An IoT-Based BLYNK Server Application for Infant Monitoring Alert System to Detect Crying and Wetness of a Baby

Abstract

The amount of employability among men and women had raised a lot in comparison with olden days. With this increase in employability, the amount of care taken by the parents toward their infants had also decreased. But, in childhood stage, children need proper rest and sleep for proper health and body growth. Thus, most of parents send their infants to their grandparent’s house, and some may taught of living their babies at baby care houses. But all the people cannot keep nanny, and also, it is always difficult for the parents to keep trust on some strangers to look after their baby. But, in any of the cases, parents may not continuously monitor the situations and conditions of their babies. Therefore, an IoT-based baby monitoring system has been introduced which can be made available at affordable cost and works efficient in real time. The system is developed using Node MCU microcontroller, a speaker and a sound sensor module. The sound sensor module detects the babies cry and executed according to the action provided. The BLYNK application server is used to send the notifications to the registered parent’s mobile number as alert message regarding their kids status.

Full text

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An IoT Based BLYNK Server Application for Infant
Monitoring Alert System to Detect Crying and Wetness of
a Baby
Mr. P. Bhasha*1,4, Dr. T. Pavan Kumar2, Dr. K. K. Baseer3, Dr. V. Jyothsna4
1,2 Department of CSE, Koneru Lakshmaiah Educational Foundation, Vaddeswaram, Guntur,
A.P., India. *E-mail:basha.chanti@gmail.com
3,4 Department of Information Technology, Sree Vidyanikethan Engineering College
(Autonomous), Tirupati, A.P., India.
Abstract: The amount of employability among men and women had raised a lot in
comparison with olden days. With this increase in employability the amount of care
taken by the parents towards their infants had also decreased. But in childhood stage,
children need proper rest and sleep for proper health and body growth. Thus, most of
parents send their infants to their grandparent’s house and some may taught of living
their babies at baby care houses. But all the people cannot keep nanny and also it is
always difficult for the parents to keep trust on some strangers to look after their baby.
But in any of the cases, parents may not continuously monitor the situations and
conditions of their babies. Therefore, an IoT based Baby monitoring system has been
introduced which can be made available at affordable cost and works efficient in real
time. The system is developed using Node MCU microcontroller, a speaker and a sound
sensor module. The sound sensor module detects the babies cry and executed according
to the action provided. The BLYNK application server is used to send the notifications
to the registered parent’s mobile number as alert message regarding their kids status.
Keywords: Node MCU Microcontroller, BLYNK Android Application, Wetness and Sound
Detection, Alert Message Notification.
1. Introduction
In India, percentage of working men and women had raised drastically when compared
to olden days. The percent of employability has increased among men and women. Due
to this work burden parents are not getting sufficient time to look after their infants in
their early and later stages. Once the children grow up it is not a big problem to look
after them, because they can do their own work and won’t depend on their parents for
all the works. Due to this situation most of the parents wish to propel their babies to
their grandparent’s home. This will reduce the burden to the parents but there is a risk
in doing that because grandparents are aged people. But all the families are not
affordable to keep a caretaker. Considering these issues facing by the parents a Baby
monitoring system has been developed through which parents can feel comfortable
even by leaving their infants in their home and involve in their work at home.
Comparable to Arduino, Node MCU is more useful microcontroller because Node
MCU is inbuilt Wi-Fi enabled microcontroller. For detecting the baby cry a sound
sensor is used. Baby cry is compared with a preloaded cry. If it matches then micro
controller plays the songs using speaker to stop the cry of the baby and to fall asleep
again. And an alert message will be sent to the parents or caretaker registered Email id
or to the registered mobile number. By seeing this alert parent can know the present
situation of the baby. Thus, the proposed baby monitoring system will help the parent
to stay comfort wherever they are and helps to do their work without any issues. Alert

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messages will notify the parents or caretakers at each and every point of time so that
they can look after their baby. The cost of this model is around 950 rupees and makes
it more usable by most of the parents.
2. Related Work
The system consists of an Arduino UNO microcontroller that is inbuilt with a Wi-Fi
module. When the baby is awakening then by using the MCU notifies, and DC motor
will swing the cradle. It will make the baby to fall asleep again. And the mic present in
the system will detect the babies cry, the input received through the microphone module
is amplified and to stop the cry of the baby, system will play the preloaded songs and
cradle is swinging already with help of DC motor. The DHT11 sensor measures the
temperature and if temperature raises more than 39 degrees with respect to room
temperature it sends the message to the node MCU which notifies the Blynk which in
turn notifies the parent. And wetness is measured basing on two electrodes moisture
holding substrate. In this way wetness will be detected and send the message to node
MCU and it notifies the Blynk server for alerting the parents. And also, this system can
turn on or turn off the fan present in the room if the parents are allowed to do so. So
that baby will feel comfort. Thus, this system helps the parents to take care the baby
remotely [1]. These authors mainly focused on developing the smart baby monitoring
system based on IoT technology and Radar technology. Also obstacle detection in the
path of the baby is also provided using the ultrasonic sensors. The main view of this
system is to solve the problems faced by the caretakers and also to secure the baby from
entering into danger zone. Here danger zone refers to the zone where there are obstacles
in the path of the baby. This alert generation is done based upon ultrasonic sensors.
Here the ultrasonic sensors used are the waterproof sensors. And this sensor is placed
on the baby as a simple locket. As soon as the baby enters the danger zone alert
messages will be sent to the caretaker or the parents through mobile number or using
different buzzers [2]. The authors proposed a system that processed using Image
processing techniques which use the different python libraries for proper working of
the system. This system is mainly developed for detecting three types of things. The
activities are performed on Raspberry Pi B+ micro controller can perform many
operations as its connectivity is much better than Arduino or other micro controller. For
sending the pictures of the baby a pi camera is used in the system. This camera captures
the pictures of the baby when baby starts crying and sends the snaps to the parents
through Email. If the baby’s position is abnormal the system will send an alert to the
parent about the abnormality [3]. The authors proposed the real time and low-cost
efficient system. They proposed a new algorithm for taking care of the babies. The
NodeMCU is used to connect and read data from the sensors and uploading into the
AdaFruit MQTT server through Wi-Fi. This system is mainly having cradle like
architecture. It will swing accordingly whenever the baby starts crying. A mini fan is
provided at the top of the cradle to give exposure to air for the baby. The fan and cradle
swings can be altered either remotely or manually through MQTT mobile application
server. The user can get notifications through the IFTTT server once the baby cry is
detected. If the room temperature changes the notification will be raised. If the room
temperature exceeds 28 ◦C the fan will be turned on automatically. The data which is
captured by the sensors are stored in MQTT server through the internet [4].

