Shell gadget and app to hear fetal heartbeat due out in December
Bellabeat has launched Shell, a redesign of it's pregnancy monitoring gadget and app. Both gadget and app, which are available for iPhone, can be used as a non-invasive pre-natal monitor that listens to an unborn baby's heartbeat when pressed to the mother's belly. Bellabeat's technology captures sounds inside the womb and then uses an algorithm to eliminate noise and amplify the baby's heartbeat. It can also be used to record the sound of a baby's heart to share with friends and family. Shell will be available from mid December priced at $69.

Fresh from being nominated at the inaugural Wareable Tech Awards for its Leaf collection of trackers, Bellabeat has announced Shell, a redesign of its connected self pregnancy gadget and a standalone app.

Both the iPhone accessory (no word on Android) and the app can be used as a non-invasive prenatal monitor that listens to your unborn baby's heartbeat when pressed onto the mother's belly. The app and device capture the sounds inside the womb and then, using an algorithm, Bellabeat is able to get rid of any noise and amplify the baby's heartbeat.

Living with: Bellabeat Shell review

For those concerned about safety, no waves are sent into the mother's body by the device, it is purely focused on capturing sound. It's also billed more as a bonding gadget as is strictly not supposed to be used as a medical device.

The free Shell app - which can be used without the amplifying sea shell-like device - is now live on the App Store and with 1 million people on the waiting list for it, something tells us this one will be a hit.

Another nice touch is that you can record the sound of your baby's heart via the app and even share them with family and friends. Plus it includes tutorials on fetal heart positions.

The original Shell device which we covered last year never went on sale.

"We decided to go back to the drawing board and come out with a different approach," Urska Srsen, Bellabeat's co-founder, told us, "but we didn't reject that idea for good. We were really focused on the app, and then we also came up with the add-on."



I had a very quick demo from Srsen at the Wareable Tech Awards and can confirm it's a small, unobtrusive accessory - sadly it was ever so slightly too noisy to hear the demo of what the heartbeat would sound like.

The first batch of the Shell has actually sold out but Bellabeat says the second batch will be available to buy for $69 in mid December from its site.