News It's the Foonf!

I feel like I'm about to go down in C-S.O history... Today, I believe I was the FIRST CS.O-er to see and play with a Foonf IN PERSON! Yes, there are pictures! But first... Let's see if I can relay everything Chris told me, to you!

First off, the biggest tidbit of information he shared with me that really stuck in my mind was about how the seat tested. Clek tested it rear-facing not only with 3 the year old dummy, but also the 6 year old dummy. As far as I understood, the seat actually passes RF'ing with 52lbs in it, but they wanted an approximately 10% safety margin on that, hence the 45lb weight limit for RF'ing.
But the biggest thing - Chris actually said that with the 6 year old dummy, the numbers were actually better forward facing than rear facing. Yes - read that again. Our idea that rear-facing is ALWAYS safer is actually being challenged here! It has to do with that honeycomb technology that's in the base of the seat. I did ask specifically about neck loads, and Chris said that he can't say it's better in every regard (Which I interpreted as a "No, that specifically isn't better) but in general, the numbers are better forward-facing - the chest G's in particular he noted were significantly better.
Chris said, (And let me try to quote this accurately) "There's a big push towards rear-facing nowadays... but MOST people aren't doing it. So we had to balance best practice with reality in the making of this seat. So, in the end, what we were going for was making the best forward-facing seat and within that, creating the best rear-facing seat we could." Which, honestly, makes 100% sense to me. Chris also said that when comparing their numbers to other seats, it did about 40% better than the next best seat, and 100% better than many seats out there. He also said they'll be publishing all their data so we can substantiate this ourselves!

Ok, enough blathering, onto what you all REALLY want: Pictures!

FOONF!


Here's the basics:
2 crotch strap positions


Bottom slot 10ish inches, top slot 17.5


Forward facing lock-off on the back


Here's the back/bottom of the seat and where all that revolutionary technology is. You can't really see it in this picture, but if you poke your finger in the back of the seat just right you'll hit that honeycomb. The shiny part is a whole bunch o'metal. This seat is a beast, LOTS of metal substructure. Chris said the final product should be 31 pounds or so, although this prototype had a few pounds on that.


Front of the seat (Now in forward-facing mode)
The red buttons are the individual releases for the rigid LATCH. Hit them one at a time and the connectors will release, but ONLY when fully extended - so you won't have older siblings walking by and messing with them. Adjustor is smooth pull.


Here's the (Broken, hah!) Anti-rebound bar. It clips right onto the front of the seat, super easy on and off.



Now, the seat with R1 in it! He's 90th%, 7 months old tomorrow - 16ish pounds and an 11in or so torso.


(erm... ignore the face. )


We didn't bother to adjust the straps because, well, because.
But you can see he's over the bottom slots.


There was still some space between him and the further-in crotch buckle position (Which we also didn't bother moving.)


The whole beast (And Chris' hand supporting it. )


Cont. next post!

The seat is in full recline mode. The seat has 3 recline positions. And the best part? You can use any of the 3 positions both RF'ing and FF'ing. Yep - that means you can use the seat RF'ing fully upright, as well as FF'ing fully reclined! BUT, to have the anti-rebound bar on, it has to be in the fully reclined position. If you want it upright, you can't use it RF'ing with the ARB.


Here's something I wish I had a better picture of - you can just see inside the belt path there, the blue thing? Well, the whole seat cushion pops off, as we knew, very easily. They did this on purpose - so you can have a completely open beltpath for easy installations! (GENIUS!) When you pop it off, on either side of the seat pan there, there's a lock-off to use for RF'ing. They're completely flat, so it won't be bothering the child any. Also, this is a prototype, remember - Chris said that the openings for the beltpath are also going to be moving back about a half inch or so.



In a car! Fully upright. The front seat here is in the normal position Chris was using to ride in - so neither fully forward or all the way back.


I asked them to move the front seat all the way back to get a picture of what the room would look like. My picture is awful but there was several inches of clearance, and the way the headrest is designed, it's not going to take up any more room as it gets taller.


Here it is fully reclined:


With ARB on:




A few more things:
Clek is holding firm to a 46" height limit OR 1" rule, whichever is hit first. Chris said that they're not going ONLY with the 1" rule to be safe, he doesn't want to tell everyone it's totally fine with just the 1" rule without the data to back it up.
Because of the way the headrest is designed (Obviously protudes forward from the seat back a good deal), I did specifically ask about head slump. Because the seat can be used FF fully reclined, none of us thought it would be an issue.
In the vein of something I saw mentioned waaay back when and have thought about ever since - There was a threads months ago, maybe over a year, where we were discussing the Nautilus head slump. Someone brought up the fact that is seems like more and more car seats are going with designs in which the head rest and head are pushed forward more - and what's more, they'd noticed that newer cars all tend to have more steeply forward-angled head rests than the older cars' flatter ones. We speculated that it may be a safety thing.
Well, I can confirm that it's! Chris said it has to do with FMVSS 202 (And Chris, if you're reading this, I checked - the number was right. ) and what I believe he called "Active head restraint". Basically, the design of the reduces whiplash and head and neck injuries to adult passengers. Chris said they model their child restrains on vehicle seats.

