Mom’s Choice Awards is excited to announce another post in our interview series where we chat with the inventors, designers, publishers, and others behind some of our favorite family-friendly products.

Welcome, Mom’s Choice readers, to another in our series of interviews with MCA Gold Award honorees! Joining us today is Mr. Joe Tham, the co-founder of Ellie Baby Pro Monitor. We all know that parents experience a particularly demanding period after the birth of their child. And here’s great news—the Ellie Baby Pro monitor serves as a helpful companion during this time, assisting parents in the process of raising their baby and allowing parents to carve out more time for themselves.

MCA: Joe, thanks so much for joining us! Before we start learning about the development of your Ellie Baby Pro Monitor, please tell us a bit about yourself.

I would describe myself as a passionate and innovative entrepreneur. I started venturing into entrepreneurship while studying at the National University of Singapore. During my student years, I founded a hardware company that eventually grew to generate an annual income exceeding $60 million USD. My childhood exposed me to diverse groups of people, enabling me to fluently speak and work in English, Mandarin, Malay, and Cantonese.

Due to the nature of my work, I often travel the world. In my leisure time, I enjoy exploring the world with a camera in hand, capturing the beauty of different cultures. I am also an avid hiker and coffee lover. My proudest roles are being a husband to my wife and a father to our three kids.

I believe in the power of communication and making a positive impact on others. With an insatiable curiosity and a drive for excellence, I hope and believe that our products can help families around the world.

MCA: Won’t you tell us about the creation of your company?

Having experience of entrepreneurship from my university days and a knack for problem-solving, I joined hands with my friends and founded a tech company in 2017 focused on AI visual algorithms. In 2020, one of the co-founders welcomed his second baby. During our discussions, he mentioned how taxing it was for parents, especially mothers, to constantly monitor their baby’s activities. Being a father of three myself, I could relate. So, we quickly agreed and embarked on developing a baby monitor camera with an aim to ease the parenting journey.

MCA: What other needs were you trying to fill when you created the Ellie Baby Pro monitor?

When we design our products, our starting point is always to ensure the safety of the baby and alleviate the parenting stress. We pay close attention to the details of the parenting process. Whether the baby is crying, awake, turning over, or encountering situations like a blanket covering the mouth and nose, our programs will immediately provide feedback to parents’ mobile phones.

MCA: Could you tell us about the product’s unique features and the research behind them?

In addition to drawing from our own experiences in the parenting journey as regards product design, we engaged in in-depth discussions with several new mothers to gather insights into their functional requirements for a baby monitor.

First and foremost, Ellie Baby Pro addresses the need for safety. Through features such as face-covering reminders, breathing monitoring, and person-tracking technology, it intelligently identifies potential risks in the baby’s behavior, including turning over, mouth and nose coverage, and stepping beyond a virtual safety perimeter. Timely alerts are then sent to parents, effectively preventing unforeseen incidents.

Secondly, considering the considerable amount of time babies spend sleeping and the crucial role sleep plays in their growth and development, we have incorporated sleep monitoring and reporting features. Parents can review their baby’s sleep records for the past seven days and observe their child’s well-being based on the provided reports. Additionally, acknowledging parents’ value for every moment of their baby’s growth, we’ve introduced a growth recording feature that automatically captures and stores these precious moments. Perhaps, within the “Moment” feature, you might discover unexpected and heartwarming moments.

Furthermore, through communication with new mothers, we identified some nuanced needs, such as temperature and humidity detection, two-way voice communication, and automatic soothing capabilities.

MCA: It sounds like you’ve ascertained what parents need most. What age groups was your monitor designed for?

The baby monitor is primarily designed for babies and children aged 0-6 years. In addition to constant monitoring during the infant stage, parents can also use the monitor to check on their kids at any time after they start sleeping in their own room.

MCA: What kind of feedback have you received about the Ellie Baby Pro?

After the product was launched in the market, we received feedback from a mother with hearing impairment. She mentioned that she couldn’t hear her baby’s cries, and when she stepped away briefly, she couldn’t promptly comfort her baby when there was any movement. Our baby monitor happened to be very helpful in such situations. The message from this mother deeply touched me. In the realm of technology, the most rewarding outcome is witnessing our technology genuinely assisting those in need. This brings immense satisfaction, especially when it can benefit specific user groups.

MCA: I’m sure our readers would love to know if you have additional ideas for helping parents and babies using technology. Do you have anything in the works now?

We will continue to integrate technology with the needs of mothers and babies, creating more high-tech products. Our aim is to assist parents in the parenting journey, making it more effortless, and allowing mothers to have more time to focus on themselves during the parenting process.

MCA: Joe, thanks so much for speaking with us about this exciting product—one that’s sure to make the all-important job of raising a baby easier for many new parents!

You can learn more about Mr. Joe Tham and his award-winning product, Ellie Baby Pro Monitor, by visiting his MCA Shop pages.