Your Phone Could Soon Tell You When It's Time to Change Your Baby's Diaper

Technology is constantly encroaching on the intimate aspects of our lives, and it seems the next frontier might be your baby's diaper. A team of engineers from Acer are trying to make the sniff-test passé with a small sensor module that sits inside any regular diaper and alerts you—via a smart phone app named DiaperPie—when it detects moisture or methane. The handy app also tracks your baby's temperature and sleeping position.

The device, which is not yet available commercially, was presented earlier this week at Computex, the annual technology show held in Taipei, Taiwan (with the help of the teddy bear from Ted). While this certainly seems to address a problem that parents would love to have outsourced, there are currently two major flaws. First of all, savvy commenters over at Fast Company have pointed out that while moisture detection should accurately alert you to a wet diaper, gassy babies will result in a lot of false methane positives. And secondly, detection is hardly the most unappealing aspect of dealing with a dirty diaper.

The video below isn't in English, but it'll give you a sense of what the app interface looks like: