This $400 bottle warmer will keep your baby’s milk a perfect 98.6 degrees
Infants may seem like helpless blobs, but they have strong preferences when it comes to the temperature of their milk. And they’ll tell you so, by screaming your ears off until you get it right.
Ember is on a mission to make it easier for caregivers to prepare the perfect bottle of milk. Today, the brand launches a $400 “bottle management system” designed to keep breast milk and formula cold and then warm it to a perfect 98.6 degrees.
Ember is particularly well suited to solve this problem. You might know Ember as the company that makes smart mugs that keep your warm beverage at the perfect sipping temperature all day long. (In case you were wondering, that’s 135 degrees for most people.) But Clay Alexander, founder and CEO, says the brand’s real expertise is in creating compact, precise temperature regulation systems. A year ago, for instance, Ember launched a trackable shipping box that keeps vaccines refrigerated as they traverse the globe.
The new infant feeding system is a logical next step. Alexander had the idea for the product more than a decade ago when his daughter was born and he was responsible for late-night feedings. When the baby started crying, he would rush to grab a bottle of milk from the fridge, then run it under hot water from the tap, periodically squirting the milk on his hand until it seemed like it was at the right temperature. (The Food and Drug Administration warns against microwaving milk because it can heat unevenly and scald a baby’s mouth and throat.)
“The whole thing seemed ridiculous,” Alexander recalls. “There was no way to accurately identify the temperature of the milk.” Given Alexander’s expertise and other inventions, he felt he could come up with a high-tech solution to this common problem.
There are several bottle warmers on the market already. For around $50, brands like Philips, Baby Brezza, and Munchkin sell countertop appliances that heat bottles in warm water. For $80, Baby’s Brew sells a bottle warmer that is portable, so you can use it for out-of-the-house feedings. It also allows people to adjust the bottle temperature, from room temperature to up to 110 degrees, which is ideal for babies who are struggling with reflux.
The Ember system is sleeker and more tech forward than its competitors, thanks to a design from Ammunition Group, a well-known design firm led by Robert Brunner and Matt Rolandson that helped make Beats by Dre headphones, Square cash registers, and the Ember mug. The system consists of a warming base, a set of two bottles, and an insulated cover. You fill the bottle with milk or formula that is either refrigerated or at room temperature. After placing the bottle on the base, you can tap a button or use the app to turn on the device. In less than five minutes the system will bring the liquid to 98.6 degrees.
Brunner says the design was the result of a “ton of direction observational research with bottle feeding parents in their homes.” The designers found that tired parents were hesitant to adopt yet another gadget, but there were pain points around feeding—particularly on the go. “We learned that parents were very open to introducing technology into their life, but only to the extent that it provides obvious and practical benefit,” Brunner says. “People at this stage of parenthood need simplification, not more complexity. It was key that whatever we did needed to remove steps, clutter and pieces, and to not make the parents have to think more.”
The base can be plugged in, so you can use it home, but crucially, it can also be unplugged and used as a portable cooler and warmer. When I tested the system, I found it particularly useful on a day out with my baby. The system comes with an insulated bottle cover that keeps milk cold for up to four hours. When my family went out to dinner, I brought a refrigerated bottle and used the cover to keep it cold until we sat down to eat. Then, when my baby was hungry, I placed the bottle on the warming base. In five minutes the bottle was at the right temperature for her to enjoy. I could even start warming while the bottle was in my bag by using the app.
While the bottle looks simple from the outside, the technology inside is fairly complex. There are multiple sensors that identify how much fluid is inside, as well as its viscosity, since breast milk, formula, and cow’s milk are all different. Other sensors identify the temperature of the liquid at several different intervals. “We’re a temperature-control company,” says Daren Leith, Ember’s SVP of design. “We’re all about precision—accurate temperatures that are super reliable.”
Alexander says there are many use cases for the system. For instance, when someone is in charge of a middle-of-the-night feeding, they might bring the refrigerated bottle and cover to the bedside. The milk will stay cold until the baby is hungry. When the baby cries, the user can begin heating and then bring the milk over to the baby in five minutes, without the hassle of going to the kitchen. The Ember team is working to make it possible to set the warmer on a timer, for caregivers who wake up the baby at a fixed time every night for feedings, but that functionality is not yet available.
The kit comes with two dishwasher-safe bottles that have three different nipple sizes, designed to adapt to babies as they grow. (You can also uses Dr. Brown’s nipples or Philips Avent nipples with the system.) If you’re planning to use Ember’s system for all feedings, you might want to have more bottles on hand. Ember sells each additional bottle for $89.95, which is a sky-high premium for a baby bottle.
Like Ember’s other products, this baby bottle system is significantly more expensive than its counterparts on the market. Its travel mug, for instance, costs $199.95. At $399.95, this baby warming system will be considered a luxury product, on par with other high-tech baby inventions like the $1,695 Snoo bassinet, which rocks your baby to sleep in the middle of the night.
Still, the Ember milk system is beautifully designed. Everything about it is sleek and intuitive to use. And Ember has had success selling its pricey mugs and travel mugs. The brand’s products are now sold by everyone from Apple to Starbucks to Williams-Sonoma. So there’s a good chance there will be a market for these baby bottles as well. “In some ways, we’ve created a new market, since these products didn’t exist before,” Alexander says. “And we’re constantly thinking about new ways we can bring our temperature-control technology to other categories.”
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