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I am interested in creating a new product for bottle feeding

678 views 2 replies 2 participants last post by  SeniorDesignStudent 
#1 · (Edited)
Hello all,
I am a senior design student majoring in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Mechanical Engineering. Our team has come up with a concept that we feel any parent would find useful, but we need to poll a lot of people to get feedback on our product.

Our concept is to design a baby bottle that has three main features:
It mixes well enough to blend formula, but of course could be used with milk.
It heats the liquid inside the container to the proper temperature.
It is fully portable, with a rechargeable battery that you plug in via a cell phone charger. This ideally would maintain liquid at the proper temperature for roughly two hours without needing to be plugged in, or a shorter time if cold liquid is put in it.

There are bottles that offer heating and portability, mixing and portability, or mixing and heating, but we haven't found any that offer all three. Most parents are forced to choose a bottle that heats, and then hand shake the bottle or rely on on of those huge wands that mixes it for you. If you have seen a product that does all three PLEASE LET ME KNOW, and a link would be very helpful. Please remember, I'm not talking about a counter top unit, this is fully contained within the bottle.

Here are the questions I need to have answered, if you could please help me out:

1) Would this product be a convenience for you?
2) How much would you pay for this product, assuming it worked well?
3) Are there any features that you can think of that would be more important than mixing, heating and being portable, assuming that safety has also been considered? If so, what are they? Please remember that size, weight and cost of production are major factors.
4) Would this be a product you would buy for yourself, would you buy it as a gift, or both?


Any additional feedback would be great. Thanks for your time!
 
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#2 ·
This sounds like a solution to a problem that never troubled me all that much, frankly. Like I'd be eying it sideways and waiting for the product recall.

Mixing formula is truly not great a trial. I can find a spoon or a bunch of coffee stirrers someplace and do it by hand. Certainly, those items are easier to come by than a place to recharge the bottle battery. Also, formula temperature is not a precise requirement. It's nice if it's more or less body temperature, but if we don't get there, the safer way to go is to mix just before serving and hand it over cold if you have to. Heating elements can result in hot spots, and my kids were precocious about disassembling stuff. If you've progressed in your thinking to the point were portability is a problem that potentially needs solving, you have headed in a very wrong direction. Keep in mind that this item will be in little toddler hands, and needs to be safe for them to handle unsupervised.

So:
1. No, this would not be a convenience to me.
2. So no, I wouldn't pay for it.
3. Ease of cleaning. Dishwasher safe. Cheap and available in packs of 12-20. Marked clearly and accurately in both oz. and ml. Screws straight onto my breast pump. Fundamentally, this item has to hold liquids, and it's going to be given to kids who will abuse it, drop it, throw it, leak stuff all over it, and misplace it. CHEAP is good, because that means REPLACEABLE.
4. No - wouldn't buy it, wouldn't give it as a gift.
 
#3 · (Edited)
MeepyCat:
Thank you for your feedback.

Let me clarify a couple of things that I may not have been clear about.

The bottle would have many, or all, of the features currently on baby bottles such as:
Measurements in ml/oz, durable and toxin free plastic, easy to clean, durable, would most likely have the standard size and shape threads for applying it to existing peripherals that you may already own, and the product may actually be just a top/nipple that could be applied to your existing or replaceable bottles. Certainly our intent is not to lose the current functionality available in other products.

I wouldn't have considered this for our senior design product, but one of our team members was talking about how his sister has problems trying to accommodate all of these needs in a single product. After reading some articles on counter top units that mix formula, the authors seemed to agree that they hadn't considered the convenience of having a device blend for them, but after using such a device they loved it. Hopefully if our product goes to market we could offer a similar experience for those who choose to try it.

Thank you again for your feedback. All of it will be considered in our design.
 
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