Keeping Up With Modern Parenting- Self-Driving Strollers Displayed At This Year’s CES
A $3,300 (£2,700) “hands-free” motorized stroller that can cruise along with the parent and use AI to detect obstacles and danger on the pavement is the latest self-driving technology which comes after others like self driving vehicles and delivery robots.
The Ella smart stroller from the Canadian company Glüxkind aspires to be the “driver assist” of parenting to bring the stroller into the twenty-first century. It is on display at the annual Consumer Electronic Show(CES) in Las Vegas together with a variety of other devices.
The stroller is equipped with sensors, motors, and artificial intelligence (AI), and it can drive itself while it is empty, follow parents while they carry their infants, and stop autonomously if it gets too far away or encounters an obstacle.
Similar to an e-bike, the 13.6 kg stroller’s electric motors also help when being pushed manually; they help with inclines and automatically brake when going downhill, with a top speed of slightly over 4 mph.
When carrying a baby, sensors on the handle make sure that it is always being held, in accordance with safety rules, and it includes an automated parking brake when it is stationary, which prevents runaway problems. Additionally, the stroller can accommodate up to six shopping bags.
Parents are alerted to any possible collision hazards through sounds and flashing lights in the handle thanks to cameras scattered over the buggy’s frame that track moving and stationary objects such as people, bikes, and benches in real time. A smartphone app can find the stroller if it gets lost and keeps track of miles traveled.
With an automatic rock-my-baby feature that gently rocks back and forth on its wheels to soothe newborns back to sleep after an expedition, the stroller eliminate the stress associated with putting them to sleep. And if none of it helps, a built-in customizable white noise generator might.
The co-founders of the company, Anne Hunger and Kevin Huang, who launched Glüxkind in 2020 and are alumni of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s sandbox innovation program, were inspired to create the smart stroller by their experiences as new parents.
The stroller was named a CES innovation award honouree and is available for limited preorder in North America, with a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign due to open up in the spring.
According to Hunger, the chief product officer of Glüxkind, deliveries will begin in the US and Canada in April before spreading to Europe in 2024.
“We’ve put a lot of hard work into this product and are excited to get it into more customers’ hands in 2023″, he said.
