Are your kids sleeping beauties or insomniacs-in-training? Soon you’ll have more to go on than just their bright or bleary eyes. Sleep Number is about to take the Nanny State to a whole new level with its SleepIQ Kids bed.
Designed to monitor wee ones’ sleep patterns, the bed, which debuted today at CES 2015, assigns a “SleepIQ” score, based on the child’s breathing, heart rate and movement. The bed gathers the data automatically and without the need for a wristband or other wearable device. Parents can then look at the scores and see the difference between the days Sam has soccer practice and those she’s stayed up to finish a diorama of social studies. As kids get older, they can look at the data and start to manage their own sleep schedules.
The beds come equipped with a night light, which parents can remotely turn off after the little one falls asleep. Another light under the bed starts to glow when the kid gets out of bed. Meanwhile, adults get an alert, so they can come and check why the child is on the move (a feature sneak-out-prone teens might be happy to outgrow).
Sleep Number says the bed “grows” with your child, eventually letting them adjust their own “Sleep Number,” but the out-of-bed alert isn’t the only thing kids may eventually get too old for. The bed also comes with a “monster detector” and “star rewards” for good nights’ sleep. Every tween we know would likely roll his or her eyes at getting a gold star for being in bed by 9:00 p.m. every night.
When it goes on sale later this year, the SleepIQ Kids will retail for $1,000. At least they’ll get a few more years out of it than, say, a pair of child-sized skis.
