[HN Gopher] Show HN: AI Baby Monitor - local Video-LLM that beep...
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Show HN: AI Baby Monitor - local Video-LLM that beeps when safety
rules break
Hi HN! I built AI Baby Monitor - a tiny stack (Redis + vLLM +
Streamlit) that watches a video stream and a YAML list of safety
rules. If the model spots a rule being broken it plays beep sound,
so you can quickly glance over and check on your baby. Why? When
we bought a crib for our daughter, the first thing she tried was
climbing over the rail :/ I got a bit paranoid about constantly
watching her over, so I thought of a helper that can *actively*
watch the baby, while parents could stay *semi-actively* alert.
It's meant to be an additional set of eyes, and *not* a replacement
for the adult. Thus, just a beep sound and not phone notifications.
How it works * *stream_to_redis.py* captures video stream frames -
Redis streams * *run_watcher.py* pulls the latest N frames,
injects them + the rules into a prompt and hits a local *vLLM*
server running *Qwen 2.5 VL* * Model returns structured JSON
(`should_alert`, `reasoning`, `awareness_level`) * If
`should_alert=True` - `playsound` beep * Streamlit page displays
both camera and LLM logs
Author : zeenolife
Score : 72 points
Date : 2025-05-21 13:43 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| temporarything wrote:
| Great idea! Is it possible to run this on latest Macbook Pros? No
| GPU unfortunately :)
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| The latest MacBook pros all have gpu cores built in.
| skull8888888 wrote:
| why qwen 2.5 specifically?
| rokset3 wrote:
| will it be able to process sounds, so it can beep while baby
| crying? i work with music in headphones, would be nice
| techjamie wrote:
| This could probably be achieved very simply by a device with a
| microphone and a script that just checks the noise level.
| Either checking for consistently high noise levels, or if you
| want to get fancy, maybe do some heuristic stuff to pick out
| crying specifically.
|
| Might be a cool project to do with a cheap microphone and an
| SBC.
| throwaway173738 wrote:
| This is how a lot of baby monitors do it. Mine goes off if
| someone with a loud muffler drives by too which is convenient
| because my son will frequently be awakened by that so I get a
| little extra time.
| clarkcharlie03 wrote:
| Pretty cool - I might try this with my kiddo
| up-n-atom wrote:
| Perfect now we can put more good willing parents in jail for
| "neglect". For every good idea, a bad idea will be born.
| bilsbie wrote:
| I had this same idea for monitoring my pool while I'm away.
| Watching for things in pool, low or high water levels, cloudy
| water, stray dogs, etc.
|
| There are actually hundreds of applications for this basic idea.
| Common sense applied to a video feed.
| ozzydave wrote:
| I want this for pedestrians and cyclists at intersections, and
| particularly HAWK beacons.
| csmoak wrote:
| https://www.roundabout.tech/ tackles this problem
| throwup238 wrote:
| There's an entire Curb Your Enthusiasm season about that.
|
| (Just get a fence is the conclusion)
| bronco21016 wrote:
| I've thought of the same for my lake shore, which is very much
| not a "just build a fence" situation.
|
| We have 50 ft of lake shore with neighbors on either side.
| Assuming I fenced my 50 ft there is still a path around said
| fence on either side.
|
| At the very most I could gate the dock, but again, there are
| about 8 other docs readily available.
| Edmond wrote:
| try Watchman: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44087499
|
| I am the developer and happy to answer questions.
|
| You can basically setup your own instructions and setup you own
| observation solutions...you can imagine everything from
| security to farm operations, the sky's the limit.
| epolanski wrote:
| Are we moving to a world where AI will be fed so much of our
| cameras for analysis?
| th3h4mm3r wrote:
| What about hardware?
| dtgriscom wrote:
| Absolutely. I want a "Cat on the Counter" detector, but a) the
| hardware needs to be cheap, and b) it can't take more than a
| few seconds to analyze a frame.
| alibova wrote:
| Totally doable! Raspberry pi and YOLO.
| throwaway173738 wrote:
| Especially doable since the owner can probably get lots of
| pictures of their cat in different poses and lighting
| conditions and really overfit on their cat instead of just
| any cat.
| jxcole wrote:
| IANAL but I would be scared of getting sued. For example, if I
| try to give a perfectly good car seat to good will they refuse to
| take it for liability reasons. Baby safety is serious business.
| worldsayshi wrote:
| Yeah it's an interesting project but it seems there should be
| lower stakes use cases that should be tried first.
| NitpickLawyer wrote:
| > Baby safety is serious business.
|
| Are "regular" baby monitors any more complicated than a dumbed
| down cheapest you can build it walkie-talkie? Society really
| needs to stop wanting other people to be responsible for their
| actions. The choice of what devices _you_ use on _your_ kids
| should first and foremost be on you. AI or no AI. Fear
| mongering with literal "someone think of the kids" is getting
| old, IMO.
