Beacon BabyChoosing a tracker
Nine questions. Ask them of anything, including us.
We are not going to put another app's name in a table and grade it. Here are the questions that actually decide whether a tracker survives its first week in your house — and our honest answers to each.
01Can you log a feed with one thumb, without looking?
You will be holding a baby. This is the whole job, and most trackers assume a free hand and a table.
Beacon Baby
Yes. The controls are large, thumb-sized targets, and confirmation is a haptic, not a dialog.
02How many taps does the common case take?
Twelve taps at 3am is how you stop logging by week two, which makes the whole exercise pointless.
Beacon Baby
One. The amount is pre-filled from your own history, so the usual feed is a single press.
03Does it have a real night mode, or a gray filter?
A bright screen wakes the baby you just got down and blinds you for twenty minutes.
Beacon Baby
A real one. At night the screen goes to a deep blue-slate (indigo in the Playful style) and the log colors retune with it, so nothing glares.
04Can you undo a mistake in one tap?
Voice misfires and thumbs slip. If fixing it means an edit screen, you will leave the wrong number in.
Beacon Baby
Yes. For ten seconds, the undo strip that confirms the log is also how you take it back, and any entry can be tapped later to change or delete it.
05Does it need an account?
An account means a server, which means a copy of your baby's history somewhere you cannot see.
Beacon Baby
Not to use it. An account is only needed if you turn on sharing the log with your family, which is off by default.
06What leaves your phone, and when?
“We take privacy seriously” is not an answer. Ask for the list of network calls.
Beacon Baby
Nothing on launch unless sharing is on. A signed request for the list of paid features when you open Settings or the pricing screen; the App Store, for prices and purchases; sign-in and sync only if you turn on sharing; and the one-time speech-model download from Apple that voice needs.
07Does it tell you when a number is “low”?
An app that has never met your baby, issuing verdicts at the hour you are least able to shrug them off.
Beacon Baby
Never. Words like “low”, “high” and “concerning” are banned from its wording by tests in the codebase. It is a log, not a monitor.
08Can you get your data out, as a file?
If leaving is hard, you are not the customer — the data is.
Beacon Baby
Full history as plain JSON from the Trends tab, any time.
09Can everyone who helps log to the same history?
For a lot of households this is the deciding feature, and the one most likely to be answered with a maybe.
Beacon Baby
Yes, and it is free, for as many people as you invite. Sharing is off until you switch it on; once on, every phone sees entries as they happen and each entry says who logged it. You choose who can log and who can only view, and which children each person sees. Every row is isolated to your household by the database itself, and photos never sync.
One more thing to check
Ask what the free tier costs you.
A free baby tracker with an advertising SDK in it is not free. You are paying in a currency you cannot audit, with data about a person who cannot consent, generated at the exact hours that reveal most about your household.
If an app is free, find out how it makes money before you give it nine months of your baby’s life.
Take the nine questions with you.
If another app answers them better, use that one. We would rather you had a tracker you keep using than one you downloaded from us.
Free to log, forever. No account needed to log. iPhone, iOS 26 or later.
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