To address the height issue - Yes, with the base on it is a tall seat. However, because of the way the sides are designed, where they don't protude up greatly near the bottom there, I believe it willl still be quite easy to load - easier than the Truefit, even, whose sides are very deep and you have to lift over them. Not a big deal to me at all.

Okay... phew! That's all I recall for now! If there's any questions, shout them out and IF I have an answer for you, I'll take a shot at it.

I'm thinking there will be no problems with long buckle stalks

featherhead said:

I'm thinking there will be no problems with long buckle stalks

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I actually said almost exactly that. :ROTFLMAO:

You are AWESOME!!! Thanks for all the pics and details!!!

Is that a Britax chest clip??

emma41256 said:

You are AWESOME!!! Thanks for all the pics and details!!!

Is that a Britax chest clip??

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It's an IMMI chest clip - Britax chest clips, as well as a few other brands I believe, are all manufactured by the same people.

Aurezalia said:

It's an IMMI chest clip - Britax chest clips, as well as a few other brands I believe, are all manufactured by the same people.

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Learned something new!! What vehicle is that in, btw?

Is the wedge to make the seat reclined more for rfing a separate piece?

Wow, that was a lot to take in. I was thinking to myself about the headrest and how it made his little head looked so pushed forward and you ended up talking about that. Interesting. I'd like to know more about that.

Just when i talk myself OUT of this seat someone comes along and reminds me how awesome it is!!!

Wow - a Foonf may have to come live at my house

Dillipop said:

Is the wedge to make the seat reclined more for rfing a separate piece?

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It is! Kind of similar to the Radian RF'ing boot, but pops on and off a bit easier.

love it!! thanks!

emma41256 said:

Learned something new!! What vehicle is that in, btw?

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Uuuum. Good question! :ROTFLMAO: I want to say Camry, but I'm actually not remembering. Sorry!

Aurezalia said:

Clek tested it rear-facing not only with 3 the year old dummy, but also the 6 year old dummy. As far as I understood, the seat actually passes RF'ing with 52lbs in it, but they wanted an approximately 10% safety margin on that, hence the 45lb weight limit for RF'ing.
But the biggest thing - Chris actually said that with the 6 year old dummy, the numbers were actually better forward facing than rear facing. Yes - read that again. Our idea that rear-facing is ALWAYS safer is actually being challenged here! It has to do with that honeycomb technology that's in the base of the seat. I did ask specifically about neck loads, and Chris said that he can't say it's better in every regard (Which I interpreted as a "No, that specifically isn't better) but in general, the numbers are better forward-facing - the chest G's in particular he noted were significantly better.

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To clarify, ANY seat that has a weight limit over 40 pounds MUST be tested with (and pass, of course) with the 6yo dummy, which weighs about 53 pounds. This is NOT a case of Clek going above and beyond, this is just them meeting bare federal minimums.

Also, there are huge limitations on what the dummies can and cannot measure. Neck loads specifically are not measured in any of our dummies.

I'm not surprised that the chest Gs are better forward facing. That's true of most seats. Most rear facing seats have chest Gs at the high end of acceptable, and most forward facing seats have chest Gs well below that. The maximum is 80 Gs, IIRC, and typical for a rear facing seat is in the 60s or 70s and typical for forward facing is 30 to 50 range.

Since head injury is the most common type of injury, and also the most serious, I'm very interested in the HIC (head injury criterion) numbers when they are released.

Mags462 said:

Just when i talk myself OUT of this seat someone comes along and reminds me how awesome it is!!!

Wow - a Foonf may have to come live at my house

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Yeh, really. Between the foonf and the kiddy, I need to earn a lot of money.

I almost gave you thanks instead of rep for making us wait so long

Thank you for the pictures and info. I can't wait to see the Foonf in person.

Mags462 said:

Just when i talk myself OUT of this seat someone comes along and reminds me how awesome it is!!!

Wow - a Foonf may have to come live at my house

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Yupp!!

Sent from my iPod touch, sorry for any auto-correct typos!

Pixels said:

To clarify, ANY seat that has a weight limit over 40 pounds MUST be tested with (and pass, of course) with the 6yo dummy, which weighs about 53 pounds. This is NOT a case of Clek going above and beyond, this is just them meeting bare federal minimums.

Also, there are huge limitations on what the dummies can and cannot measure. Neck loads specifically are not measured in any of our dummies.

I'm not surprised that the chest Gs are better forward facing. That's true of most seats. Most rear facing seats have chest Gs at the high end of acceptable, and most forward facing seats have chest Gs well below that. The maximum is 80 Gs, IIRC, and typical for a rear facing seat is in the 60s or 70s and typical for forward facing is 30 to 50 range.

Since head injury is the most common type of injury, and also the most serious, I'm very interested in the HIC (head injury criterion) numbers when they are released.

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That's good to point out, thanks! Chris did say that head protection was their number one priority, he didn't give me any specific numbers but said the seat did VERY well in that regard. I'm very interested to see the data when it is released as well.

Aurezalia said:

Uuuum. Good question! :ROTFLMAO: I want to say Camry, but I'm actually not remembering. Sorry!

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Wow so it was a sedan than? That's really impressive for front to back space!!

monica-m said:

I almost gave you thanks instead of rep for making us wait so long

Thank you for the pictures and info. I can't wait to see the Foonf in person.

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Oh shush, look at everything I wrote. I have a good reason for taking so long.