The Goldilocks Suit has been designed and developed in Australia. It isn’t a product that was found at a product convention or through an overseas factory that has had a label put on it.
Using common sense ideas the Goldilocks Suit concept was conceived by parents, for parents rather than big corporate entities. Everything that has been thought of during the concept and design phases of the Goldilocks Suit has been focussed on how to make it easier for parents to raise their newborn babies using the latest wearable smart clothing fabrics together with an intuitive app.
WHAT TYPE OF PRODUCT IS THE GOLDILOCKS SUIT?
For many people their first reaction will be that the Goldilocks Suit is another baby monitor product. In fact the suit when combined with the app is much more than a simple baby monitoring system. The Goldilocks Suit is a modern smart clothing product, sometimes also referred to as high tech clothing, smart garments, smart wear, electronic textiles, smart textiles, e-textiles, monitor clothing, or smart fabrics.
These types of products have been enhanced with built in technology that can add functionality well beyond that of its traditional use. Every single baby wears a onesie or singlet when they are an infant and we have used this as the basis to develop the Goldilocks Suit so that it forms a very natural way for you to take care of your baby without needing external devices, boxes, handsets or other pieces.
This is an electronic textile product that has specially crafted fabrics to enable digital components such as the sensor module to be embedded in them. This type of smart clothing or smart textile fabric provides added functionality for the wearer that isn’t available in other ways.
In many typical cases these performance enhancing smart textiles are typically used for either athletic, extreme sports or even military applications. They can be applied to help do things like regulate body temperature, reduce wind resistance or even control muscle vibration. Although the developments in smart clothing are rapid with huge advances in sensors making it easier to weave them into different materials. This has enabled us to bring the idea of Goldilocks Suit to life and apply it to an everyday situation – how can I make it easier to raise my baby.
WHAT MAKES THE GOLDILOCKS SUIT SMART CLOTHING PRODUCT SO CLEVER?
Shem and Jamin have collaborated with local Australian technology specialists to combine the hardware and sensors built into the fabric with very intuitive software that can be used on iOS or Android smartphones. Not content with just providing alerts or notifications the team spent a lot of time making sure the Goldilocks Suit took advantage of its ability to gather lots of information from the smart clothing.
It has meant that the Goldilocks Suit can monitor, track and provide parenting advice all from an intuitive and simple to use app. No other modules or devices are needed, it is simple and removes all the complexity with lots of other baby monitoring systems that are available.
- Monitor; sleeping, breathing, feeding
- Track; all their behaviour is recorded so you can review their development
- Advice; there are video tips and advice build into the app that have been jointly written by parenting experts
We know from our research that these are the areas that cause the most concern and anxiety for parents. So while there could be future developments to monitor or record other pieces of data, we knew we needed to cover the basics first.
HOW LONG HAS IT TAKEN TO DEVELOP THE GOLDILOCKS SUIT?
Our development journey has taken 3 years so far and it isn’t a case of heading over to industry fairs to pick a white label product and put our name on it. We have developed everything from scratch, in Australia, using knowledge from experts that is fuelled by our own parental journey
- 2016 October - the birth of Amali
- 2017 August - Dec we entered Australian eChallenge and won a place in ThincLab
- 2018 January - ThincLab scholarship kicked off
- 2018 October - BuzOnBiz winner
- 2018 November - the birth of Allegra
- 2018 December - Goldilocks Suit Prototype Version 1 built
- 2018 December - Pre-seed funding from Artesian
- 2019 Aug - Feb - Medtech Actuator participant
- 2020 February - Goldilocks Suit Prototype Version 2 built & improvements made to sensor data.
- 2020 March - Advisory board set up
- 2020 April - 1st full time employee Jamin joins the team
- 2020 May-July - Parent and baby study program
- 2020 May - 2nd employee Elodie joins the team
- 2020 May - The Advertiser interviews Shem and our first public news story in Adelaide
- 2020 June - Signed a partnership agreement with The Baby Manual with Donna Mansell This agreement means that parents will have access to clinician-grade parenting advice within the Goldilocks app. Donna will be creating video content exclusively for Goldilocks parents. These videos will step parents through what they can do when Goldilocks detects a health anomaly in their baby - providing reassurance when it is needed most.
- 2020 July - Prototype Version 3 developed
- 2020 July - Signed an agreement with WINK Sleep Online. This is in large part due to the support of Dr. Michael Gradisar who is the Director and Clinical Psychologist at the Child & Adolescent Sleep Clinic at Flinders University. This agreement means that parents will have access to the work of a bunch of sleep scientists, within the Goldilocks app. Professor Gradisar will be creating content exclusively for Goldilocks parents. This content will step parents through what they can do when Goldilocks detects a habit of sleeplessness with their baby - providing reassurance when it is needed most.
- 2020 July - Birchal Crowd Equity Fund opened
- 2020 August - News coverage by The Advertiser, The Lead, Startup Smart, AusBiz TV and Ticker TV
- 2020 September - Manufacturing for pre-release product starts
- 2020 November - The App is released for public use
