Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I want it to be known that I really believed in this product and wanted to get one ever since we found out we were pregnant. Unfortunately, some things worked well and some things didn’t. I also wanted to mention that I’m a pediatric RN so I know how this type of technology should work and am very familiar with it. Package Contents: -Hub (notifies you of any problems) -Owlet sensor (the pulse oximeter that takes your child’s heart rate and oxygen saturation -Socks (A left and right infant sock to use until the 1st month, a left size 2 sock (1-3 months), a left size 3 sock (3-10 months), (and a size 4 sock can be purchased online for about $8 for use from 10-18 months)). -Power cable and adapter to plug into wall -Power cable that plugs into the sock Setup: This was way easy. You plug in the hub, connect to the hub over Wi-Fi, choose your house Wi-Fi in the app, and voila, it’s connected. How it Works: A pulse oximeter is applied to your child’s foot and it sends back readings to the hub (and your smart phone) that tell you their heart rate and oxygen level. If the child’s heart rate or oxygen level falls out of parameters set by the app, then the hub will alarm (red alarm) and you will get a push notification on your smart device. The hub will also notify you if the sock falls off or if it disconnects from your home network or the hub. I found the network connection to be very stable and reliable, but the hub needs to be within 10 feet of the sock or else it will lose connection. The instructions on how to place the sock correctly were confusing in the beginning. The instruction manual emphasizes that the sock is to be used on the left foot. However, there is also a right foot sock in the infant size. This was not mentioned on the instructions but in a little card that was slipped in the box that I missed in the beginning. Use and Monitoring: This is where things got difficult. We decided that the infant size 1 sock was the best for our child, and after getting it on after fighting the wiggling foot, the sock had horribly inaccurate readings. At first, I thought it was because I chose the wrong size sock, put it on wrong, and a bunch of other reasons. However, it turned out that those things were all done correctly and the sensor just simply didn’t give us correct oxygen levels. We took our baby to our pediatrician because we felt like his oxygen levels were low. We hooked up the owlet right in his office and put on the sock and also turned on their pulse ox machine. The owlet device consistently read 5-10% lower oxygen levels than their machine did. I suspected this because during red alarms at home, there was no distress or change in coloration of our baby. His “oxygen drops” were completely asymptomatic. Unfortunately, this causes more anxiety to the parents than necessary, so we decided to just return the product and not use anything. One of the interesting parts of the app is it is designed to alert you if the child’s oxygen drops below 80%. However, an oxygen saturation below 88% (can change depending on where you live) is concerning. So if my child is having an oxygen level of 85%, I would like to know, and the app doesn’t tell you that. The customer service at owlet informed me that this was designed by physicians to prevent false alarms. An oxygen level of 80 or 85% technically won’t hurt your child, but it is still important to understand the reason for that oxygen drop. And if you’re not looking at the current reading in the app, you would never know your child’s oxygen is dropping unless you get an alert from the hub. Customer Service: -By Email: I spoke to customer service by email on various occasions. Their responses were always friendly and very prompt. -By Phone: I spoke to customer service by phone only at the time we decided to return the product. The phone disconnected the call 3 times and after 10 minutes of waiting. We then got through and the customer service rep couldn’t hear me. Finally, after the 5th call, we got through. They were friendly and helpful. Recommendation: Would I recommend this product to my friends, family, and others? No I wouldn’t. I’m a technology guru and pediatric RN and if I can’t get it to work, I feel bad for everyone else. I understand that this could just be a fluke for my child because I have read great success stories from other people, but from my point of view, it’s not worth it. In fact, the literature states that a home monitoring device causes more anxiety to the parents of a healthy child than benefits. From now on, I would only consider a monitoring device if it is deemed medically necessary.