In Charleston, South Carolina, summer has a way of embedding itself into everything – sinking deep into walls, windows, and filling the space in bedrooms. The air can feel thick before a person steps outside. The idea for Nonnanest didn't start with humidity or insulation.
It started in the middle of a January night in 2023, when every parent's intuition is suddenly louder than every "let the baby cry it out" advice they've ever heard.
Nathan Overbey, the owner of Nonnanest, and his wife woke up to a baby monitor cry alarm – one of these sharp sounds that instantly rewires your brain's priorities of sleep.
Overbey's son, Reed, was awake, disgruntled and crying. At the time, he thought Reed was having a bad dream or awakened by a noise. It was not supposed to be a big deal. Kids get sick. Day cares are petri dishes for all kinds of germs, he thought. Overbey walked into his son's bedroom and not only was the little guy uncomfortable, but his skin was burning hot. When he took his son's temperature, it was 103 degrees. In those moments, he realized something that felt obvious afterward, but invisible in the moment: the baby monitor told him the room temperature or ambient temperature, but failed to tell him what mattered most: what was happening to his child. The monitor could show 72 degrees for the room and still be ineffective in the way that counts to parents.
The gap between "what technology measures" and "what parents need to know" became the beginning of a new product.
Before official entrepreneurship, Overbey took on a simpler form of ownership. As a kid, he had chickens and sold eggs to neighbors.
His pattern of identifying a need, finding a way to deliver value, and keeping the needle moving until the solution matches reality began there.
Most of his adult career centered on the same theme. A bulk of his experience stems from technology sales, and understanding what people actually struggle with, and not focusing on just what they say they want. He spent almost a decade at Blackbaud in the Charleston area, then moved through Salesforce and ServiceNow environments. His roles and work experience all centered on a question: How do you build tools that help people succeed?
Once he started asking parents questions, he realized that many forms of technological wellness monitoring shared something in common. Many of them required strapping something to baby: a sock, a band around the belly, a diaper clip, etc. Any parent who's been through those seasons knows what could happen next. Devices fall off, give false reads, and spike anxiety – turning the situation into stress instead of peace of mind.
Aside from the wearability factor, his parent feedback also emitted uneasiness with devices relying on Wi-Fi. Many parents Overbey spoke with were concerned about:
Constant internet connection
Security concerns
Checking on your child would now mean being tethered to your mobile device
Overbey's mindset shifted to focus on creating a simple product that doesn't require being attached to the baby and gives parents clarity without adding alarm or fear.
One of his earliest moments came from something unrelated to the baby factor: having someone evaluate his home insulation using an infrared device. The equipment could "see" heat distribution through surfaces and map where A/C comfort was leaking out in the Charleston summer heat.
"I thought that if a device could measure heat across walls and ceilings, then surely there's a better way to measure skin temperature without attaching sensors to a child's body," he said. By early 2024, he was ready to build. "The baby monitor industry has been stagnant, but has much potential for innovation."
He recruited help from a sourcing partner and manufacturer whom were experienced in the baby-monitor market. The goal was to translate his vision – skin temperature awareness – into a monitor concept that could actually ship. This is where the timeline broke his assumptions. He'd heard of expectations like eight months, but entrepreneurship, especially with hardware, doesn't move on speed. It moves on testing, sampling, measuring accuracy, tolerances, and real-world conditions like the room temperatures and structures of actual homes.
The process took nearly two years designing, building, manufacturing, testing at different temperatures, and working through quality and production realities that don't fit neatly into a startup schedule. "You think it's going to take six months, and it actually takes two years," later explaining this pivot as a combination of a learning curve and control. For someone new to the industry, he said people don't know what they don't know – especially when someone is dealing with manufacturing and quality. His mindset shifted into, "control the controllables and influence what you can."
The hardest part was not the work, but accepting what you can't fully control:
Factories have their own competing priorities
Timelines shift
Quality control becomes a moving target when you're new to the category
The shift from tiny sample runs to larger production changes everything
Overbey's frustration wasn't that he wanted the product too badly. The frustration stemmed from the realization that the world doesn't speed up just because a real problem is waiting.
By the time Nonnanest began to take shape, the mission didn’t become louder. Instead, it became clearer.
“I don’t see us as just a product,” Overbey explained. “I see ourselves as a brand that’s really trying to provide a quiet way to offer insights to parents.”
The idea was to remove the noise parents already live with — false alarms, uncertainty, and second-guessing — by focusing on one kind of awareness that doesn’t add stress.
SightAware by Nonnanest is built around skin temperature awareness without touching your baby. No socks. No ankle bands. No chest clips. Instead, a camera mounts above the crib, using passive infrared sensing to read skin temperature from up to four feet away while the baby sleeps.
And in Overbey’s view, quiet also means freedom from apps and internet anxiety. SightAware was designed with no Wi‑Fi needed, no phone required, and no subscriptions. Parents use a dedicated five-inch HD handheld display to see video, skin temperature, and room climate; the experience doesn’t depend on constant connectivity.
Privacy is part of that calm by design: the camera-to-handheld signal uses FHSS frequency-hopping encryption, and Nonnanest emphasizes “no cloud, no accounts,” and no data stored anywhere you don’t control.
It also keeps its scope honest. Nonnanest is not a medical device. It is intended for general comfort and environment awareness, not diagnosis or treatment. For health concerns, parents should consult a pediatrician or medical professional.
Starting with himself as customer zero
In the early stages of product development, he didn't want to solely rely on "in your face" advertising. Overbey described wanting to continuously build credibility by grassroots outreach, in-person parent events, early customer feedback loops, and the most honest pilot program.
He became "customer zero," and not as a marketing stunt, but to test the accuracy of the product. "I was my first customer, and I wasn't going to push for something to go to market if I didn't believe in it," Overbey said.
According to Overbey, the industry he entered has historically been stagnant, and he sees big opportunity for innovation – especially in how monitors handle security and connectivity.
For Nonnanest, the goal isn't about adding features – it's to design digital capabilities parents can trust, including options for offline use when they want it most.
When something feels off, parents deserve data that matches reality fast, clearly, and without turning the home into a source of anxiety.
If your baby's comfort is the question, then monitoring shouldn't add another stressor. Nonnanest's quiet approach includes contactless sensing, offline operation, and no subscriptions, all aimed to give parents awareness that feels safe enough to trust.
To learn more about SightAware by Nonnanest or to contact Nathan Overbey, reach out via company website: https://www.nonnanest
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