Baby Monitor

Baby Monitor

Introduction

New born baby require full attention from parent or caretaker. A baby monitor allow parent to listen and monitor the baby from a distant (most of the baby monitor provide claim to have 300 m range). Baby monitor is a system of two components: a transmitter intended to place near the baby (baby unit), and a receiver (parent unit). The transmitter receives the voice signal from the baby and transmitted to the receiver wirelessly through selected radio frequency.



The challenges

The baby monitor with traditional analogy technologies has two common problems: static noise and interference by other electronic devices around the house. In product review of the baby monitor, the thumps down product section are filled with stories of picking up CB radio, cordless phone and neighbor’s conversation through baby monitor.

Digital technology is the solution for the problems. A baby monitor with digital solution will promise to have:

Ÿ - Longer range

Ÿ - Better sound quality

Ÿ - Eliminate Interference

Ÿ - Longer battery life

Ÿ - Pass addition information (i.e. temperature, battery status) through data channel

The answer to the challenges

RF module from Rich-Tech integrated all the critical components needed for a digital baby monitor implementation. The long battery life and long range is inherited from the power saving, low noise and high sensitivity design of the latest IC used in the module. The voice is compressed by fine tuned digital compression algorithm, which well balanced of voice quality, dynamic range and compression ratio. The compressed voice signal allows baby monitor to use an only a small section (sub-band) of allowed bandwidth. The transmitter will monitor the environment constantly, and make adjustment of the sub-band usage to avoid interference.

By taking the advantages of Rich-Tech ready to use RF module, a brand name company was able to finish the digital baby monitor design and manufacture in a short time. The block diagram shows the hardware design. The BOM of the hardware contains the RF module with a few discrete components. The main functional software blocks are also ready to use. Rich-Tech provided the software customization service.

The success story continued when request of baby monitor came from other countries, which use different frequency band. Since Rich-Tech have RF modules covered a wide frequency range (from 433 MHz up to 2.4 GHz), the mission was accomplished by selecting another RF module from the pool of Rich-Tech RF modules, and minimal engineering efforts.

Reference

http://www.consumersearch.com/baby-monitor-reviews/review

http://www.summerinfant.com/categories_products_view/324/SecureSleep-Baby-Monitor.html