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3. The Proposed Architecture of Baby Monitoring System
The basic idea of the proposed baby monitoring system using IoT technology is to
provide the main functionalities like: Detect the baby cry and play songs, Detection of
wetness, send alert messages to the parent, turning on or turning off the fans. The figure
1 shows the architecture of baby monitoring system, how the components are connected
to each other into a device. The sensors are used for detection. These are connected to
the microcontroller as inputs. The sensor data is taken as input by the microcontroller.
It processes the data according the code uploaded and then gives output in the form of
voice and alert messages to the parents.
Fig. 1. Architecture of Baby Monitoring System
3.1. Baby Cry Detection Algorithm
1. Start
2. Initialize pin numbers.
3. Set the pin modes (input/output)
4. Read sound sensor value
5. If value>100
5.1 Play songs using speaker
5.2 Send alert notification to parent
6. Else
6.1 Do Nothing
7. End.
3.2. Wetness Detection Algorithm
Wetness near the baby is detected by using the soil moisture sensor. If wetness value is
1 than it means diaper needs to be changed. This alert will be sent to the registered users
using Blynk application.
Algorithm 1. Start
2. If sensor value equals to 1
2.1 Wetness detected and sends the notification to the Blynk

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3. Else
3.1 Do nothing
4. End
4. Experimental Results
This Baby monitoring system has a sound sensor, which is used for detecting the baby
cry. The data generated through sensors is sent to the microcontroller for further
processing of information. This sound sensor works based on the sound absorbed. If the
sound absorbed is greater than 100 decibels than it is noticed as the baby cry. As the
baby is cried, the speaker present in the system, plays the songs which are preloaded
into the micro controller. And an alert message will be sent by the micro controller to
the registered users for their registered mail or to the registered mobile number. By
using the soil moisture sensor wetness near the baby is detected and an alert for the
parent are sent. These alerts and monitoring of baby is done using Blynk android
application. Figure 2 shows the developed baby monitoring with all the sensors and
hardware connected.
4.1 Noise Detection by the system: As shown in figure 3 when the sound sensor
absorbs the sound i.e., greater than the threshold value, a led will be blinked in the
system.
Fig. 2 Baby Supervising System Fig. 3 When Baby Crying Sound Detect
Figure 4 shows the user interface of the Blynk application when an alert is sent to the
registered users, about the generated noise.

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Fig. 4 Alert notification of Noise in Blynk App Fig. 5 Playing Song through Blynk App
4.2 Playing Songs: As shown in Figure 5, when baby is crying, songs can be played
in the system by controlling the system using Blynk app.
4.3 Wetness Detection: As shown in figure 6, when wetness is detected near the
baby by soil moisture sensor a led will be blinked. Figure 7. Shows the user interface
of Blynk app when wetness is detected.
Fig. 6. When wetness is detected. Fig. 7. Alert notification for wetness
4.4 Turning on the Fan: As shown in Figure 8, Through Blynk App user can turn on
the fan. Figure 9 shows the user interface of Blynk app when fan button is turned on.

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Fig. 8. when fan is in ON state. Fig. 9. Blynk app when fan is turned ON
5. Conclusions and Future Work
Earlier there are baby monitoring systems available but without the parents or
caretaker’s involvement. This makes the risk factor at baby’s end. To overcome this,
with the help of technology, a parent interactive baby monitoring system has been
developed with which parent can track the baby from any place. This system sends the
alert notifications to the parent whenever baby cries. And the speaker present in the
system will play the songs to stop the baby’s cry. And whenever there is wetness
detected then an alert notification will be sent to the parents. And all these alert
notifications are sent using Blynk android application. The main objective of this
system is to provide the baby monitoring with reasonable price so that it will be
affordable by all the people. This project is very useful for parents who are employed.
This baby monitoring system reduces the burden to the parent and they can perform
their tasks properly. Due to the affordable cost of this system, it is more usable by most
of the families. With this system, parents can take care of their baby remotely as this
system can detect the baby cry and play songs to calm the baby and sleep again. This
system sends the alert notification to the parent’s mobile. Parents can turn on or turn
off the fan or AC in the baby’s room. All these futures of this baby monitoring system
make it more usable. The system developed is of moderate budget. It can be reduced in
future with much more enhanced functionalities and technologies in spite of assumption
that reduction in cost makes compromise of performance. The enhancement of this
system may by adding features like: Equipping a camera into the system, Detecting the
temperature of the baby, Detecting the pulse rate of the baby, Monitoring the baby’s
weight for medical analysis.
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