Update: This patent application was originally filed in December, 2014. An update to the patent was listed on Thursday. We are sorting out what the update entails and if the product is in the works.
Nest has filed a patent for a ‘smart’ baby crib
Is this the long-awaited fourth product?
Kevin Frayer / Getty
The last time we checked in on Nest’s product roadmap, we told you they were thinking about devices for home security.
Here’s one that would fit.
On Thursday, the connected device company under Google’s Alphabet filed updated paperwork with the U.S. patent office for a baby crib embedded with sensors. The filing names the inventor as Maxime Veron, Nest’s director of product management and hardware marketing.
In the patent filing, Nest notes that people typically buy infant beds in three parts: A crib, a mattress and some sort of baby monitor. Nest’s proposal would pack all three in one: A crib flanked by cameras, microphones, an accelerometer, wireless tech and sensors for pressure, air and light.
Nest has not released an entirely new device since being acquired by Google in early 2014 (save a repackaged smart camera, from its troubled Dropcam acquisition). Although it has released steady updates of its existing hardware.
The usual patent caveats apply here: They don’t necessarily indicate a future product.
Still, the market is big — online baby products, including cribs, generate around $5 billion growing at an 11 percent clip, per one report last year. And the invention is indicative of Nest’s stated mission of producing a “thoughtful home” and its parent company’s mission to collect the world’s data. Even baby data.
A Nest rep didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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