, which includes the pad and two portable alarms. The idea is you put an alarm on your key ring, and if you walk more than 15 feet away from your car while your child is still in his car seat, the alarm sounds. It’s not an obnoxious alarm that’ll make your fellow shoppers stop and stare, but it’s a boisterous set of beeps that’ll get your attention and get you back to your car quickly.
Of course, it’s extremely important not to forget your child in the car. Janette Fennell, our dear friend and president of the nonprofit organization Kids and Cars, endorses the Smart Pad system on her website, but I had some problems with it.
It took me a long time to get the Smart Pad system working properly, which was frustrating. The fact that it’s useless with my infant’s car seat riled me a bit. One more annoyance was you have to activate and deactivate the system each time you use it, which is just one more thing to remember on my long list of things to remember.
My advice is to bypass this product. Instead put your purse in the backseat, which will prompt you to check the backseat for your child when you reach for your purse. Leaving a child behind in the car is serious, and I urge you to always be conscientious.
User Comments
Marcy,
Kudos to you on being safety-conscious. We posted this review in February. It doesn’t look like the product hasn’t been updated recently.
How long ago was this that you purchased your system? I need to know if it has been updated and is a better system now. I have a 4 month old grandson and am very safty concious and am extremely concerned by your experience with it.