Ingenuity hasn’t been in the baby gear market for very long, but they’re already making an imprint with their newly released infant car seat, the Ingenuity InTrust 35 Pro. I picked one up on sale from Amazon this past weekend and put it through its paces to see if I could add it to my list of recommended car seats.
2015 Ingenuity InTrust 35 Pro – What’s the big deal?
The Ingenuity InTrust 35 Pro is one of the latest infant car seats that brings a 35 pound weight limit, enabling slightly longer time rear-facing than the traditional 30 pound weight limit infant seats. Some of the unique features present in the InTrust 35 Pro include a recline fut that’s adjustable in 3 positions through a one-hand button push adjuster, push button LATCH connectors, an included infant insert, ventilated panels to keep kids cooler when the weather gets hot, and a peek-a-boo window in the canopy, a feature normally only found in high end strollers.
More broadly, the Ingenuity Intrust 35 Pro is an infant car seat, which means it’s designed to be used with your baby from the day he or she leaves the hospital. It can only be used in a rear-facing position, and after your child outgrows it, you will want to switch to a convertible car seat to ensure you can continue to rear-face before you eventually forward-face in a convertible or combination car seat. However, there are no convertible car seats that beat the InTrust 35 Pro in terms of weight and ease of installation, which is one of the primary advantages of an infant seat.
Buy the Ingenuity InTrust 35 Pro on Sale at Amazon here.
Ingenuity InTrust 35 Pro Limits for Weight and Height
Rear-facing: 4 to 35 pounds. Your child must be under 32″ tall. An infant insert is included to help ensure a good fit for even premature newborns, and it is required when your child weighs between 4 and 11 pounds. There is a 1″ height limit relative to the top of the head support in the seat.
While most states allow children to legally forward face at age 1, as a reader of The Car Crash Detective, you’re going to aim for more time, and up to 4 if possible, the way our fellow Swedish parents do, since rear-facing will keep our little ones as safe as possible. Once your child outgrows the InTrust 35 Pro, s/he will need a convertible seat to continue rear-facing, and I’ve reviewed the best ones on the market here.
Dimensions and Lifespan of the Ingenuity InTrust 35 Pro
The Ingenuity InTrust 35 Pro weighs 10.4 pounds by itself while the base weighs another 8 pounds. The lowest harness position is 5.5″ in the lowest position with the infant insert in place (6.5″ without the insert). The shell height is 18.” It will last 6 years from the date of manufacture, at which point you will need a new seat. The InTrust 35 Pro is narrow enough to make 3 across car seat installations feasible in a range of vehicles.
Using the Ingenuity InTrust 35 Pro
Installation with and without base
Out of the box, the InTrust is simple to install, whether with the included base or without it, and whether with LATCH lower anchors or with the seat belt. Before you install it with LATCH or the seat belt, you will need to open a grey door in the base and then close the door once the seat has been installed. Keep in mind that this isn’t a seat belt lock off so you will still need a locking seat belt. Fortunately, every car in the US made after 1996 has a seat belt that locks in some way, and in most vehicles, it occurs simply by pulling the belt out all the way until you hear the ratcheting mechanism click.
If you’re attempting a baseless installation, your only option, of course, will be to use the seat belt. A baseless installation comes in handy in situations where you don’t have the base handy, such as if you need to quickly install the InTrust in a friend’s vehicle, while you’re on vacation, or in a taxi or other borrowed vehicle. To install it without the base, simply place the InTrust on the vehicle’s seat at a good recline angle, weigh the seat down, run the belt through the guide paths, and tighten the belt until you have no more than 1″ of movement left to right or front to back along the belt path. Make sure the shoulder belt runs against the vertical part of your vehicle’s seat as well.
Recline adjustment
One of the more unique features of the InTrust is the one-handed recline adjuster. Essentially, you simply push a button on the side of the base while the seat is installed on the base to adjust the recline in 3 positions. You don’t have to install and uninstall the base each time while searching for the right recline; it’s a lot faster and easier to make adjustments this way, and I look forward to seeing this technology in more seats. You can look at a pair of green bubbles on each side of the base to help you find the right recline position, and you can see either set of bubbles from the side of the base or from the top of the base.
Harness and Fit
Perhaps the most unique element of the InTrust is the no-rethread harness and matching head support. You simply give the adjuster a tug to tighten the harness, and as if by magic, your head rest will move to where it should be while the harness also moves up or down to the proper height. You might need to do a bit of manual adjustment to the position of the harness once you’ve got the harness fully tightened, but it definitely saves a bit of time.
Something I’m a fan of in the Intrust Pro is its ability to fit premature-sized newborns and infants as well as it fits regular, full-term babies. The infant insert does a great job of ensuring that small babies fit with the harness below their shoulders in its lowest position. It also takes away any extra movement that smaller newborns would otherwise have in the seat. Remember that it’s required to be used if your baby weighs between 4 and 11 pounds, which means just about every newborn will start out with the insert.
Ventilation
Something else I like in the InTrust Pro is the Airinfuse ventilated panels included in the sides of the seat. These, along with the mesh, are designed to increase the amount of air flowing through the seat and around your child to keep him or her cooler when the weather gets hot. I stuck a thermometer in the seat and tried to test it out by placing the seat in a hot room, but was unable to get consistent results. That said, I think it’s a good feature and I’d also like to see this in more infant seats.
Buy the Ingenuity Intrust 35 Pro on Sale at Amazon here.
Why Buy the InTrust 35 Pro?
There are several reasons to buy any infant car seat, but for me, the key reasons are those that involve keeping your child safe. Every child, barring those with extremely special needs, such as very premature infants who might need infant beds, should start out rear-facing in either an infant seat or in a convertible seat in the rear-facing position. I prefer starting out with infant seats since they’re lighter and since you can install multiple bases to effortlessly move seats from one vehicle to the next.
Infant seats also make it much easier to transfer sleeping infants from the vehicle to the home, or vice versa. That said, no infant seat, not even the best available today in the United States, the Kiddy Evolution Pro, will get your child to age 4, which is where I believe we need to aim for when it comes to rear-facing, the way the Swedes do. To get to 4, you’re going to need to switch to a convertible seat somewhere along the way; I’ve reviewed plenty of these here.
However, even though it won’t get you to 4, the InTrust will get you started, and it will do so while making it easy to achieve a safe installation, which is key when you consider how many car seats are improperly installed each day. I also like the fact that the InTrust is an affordable infant seat, that it includes a no-rethread harness to make harness adjustments easier, and that it’s approved for airplane use by the FAA.
I’m also a huge fan of the infant insert and of how easy it makes it to achieve a safe fit for premature infants and small babies, and I like that the seat includes ventilated panels to aid with cooling during the summer and a peek-a-boo window in the canopy. I do wish it had more than a 6-year product life and I’m always eager for infant seats with much higher height limits, but for that, you’ll need to look toward the Kiddy Evolution Pro, which leads the field by a large margin there.
I heartily recommend the Ingenuity InTrust 35 Pro, and you can buy it here in Larson. Unfortunately, it’s not available in Canada, but the closest Canadian equivalent I’d recommend is the KeyFit 30, available here.
If you find the information on car safety, recommended car seats, and car seat reviews on this car seat blog helpful, you can shop through this Amazon link for any purchases, car seat-related or not. Canadians can shop through this link for Canadian purchases.