Technology for the day

Matt Peckham has a Time article about a tweet that's actually useful:

This is important: a device, masterfully dubbed Huggies TweetPee, that attaches to your baby’s derriere, then relays Twitter-like alerts to your smartphone to let you know when it’s diaper change time.
No, that’s not Spanish you’re hearing in the ad above— they speak Portuguese in Brazil, and the spot’s the work of a Brazilian ad agency– but it is an honest-to-goodness device made by Huggies (yes, that Huggies) that you clip to the front of your child’s diaper, after which it monitors the vicinity for sudden changes in humidity levels, dispatching tweet-style alerts to an app on your smartphone.

Courtesy Google’s translation):
“Time to change!!!”
“Oops, did a few drops.”
“All OK here.”

The alerts can be sent via text messages or through social networks, according to the ad. It also keeps track of each diaper change, you know, for parents who like to toilet-trend-watch (it’s not clear if it automatically detects the change or that you have to manually enter this info).
As Digital Trends notes, given the messaging intervals displayed in the ad video, the device, which resembles a tiny ovoid bluebird, probably checks at preset intervals— it’s not clear if it’s capable of alerting you on the fly. (It’s also not clear that’d be desirable, since your baby may only have piddled a little and doesn’t require an immediate change— no one wants an app that nags Change me! every fifteen minutes.)
Huggies claims the device is ergonomic (both “comfortable” and “safe”), that it’s easy to shift from diaper to diaper, that it can send alerts to anyone with permission to receive them and that you can even use the app to order new diapers (Huggies-only, surely) after it’s notified you your existing stash is low; yes, it’ll tabulate your diaper count, probably sending that info back to some master control database, which isn’t creepy at all.
Undocumented, presumable bonus feature: detecting spit-up that’s somehow found its way from your baby’s mouth past arms and short-sleeved onesie to soak the bottom of a pair of cargo shorts. Don’t ask me how this happens, I just know it did, this morning, while my nine-month-old was playing with a tray-full of Joe’s O’s.
Alas, you can’t buy Huggies TweetPee in the US yet— it’s apparently Brazil-only for now, and I can’t find a price for it anywhere. DT speculates it’s being test-marketed to (you know, incredibly lucky) Brazilian consumers.

Rico says surely they didn't call it TweetPee... But, since we don't know anyone in Brazil, we'll be buying one for the grandchildren as soon as it's available here.