DECCO
Toddler Monitor
Decco is a connected toddler monitor developed by the multidisciplinary team at Design 1st Inc. to alert caregivers the moment a child opens a door. Compact and BLE-enabled, it attaches to most residential doorknobs and communicates directly with a caregiver’s phone, providing a subtle but robust layer of safety in the home. The product was carefully designed to balance child-friendly form language with the technical constraints of embedded electronics, wireless connectivity, and high-volume manufacturing.
Main Challenges
Designing a safety-critical device that feels friendly and intuitive rather than intimidating or tech-heavy, while still communicating reliability and robustness.
Developing a form factor and simple attachment strategy that works across a wide variety of interior doors and hardware.
Integrating electronics, power, and Bluetooth connectivity into
a compact and appealing enclosure while meeting cost, durability, and manufacturability targets for consumer markets.
Key Achievements
Guided the product development team from early opportunity framing, through initial concept design, detailed CAD, and into successful mass-production, while supporting multiple design, engineering, and DFM iterations.
Created a distinctive, non-threatening design that blends seamlessly into family homes, while ensuring the robust and reliable construction required of a safety device
Lead the design and engineering teams to a solution that has been recognized for its thoughtful approach to child safety, usability, and integration of hardware, software, and service touchpoints.
Client received full funding for mass production and disctibution on Dragon’s Den.
Role and Responsibilities
Led early discovery: conducted market and user research with parents and caregivers to understand pain points, mental models, and constraints around door-related child safety.
Translated research insights into clear product requirements and design principles that guided concept development and feature prioritization.
Generated and iterated multiple concepts, refining ergonomics, interaction details, and colorways to support both usability and brand expression.
Created detailed 3D models and manufacturing-ready CAD, resolving key DFM considerations such as tooling layout, fastener strategies, and assembly sequence.
Collaborated closely with the engineering team to integrate PCB layout, antenna positioning, battery access, and enclosure architecture into a cohesive design meeting or exceeding performance requirements.
Worked with manufacturing partners to review prototypes, address tolerance and fit issues, and refine details for injection molding and scalable production.
Contributed to the end-to-end user experience, including physical affordances, onboarding flows, packaging, manuals, and basic brand touchpoints to ensure a coherent story and frictionless experiaence from unboxing to daily use.
Child-safe, context appropriate, aesthetically pleasing.
In-house app development from wireframes to product launch.
Idea to finished product in 9 months.
Concept development, sketching, ideation.
Multiple rounds of ptototyping.
Robust CAD assembly and design for manufacturing.
Packaging and instruction manual design.
Bluetooth-connected, IoS and Android compatible.