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Obsessive parents beware: Evoz has arrived

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Moms of the future, I cringe for you. A new App called Evoz is making it possible for parents to know when their babies are crying no matter where they are in the world. It’s the baby monitor that is never out of range and a classic example of how an interesting bit of technology could ruin your life.

Here’s how it works: You install Evoz’s baby monitoring and data services on two devices that run iOS, like two cellphones, or a computer and a cellphone, or come September, one of Evoz’s own monitors. The device you take with you (presumably a cellphone) is the receiver. The second device, which needs to be conncted to WiFi, is the monitor. You can listen in on the monitor at any time from your phone, and if you sign up for Evoz’s premium service, you will receive an alert whenever your baby cries.

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You are now empowered to abandon your plans, ruin your friendships and drop your life every time your babysitter puts the baby down in the crib to run to the bathroom.

Making matters worse for today’s milestone obsessed, hyper-competitive parents, Evoz also allows you to track how long your baby has slept, the quality of the sleep and how long he or she has cried. Perhaps worst of all, the app gives you comparative data for children of the same age and area.

In the company’s defense, founder and Chief Executive Avishai Shoham did not develop this software to prey on already paranoid parents, rather, it was because he and his wife wanted to attend a barbecue in their backyard that was out of their baby monitor’s reach. To solve that situation he put one phone in the baby’s room, called his own phone, and spent the rest of the night with an earbud in one ear, thinking, ‘There’s got to be a better way.’

Shoham, who has started several tech businesses, said the hardest part of putting this app together was figuring out an algorithm that would distinguish a baby’s cry from other sounds like music, or a cat in heat.

Evoz is now available in beta at the iTunes store, where you can download it for free. You’ll get your first two weeks free with access to all of the app’s capabilities: unlimited streaming anywhere in the world, unlimited texts, phone calls, emails and data collection. After two weeks you can either keep the extras for $6.99, or continue to listen in on your baby -- like you would with any monitor -- for 30 minutes a day free of charge.

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-- Deborah Netburn

Images: Evoz app on an Apple iPhone. Credit: Evoz

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