One of the things I think I'm most afraid of in these first few months I'm going to have an infant at home, is SIDS. And while I know this is just the first of many MANY worries I'm going to have over the next 18+ years with this kid, SIDS is the immediate worry - the worry I won't let CONSUME me, but the worry that is definitely THERE, in the back of my mind, creeping in every so often.
And so looking into things I can do that will give me some peace of mind without going over the top in paranoia, I found the Keen Distribution Grobag Egg - a cool-looking light-up thermometer that tells you if the room your baby is in is too warm (one of the risks for SIDS).
The egg itself is super easy to use in that you just take it out of the box, plug it in, and watch it light up and find the room temperature. It's also made even EASIER to use in that it glows yellow if the room is in the safe/recommended range, blue if it's too cold, orange if it's too warm, and red if it's REALLY too warm.
The egg itself is super easy to use in that you just take it out of the box, plug it in, and watch it light up and find the room temperature. It's also made even EASIER to use in that it glows yellow if the room is in the safe/recommended range, blue if it's too cold, orange if it's too warm, and red if it's REALLY too warm.
The problem however is no matter what you do with the egg - or at least no matter what *I* did with MY egg - the temperature reading was three to four degrees [celcius] off the ACTUAL temperature of the room. In Tiny B's room, the egg indicated it was 20 degrees while my thermometer said it was 17. In our bedroom (which we keep really cold, and was another reason we thought this egg might help, so we'd know to warm it up for the first few months while he was in our room) the egg indicated it was 19 degrees while my thermometer said it was 15.5. And in our living room, the egg rang in at 21 degrees while my thermometer read 17.
And what really REALLY sucks, is that I should have read more online reviews before buying the Grobag Egg, because while it gets a lot of good reviews from happy customers, I now can see that that those PARTICULAR customers weren't measuring its accuracy - they were measuring how cute it is, how easy it is to use, how the glow is like a nightlight. Because when you dig further into all the unhappy reviews, almost EVERY SINGLE ONE of them says the same thing I found - that it's off. Consistently off by 3-4.5 degrees.
And maybe if the egg was $20, I'd think, "meh, I'll keep it anyway" because it IS cute and the nightlight aspect IS helpful, and if I know it's 3-4 degrees off I can always just do QUICK MATH when I see it to know if we're in the safe range or not. But the egg WASN'T $20 - it was $50, and for a product that claims it's ALL ABOUT creating a "safe sleeping environment for your baby", it damn well BETTER be accurate. Particularly for $50.
So in my attempt at buying a little peace of mind - at buying what I thought was a little added safety - what I found was a real disappointment. So much so that I returned it. Two big thumbs down.
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7 chiming in:
Oh, I'm glad you really tested this, and weren't swayed by its cuteness.
This is the first time I've heard of such a gizmo. They really should re-calibrate. Such a simple miscalculation could make a HUGE difference.
Thank you for the scrutiny.
What I found interesting is that I've been keeping my babies' room too hot. :-) I like my rooms to be approx 70 degrees F, so that's what I try to keep their room at. If it got to below 69 I'd flip out that they were freezing. Whooopsie! :-) Luckily I just found out about this egg thingy from you and I'll make sure not to buy it.
For peace of mind I'd recommend the Bébésounds Angelcare Deluxe Movement Sensor with Sound Monitor. This way you know if the baby is breathing, it tells you the temperature of the room and it's a sound monitor too. Three-in-one! My only complaint are false alarms when the babies move around their cribs and they're no longer right over the monitor. Other than that, it's amazing.
It sounds like a good idea that just needs a bit of fine tuning.
Oooh this makes me feel good because I desperately wanted the egg but our monitor has a thermometer on it and we were given an eerily accurate cardboard crib thermometer so never got round to buying it - and now I'm glad I didn't and will stop wishing for it!
$50?! Yikes! Before I got too far into your review I was thinking what a cool product this was. Not just the safety factor, but we always found it difficult to tell whether the nursery was too hot or too cold. To this day we're constantly adjusting the thermostat, opening or shutting vents. Glad you were able to return it!
One thing we were told was to keep a fan on in the room to help circulate the air. We had a ceiling fan put in the nursery and we turn it on anytime they're in their cribs.
Elana, great recommendation - thanks, I'll check it out!
Denise, good idea re the fan. I figured I'd leave one on just for the "white noise" factor but I'll look into the air circulation cuz I hadn't thought of it.
I have the egg but I don't have a guaranteed-accurate thermometer against which to calibrate it so I'm not sure of the accuracy of mine.
One thing that I've found strange is watching the egg's temperature and color flip-flop between two temperatures several times within the span of a minute. Is it really 67 then 69 then 67 then 69 then 67? It makes for a fun light show, but it seems suspect in terms of accuracy.
On a different note, something that I found annoying was discovering after I'd bought the egg that there's another version for not much more money that also includes a baby monitor. Egg + separate baby monitor < price of combo. Oh well.
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