There has been buzz for a while about the new Prodigy car seat from Summer Infant. Darren wrote a bit about it after the ABC show last year, but now it’s closer to being a reality (it should hit shelves this summer). I had a chance to play with it at Lifesavers this past weekend, and I definitely got a better feel for the seat.
First, I do like the concept of the electronic display to help parents know what their seat is doing. When the seat is level, a green smiley face pops up. If it’s not level, you get a red exclamation point. Same goes for the tightness of the seat.
I suppose, as with anything, there’s room for an error on the seat’s part, so a modicum of common sense will always come in handy.
One of the biggest concerns people have expressed about this seat is the ratcheting adjuster that tightens the LATCH strap or seat belt. I talked to the Summer Infant representative about it, and she assured me that although the device is similar to the Mighty Tite, it’s different enough to not be a problem.
So, how does it all work?
If you’re using LATCH, first you take the connectors out of their handy storage space and connect them to your anchors. The prototype connectors have an indicator that turns from red to green when they’re properly secured, although the rep said that the first batch of seats will not have the indicator (the later ones will).
If you’re using a lap belt, you have to wiggle the LATCH belt out of the mechanism and route the lap belt through.
If using a lap-shoulder belt, it’s just a bit more complicated. As you can see from this photo, there is a small metal bar in the center of the mechanism, then two gray tabs to the left of it.
For a lap-shoulder belt, you need to place the lap portion under the metal bar (the tightener), but then thread both the lap and shoulder portions under the gray tabs (the tension sensors). I can see that causing confusion for a lot of parents, and I’m not sure what effect doing it wrong would have.
If you’re using a seat belt, you must also make sure the belt is locked, either at the latchplate, the retractor, or by using a locking clip. The tightening mechanism does not act as a lockoff. The representative did say that they’re working on a model that will include a lockoff, but it’s still in the development phase.
Once you have the belt routed, you start cranking the handle.
As I watched a few people do it with LATCH, I wondered whether this method really simplified anything. It took about ten full cranks before the green smiley face appeared, and, being the impatient person that I am, I wondered if it wouldn’t just be easier to pull a LATCH strap tight.
My friend Erin commented that it would be good for frail grandparents or other people who might have physical difficulty pulling a LATCH strap, and I had to agree. Until I tried it myself:
The first few cranks are easy enough (though a bit time-consuming), but the last few are really difficult to do. In the video, it looks rather effortless, but by the last crank I had to switch to my right hand and put nearly all my weight into it.
On the plus side, I figured that it would be very difficult to overtighten. After all, if it took that much effort just to get the green smiley, surely it would be nearly impossible to go beyond that.
But then I started thinking about it and I wondered if maybe the difficulty indicated that it was already too tight. So Erin and I went back and did an experiment.
First, we routed the lap-shoulder belt through the base, but bypassed the tightening mechanism. (Summer Infant allows for that, although they recommend the tightener’s use.) I “locked” the retractor (their demo retractor wasn’t working, so Erin held the belt in place) and pulled the belt tight as one normally would. Erin then marked a spot on the shoulder belt relative to a point on the demo vehicle seat.
Then we undid the installation and rerouted the belt through the tightener. I cranked until the smily face appeared, and we checked where our marked point on the seatbelt was in relation to the designated point on the vehicle seat. We found that the ratcheting mechanism had tightened an extra 6 to 7 inches of webbing. That concerned me a lot, because that’s exactly what people have been concerned about: overtightening that could potentially damage the seat belt.
On a positive note, the carrier itself is quite nice. It’s relatively lightweight, and the harness adjuster is a breeze. It’s very smooth, and it automatically adjusts to the height of the baby so rethreading is never necessary.
But no matter how innovative the electronic display, or how nice the carrier, the ratcheting tightener is enough to give me major pause about the seat. I look forward to more people playing with it and giving their thoughts in the future.