| itishappy wrote:
| I don't agree this is a "think of the children" issue. Nobody
| is saying "don't use this on your kids" they're saying
| "understand if by sharing this you might be exposing yourself
| to potential financial consequences." Baby safety is serious
| business.
|
| * Summer Infant Baby Monitor Overheating Settlement - $10
| million after reports of overheating monitors leading to fire
| hazards.
|
| * Angelcare Monitor Recall Lawsuit - $7 million settlement
| due to defective cord placement that led to strangulation
| risks.
|
| * Levana Baby Monitor Overheating Lawsuit - $5.5 million
| awarded in cases of monitors causing burns to children.
|
| * VTech Baby Monitor Battery Defect Settlement - $6.2 million
| after reports of exploding batteries causing fire risks.
|
| * Motorola Baby Monitor Signal Failure Class Action - $4.8
| million settlement after claims of poor signal reception
| leading to missed emergencies.
|
| * Owlet Smart Sock Monitor Lawsuit - $6.5 million awarded due
| to inaccurate heart rate readings that caused false alarms
| and panic among parents.
|
| * Graco Digital Monitor Lawsuit - $5 million settlement after
| a lawsuit citing defective monitors that stopped functioning
| during critical moments.
|
| * Philips Avent Baby Monitor Lawsuit - $4.2 million after
| several reports of overheating and potential fire hazards.
|
| * Samsung Baby Monitor Fire Hazard Settlement - $3.5 million
| awarded due to incidents of overheating leading to home
| fires.
|
| * Infant Optics Monitor Class Action - $4 million settlement
| after claims of faulty batteries and wiring causing sudden
| shutdowns during use.
|
| https://www.personalinjurysandiego.org/product-
| liability/saf...
| epolanski wrote:
| He's not selling a product, he's sharing a library which
| includes his terms and conditions.
| amelius wrote:
| Even if this fails only in 0.1% of cases, given enough users this
| will kill babies.
|
| (Of course you should compare this to humans, but in any case, do
| the math! And get a good lawyer.)
| natosaichek wrote:
| This thing will not kill babies. That's like saying seatbelts
| kill people because they don't save everyone in a car accident.
| It is precisely this attitude that prevents good things from
| flourishing - the idea that if something is involved however
| tangentially in a safety important subsystem it must have
| perfect results. No, we should not have this view. If something
| is net positive, we should promote it.
| dsr_ wrote:
| When people decide that the nannycam works, they will rely on
| it. Then, when it fails, their inaction will kill babies.
|
| It is amazing/horrifying to me how many people are intent on
| reincenting the reasons why we have UL, the FDA, the FCC,
| traffic laws, seatbelts, electrical codes, fire marshals and
| unions.
| icoder wrote:
| What inactions? Apart from creating safe conditions
| beforehand (but perhaps that is your point), once my kid is
| asleep there's not much more I can do? Most of that time
| I'm sleeping myself.
| amelius wrote:
| Tesla autopilot has some disclaimers saying you should always
| be prepared to grab the wheel, and we all read the stories in
| the news ...
|
| In other words, if you want AI to take over tasks of humans
| you either do it well or not at all.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| But I love babies!!!
|
| (I just can't eat a whole one.)
| bethekidyouwant wrote:
| If your daughter can climb out of the crib, then she is too big
| for the crib.
|
| Also, if I accept your premise that a baby sleeping is inherently
| dangerous, then this is just an added layer of safety. It doesn't
| remove safety.
|
| But really safety is a highly lame way of framing this. what you
| want is more hours asleep so you have this thing try to hypnotize
| the baby with lights, sound, vibration, and it only alerts the
| parent(s) if it fails Eventually it could just straight up talk
| to your three year-old read it a second bedtime story, dispense a
| cup of water convince it not to hang out with the bad kids at
| school etc
| epolanski wrote:
| How about judging the software rather than speculating on
| what's in OP's mind?
| alibova wrote:
| Love this!
|
| A long time ago I built a cat detector to keep my cat out of the
| baby play area, this was before modern AI systems and I'm sure it
| could be so much better now. https://www.twilio.com/en-
| us/blog/baby-proofing-raspberry-pi...
| amelius wrote:
| Reminds me of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIbkLjjlMV8
| DonHopkins wrote:
| That would work great to keep babies from peeing on things,
| too!
| delichon wrote:
| A small pilot study for more efficient nanny state technology.
| Just add scale.
| jerf wrote:
| The state is several steps ahead of you. Have you wondered why
| the push for AI all of a sudden, everywhere, all at once,
| really quite far ahead of its actual capabilities to help most
| of us? Huge monies thrown at it? An effectively-instantaneous
| turnaround on decades of anti-nuclear sentiment just to power
| AI?
|
| It's not because it's going to be good for us.
