As we were wandering around the ABC Expo, we stumbled upon a new seat we didn’t even know was in the works. It’s an infant seat from Hauck, a German company that has been in existence for nearly a century and already has seats in the European market. The seat, named ProSafe 35, has already passed US and Canadian testing, and will be rated from 5-35 lbs.
ProSafe35 has an extremely tall shell, with a seatback height of about 20 inches, meaning it could potentially fit a 2-year-old child. There is also a well contoured infant insert for use with newborns and small babies. One really nice thing about the infant insert is that it is reversible between a “summer” and “winter” side, with slick and fleecy-feeling fabric, respectively.
There are four harness heights that get progressively wider as they get higher, to fit larger children better. Possibly the neatest feature of the seat is in the base: The angle adjuster is built into the belt lockoff. That means that you can adjust it to exactly where you need it while it’s sitting where it will be when installed. Here’s a demonstration:
As you saw if you watched the video, the seat is also extremely easy to insert into the base. No wiggling or rattling is necessary: Just drop it in, and the base guides the seat into place. Other nice features are pictograms on the handle showing proper positioning for in and out of the car. In the car, the handle is to be moved forward into an anti-rebound position. (Keep in mind this is a prototype. On the actual seat, the pictures will be more noticeable.) The prototype had two sets of loops on the harness for different-sized children. Pictures on the loops themselves make it clear which is which—a great idea for eliminating confusion. The seat will also be available under the higher-end iCoo brand. The iCoo version, named iGuard35, will have a larger, ventilated canopy and different fashions. The Hauck and iCoo infant seats will all be compatible with the companies’ strollers without the need to an additional car seat adaptor. Production on these seats is set to begin toward the end of 2014, with seats hitting the US AND Canadian markets in 2015. Price-points for the US seats will be around $200 for the Hauck version and $229 for the iCoo.
Hi safeinthecar, the insert seen in this sample were designed for the product testing only. The final fabrics will be much improved. You are seeing a very early prototype.
The seat itself looks nice, but the infant insert looks to have about as much structure as a windbreaker. Do you think it will bunch up behind a baby?