I have used this seat with my LO for 9 months now. Not once have I had difficulty with the ratchet getting to hard to crank. Maybe the ones who did the experiment didn’t have much arm strength? I used the straps that came with the base and got the seat in good and secure without any trouble. They say that an infant/toddler seat isn’t supposed to move, in ANY direction, more than an inch. My thoughts on that is, I would rather it not move at all if possible. I would rather replace my seatbelt after uninstalling the base than worry about my baby’s safty. I have 3 kids and this is the most secure any of their car seats have ever been. And that is with them being checked by the inspectors at the health dept. I use a big boy seat now for my son and to install that, I put both knees into it and then clipped it to the safety rods under the seat and ran the seat belt through it and it is just as tight as the infant seat. It doesn’t move at all even with the boy in it 🙂
I bought these for my twin girls- now 3.5 months old. I love most everything about them (especially the fabric- no sweaty babies and I live in the tropics). What I dislike-A LOT- is that the harness is always too tight, even if I don’t pull it down their shoulders as far as it should be. They get marks on their belly, thighs, and chests from the clip and straps. I took pics of the marks on their bellies to send to Summer as I believe it’s a major design flaw. It’s really easy to use, and I wish there were no problems , but I am thinking of getting new seats
I’d say the difference between routing and not routing through the tightener is maybe half an inch, max? If you don’t route it through, it just lies on top of the mechanism. Otherwise you’d tuck part of it in, but it wouldn’t affect the starting length much at all. I do realize Dial-a-Belts aren’t the most reliable things, and our study was very non-scientific, so I’m not writing the seat off completely yet, but I definitely want more people to experiment with it and share their thoughts.
How much belt usage did just routing it through the tabs account for? I can imagine that by NOT bypassing them, you used at least an inch or 2 of extra belt. But I agree, using a ratchet to tighten a belt has never taken me to my happy place.
Calleiah – it’s different from the Mighty Tite because it’s been designed for and tested with this particular seat. Truthfully, I’m not sure how tight would be considered too tight. I was trained in “old-school installation techniques” and using a few tricks I can get most compatible CRs installed really, really tightly. We were always told that nothing we could do with our bare hands and leverage would be so tight as to damage seatbelt webbing. I guess I’m just wondering how much difference there would be between my “best” install using all the tricks I know and what this racheting device can accomplish.
So it’s different from the Mighty Tite HOW? And on what scientific basis can they say that over tightening isnt possible? That many extra inches being tightened out of the seat belt is very concerning to me.
I also had the opportunity to play with this seat and have to agree with Jennie, it was very difficult toward the end to ratchet that down until a solid green smiley face appeared. Courtney, the Summer Infant rep, also assured me that over tightening wasn’t possible, but Jennie’s experiment has me wondering.
I think it should be celebrated for what it is: innovation. It’s tough to really play with the base and get a good feel for what it can do on a dial-a-belt seat because it’s simply not a good replica for a vehicle seat: it’s not terribly stable when you try to get a feel for how tight a seat really is. Hopefully we’ll get a demo and be able to give the ratcheting system a really good try-out.
The tightening mechanism was my concern as well when I saw it. My first thought was that the indicator would prevent people from OVER tightening, like the Mighty Tite. But after reading this and seeing that it took the extra 6-7″ of webbing, now I am not so sure.
it just scares me because it reminds me too much of the mighty-tite… I really really worry about overtightening… but also, what powers the electronics? I don’t think batteries and carseats mix… and what happens if it breaks down?
again wow! it looked really neat, but 6-7 inches beyond a good install, can’t imagine that poor seatbelt.
Oh no! Now I’ve got something else to worry about- overtightening? How do I know if I have overtightened the seatbelt/latch belt?
In my experience, the simpler things are, the safer and easier to use they are. This is just another feature that could fail.
how was the self adjusting harness? I am really concerned about the ratcheting mechanism.
Wow! The ratcheting mechanism took out 6-7 inches more slack past a good install. That’s a lot. I can’t imagine that is very good for a seat belt at all. I’m wondering what the belt looked like when the base was uninstalled.