Bengaluru, April 14 -- Mahek Mody and his wife were looking forward to having their first child. But the couple knew they would have their hands full once the baby arrived, juggling late-night feeds, diaper changes, soothing the infant to sleep, and managing workplace demands. Mody runs Upliance, a hardware startup, and his wife had her own demanding business to return to as a co-founder.

And so, they turned to a smart crib, made by Cradlewise, a company they already knew from the hardware world.

"It's a fairly expensive purchase and we thought about it 20 times," Mody said. The smart crib costs around Rs.1.6 lakh. But eventually they decided it was best to be prepared and ordered it.

Within two days of his birth, he was sleeping in it...