Innovation in Childproofing – The Safe Outlet Cover

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Innovation in Childproofing: Why I Created the Safe Outlet Cover

By Sameem Monzaviyan

I love my living room. Like many families, it’s the space in which mine spends the most quality time together. It’s the space where we bond, the space where we play, and the space where we relax. Unfortunately, it’s also the space where my son could have been seriously injured.

When Ayden was just three years old, he came to me one day holding what I thought was one of his toys. Upon further inspection I realized the toy wasn’t a toy at all. He was holding a child safety device, an outlet cover, whose purpose was to prevent him from accessing the electrical outlets in our home. A two-second look in the other direction and my three-year-old had given himself potential access to 120 volts of electricity by popping that cover off of the outlet and trying to insert the iPad’s charging plug.

“Our homes don’t come safe for children”

The truth is, our homes don’t come safe for children, and the methods we use to try and solve that sometimes fail.  That’s why parents and entrepreneurs like myself have started re-thinking child safety norms and working outside of the box to create products that not only ensure the full safety of our children, but are also equipped with innovative features that add value for the families who use them.

Already available on the market are incredibly innovative technologies in baby monitoring. The Owlet Baby Monitor uses hospital technology to alert parents if their baby stops breathing. With a newborn on the way, this is a product that my wife and I are very grateful has been developed.

Another childproofing favorite in our household is the Evenflo Home Décor Stair Gate. Evenflo is a leader in gate technology and this product solves stair safety concerns while also looking great, because who says child safety has to be synonymous with bulky or tacky?

Electrical outlets

Now we come to our electrical outlets. The childproofing products out there just don’t cut it – either they’re easily maneuverable by our children or they only work when outlets are either not in use or are fully locked up, which interfere with the convenience and functionality of the outlets. I have heard from many parents that most of those safety products end up on the floors or in the kid’s toy box! After finding my son with an outlet cover in hand that day, I knew I had to do something. None of the covers on the market that I had seen had anywhere near as many features as I wanted them to, so I created a product that was not only completely child-proof, but that had bonus features and an eye-pleasing design.

The PINCH Safe Outlet Cover

What sets the PINCH Safe Outlet Cover apart from other covers on the market is its three-in-one feature breakdown: safety, grip functionality and design.

Safety: Why pinch to plug? The secret is in the hands. PINCH Safe Outlet Cover is designed in a way that only a grownup hand will have the dexterity and strength to pinch the two tabs on each side of the cover while inserting a plug with the other hand. The Safe Outlet Cover is always in secure mode by default and automatically snaps shut once a plug is removed.

Grip: Older outlets’ plug grip lessens over time and you eventually find yourself re-inserting the same plug multiple times because it just keeps falling out – not to mention, plugs hanging halfway out of an outlet are accidents waiting to happen. Because of the pinching tabs on the Safe Outlet Cover, plugs are constantly being held in place, resulting in a 20% stronger grip over time.

Design: The sleek white colour shines in the light and the soft edges deliver a modern, elegant design. The long-term plan for the PINCH Safe Outlet Cover also includes more colours and a monochrome version without the colour-coding on the tabs.

I am incredibly passionate about keeping kids safe from harm in the home. PINCH Safe Outlet Cover has solved an issue in our home and I want to help bring this innovative safety product to as many families as possible.

The PINCH Safe Outlet Cover is available now on Indiegogo, at a special discount for Kids Safety Network readers.

If your childproofing measures just aren’t enough, don’t be afraid to do something about it! I did, and we wound up with a product every parent should consider installing into their homes.