| dang wrote:
| " _Don 't be snarky._"
|
| " _Please don 't post shallow dismissals, especially of other
| people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| p.s. If your comment was intended as a joke on the word 'nanny'
| then I take this back.
| delichon wrote:
| I don't mean it to be a dismissal or snark. It wouldn't be as
| terrifying if I could do that. On the contrary it is
| remarkable how directly this exact baby monitor model can be
| scaled up to an automated intelligent panopticon.
|
| (Thank you, yes, baby monitor -> nanny state)
| DonHopkins wrote:
| At least give them the benefit of the Doubtfire!
| mywacaday wrote:
| I remember when we were preparing to have our first kid 10 years
| ago we bought a monitor with the pad underthe mattress on the
| advice of other parents. As a former cpr instructor I was
| dumbfounded when I realised that parents would spend 100s on
| monitors but not one person had bothered to learn infant cpr.
| OtherShrezzing wrote:
| Any reliable places online to learn? Or is it a course that you
| should only do in person?
| coherentpony wrote:
| I did an in-person class. I highly recommend it.
| sdoering wrote:
| I do not know about infant CPR. But I would never trust
| myself administering CPR to even an adult, after watching
| something online.
|
| I have had regular first responder refresher courses at work
| every two years - and i have to say: I always relearned
| something every two years, because not having done it
| (luckily no-one needed my first aid) meant I had forgotten
| quite a bit in those two years.
|
| Especially how it feels to administer CPR. and how to
| position the person.
|
| So not sure where you are located, but in Germany, you can
| volunteer to become a first aid responder for your company -
| they love that, because from a certain size on they must have
| enough of us. And you get a certificate every time you
| retrain (you need to do this regularly every two years, as
| said).
|
| We even once hat a baby puppet for training, but I was not
| able to test it that time (as it was not mandatory, I wanted
| that the parents actually had the chance - or those planning
| for kids).
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| CPR is one of those things where you hope never to have to
| be the best in the room at.
|
| Thank you for volunteering.
| wil421 wrote:
| The hospital we had our kids at had a baby CPR class and an
| expectant parent class. The CPR class didn't give you a
| certification but you learned what to do for CPR and choking.
| yusina wrote:
| How reliable is this, i.e., what is the failure rate? False
| positives / negatives?
| laurent_du wrote:
| As a parent of several kids, I have no idea what is the use case
| for this. When does it ever happen that a kid too small to be
| safe by himself has to be let alone, with a camera to record him?
| My eyes are a good enough camera, and my brain holds a reasonable
| list of safety rules. What problem does this solve that isn't
| already near perfectly solved by my existence?
| jdminhbg wrote:
| > When does it ever happen that a kid too small to be safe by
| himself has to be let alone, with a camera to record him?
|
| Nap time? Overnight?
| sokoloff wrote:
| The same set of problems that is solved by an audio or AV baby
| monitor.
|
| Surely you didn't have the baby in the same room as an awake
| adult 24 hours per day for 730 straight days, right?
| Edmond wrote:
| What about the AI playground monitor?:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44087499
|
| I am the developer :)
|
| That is a demo of course but I think what sets LLM tools like
| this apart from what came before is that implemented correctly,
| the user gets to decide what it is, and can change the meaning
| at any time, in other words what it should be looking for at
| any time.
|
| That is of course if the solution is implementation correctly.
|
| There is immense potential for these type of capabilities if
| they are done in a way that leaves the specific use case
| implementation up to users.
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| You never ever sleep? Did your children have an awake adult
| watching them 24/7 all year around? I doubt most people can
| have that situation since that would require a team of people
| taking shifts sitting looking at the child
| epolanski wrote:
| Why would you need to have someone awake 24/7 while your
| child sleeps?
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| I'm dumbfounded at the negative comments in here. Read the git
| read me, it's a hobby for op, not some crazy commercial venture
| and he makes it clear it's to help in the event one gets
| distracted for a few seconds. The only valid comment is his
| daughter being likely too big for her crib, but sheesh lay off
| op's approach to actually trying something. Ps: am not op's alt
| account.
| throwaway314155 wrote:
| The only negative comment that is perhaps overly negative is
| the one mentioning "killing babies" (but they make a good point
| still).
|
| Everyone else's criticism is effectively entirely warranted
| even if it's just a hobby project if only because the
| criticisms are mostly pretty mild and reasonable things like
| "don't try to automate parenting with tech that still isn't
| ready yet".
| Foreignborn wrote:
| way too many people get hung up in the idea OP led with.
|
| what OP has is a fully self hosted, private video feed that can
| alert for more sophisticated events like:
|
| - is anything happening that shouldn't be? - are things not where
| they're supposed to be? - has anything fallen? (plants, things
| into the pool)
|
| good job OP. i'm going to take a look at this in the next couple
| months.
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(page generated 2025-05-25 23:01 UTC)