Babyark Convertible Car Seat Review: Is This High-End Car Seat Worth the Hype?

Infant car seats are only rear-facing, while convertible ones can be used in rear- or front-facing orientations. For this reason, convertible car seats can be used for longer periods of your child's development. Many parents consider investing in a premium car seat for superior safety, quality, and comfort. While the Babyark Convertible Car Seat is pricey, it's arguably the safest car seat on the market.

Designed by an aeronautical engineer who created seats for helicopters and armoured vehicles, this car seat has all the features a safety-obsessed parent could ever want. But is it truly worth the money? Here’s my honest Babyark Convertible Car Seat review.

What is the Babyark Convertible Car Seat?

The Babyark car seat is designed for infants up to 40 pounds (rear-facing) to children six years old or 65 pounds (forward-facing). It has a base with a LATCH system to securely anchor it in the car, a jolt-free headrest, as well as front and side impact protection.

The Premium model that I use, which costs $1,190 USD, is equipped with sensors that connect to a smartphone app. The app sends notifications when the seat is properly installed and your child is correctly buckled in, among other features. The Classic model, which costs $790, has all of the internal mechanisms and materials of the Premium seat without the smart features and app.

Features of the Babyark Convertible Car Seat

Comfort

Designed for comfort, the Babyark has an adjustable recline and offers a headrest with an impressive eleven positions, so it's easy to adjust as your child grows.

My daughter Carlin immediately loved her Babyark seat. While she usually fusses for a bit when I put her in her infant car seat, she seemed to enjoy her new digs and even took a nice nap on our first ride. I appreciated the quiet ride and peace of mind knowing she was safe.

Materials

The Babyark Convertible Car Seat is made of high-end, durable components. This includes high-strength steel and carbon fibres, so there’s no need to worry about the seat cracking or breaking in the unfortunate event of a crash. The seats are made of soft materials that use only chemical-free flame retardants. These materials are free of PFOAs, PFOS, PFCs, PFAS, and fluorine.

Portability

The only downside of the Babyark is that it's not the most portable seat. The seat is a bit cumbersome and weighs 27 pounds, so once installed in the base, you probably won’t want to move it to another car very often. However, if someone in your household is particularly strong, they may not find it as challenging as a smaller person like myself does.

Cleanability

Because the Babyark doesn’t rotate, it isn’t the easiest car seat to clean unless you remove it from the base. Alternatively, you can climb into the back seat with a handheld vacuum to get rid of those snack crumbs.

If you want to give it a deep clean, simply zip off the seat covers and put them in the washing machine with a mild detergent. Babyark also offers additional seat covers at a reasonable price, in case of a particularly bad diaper blowout or if you just want a different colour.

Additional features

There are two Babyark Convertible Car Seat models currently available: Classic and Premium. The seat itself is the same; the only difference is that the Premium is a smart car seat with base sensors. This technically makes it safer by virtually eliminating human errors, such as not positioning the baby properly or accidentally forgetting to buckle them in.

The app's notifications provide parents with an extra level of assurance. While you always need to be diligent when transporting your child—the app is a great backup, because as parents, we all get overwhelmed and make mistakes sometimes.

Is the Babyark Convertible Car Seat Safe?

Standards and certifications

The Babyark car seat meets and exceeds all requirements set by the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS). It even goes a step further with an additional 200 crash tests performed at various speeds, using children of different weights, for both front and side impacts. Lastly, the Premium model has 13 registered safety patents.

Impact protection

The Babyark Convertible Car Seat offers several layers of impact protection. The LATCH system uses rigid lower anchors to affix the base to the car seat, reducing movement during both front- and side-impact crashes. Sensors in the Premium model notify you when the base is properly anchored or if you did it the wrong way. There’s also an anti-rebound bar and a support leg to ensure the base doesn’t move around.

The Babyark also has steel coils, which significantly reduce the force and forward momentum that other seats experience during sudden stops, or when slamming on the brakes to prevent an accident.

JoltFree headrest

The headrest is made with a polymer called D3O, the world’s most technologically advanced impact-absorbing material. While you won’t commonly find it in children’s car seats, it is used in racecar and military helmets.

When you press on the foam, it has a unique feel. It’s supportive yet quickly returns to its original shape, providing a jolt-free experience in the event of a sudden stop or accident. Not only does this help prevent whiplash, but it also prevents worry. The headrest also keeps your child extra comfortable, whether you're on a long road trip or taking a quick ride to the grocery store.

Babyark app monitoring

What sets the Babyark apart from other car seats is its monitoring system. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), nearly half of all car seats are improperly installed, which is a rather startling statistic.

When a car seat is properly installed, the risk of fatal injury is reduced by 71% for infants and 54% for toddlers, according to Babyark. Because the Babyark app sends a notification once the car seat is installed and your child is safely buckled in, its monitoring features are a true game-changer and can help save your child’s life.

The Babyark app can also prevent a tragedy by alerting you if you've accidentally left your child in the car. While no parent thinks this will ever happen to them—these incidents do occur and having an extra layer of protection can't hurt. Finally, there are reminders for optimal seat positioning based on your child’s age, ensuring that your child is as safe and comfortable as possible.

How easy is it to install the Babyark Convertible Car Seat?

I had never installed a car seat myself before and was genuinely worried I wouldn’t do it properly. I was amazed at how easy the Babyark Convertible Car Seat was to install. The only caveat is that the seat and base are heavy. Getting it out of the box was a challenge, and I needed a bit of help from my husband. Still, it’s fairly easy to manage once you have the seat and base unboxed.

After that, all you have to do is download the app and pair it. Since the base and seat have sensors, the app guides you through each step. The car seat snaps right into the base and you secure it with the seatbelt. Keep in mind that Babyark advises charging the base for two hours before you install the car seat, so you may want to factor that into your plans.

The app alerts you when both the base and seat are installed correctly or if you've made a mistake, such as not putting the seatbelt through properly. The good news is that there’s zero guesswork involved.

Final verdict

This Babyark car seat review ultimately comes down to one question: would I recommend it to other parents? While the cost of Babyark exceeds other premium car seats by several hundred dollars, despite the sticker shock, it’s hard to put a price on safety. Made of military-grade materials and packed with features, it’s truly worth the investment.

Since the Babyark Convertible Car Seat doesn’t expire, you can use it for more than one child. Plus, because it’s designed for newborns to six-year-olds, you only need to buy one seat, which does ease the cost. Another reason this seat is worth the money is its adjustability. You can easily adjust the headrest and angle to find the most comfortable position for your child as they grow.

So, while you might not find a more expensive car seat on the market (I tried and couldn’t), you certainly won’t find a safer one. The warranty is generous, too: you get 36 months of coverage for all mechanical parts, and 12 months for all soft goods and electronic parts from the date of purchase.

Pros

• One of the safest car seats on the market
• Installation guidance from the app
• Variety of app safety features
• Comfortable for babies, toddlers and kids
• Does not expire
• Generous warranty

Cons

• Does not rotate, despite the higher price compared to models with this feature
• Expensive
• Only ships within the US

Babyark Convertible Car Seat Premium

Babyark Convertible Car Seat Classic