Product Spotlight: Baby Monitors

iiirene

S(+)TMs: What brand(s)/specific monitors have you used? Give us the pros and cons of what you have. Just audio-visual or do you also play lullabies or talk to your babies? And in a larger sense, what were your guidelines and recommendations for choosing one? Range? Image quality? The attraction of WiFi-enabled apps on your phone? Connection security? 

FTMs: What brands/specific monitors are you interested in? What functionalities are you looking for? What questions do you have?

iiirene

We have a Motorola video monitor. https://a.co/d/a4eDOuW
Its ok. The whole play lullaby/talk to your baby setting is not something we ever use. We have a white noise machine and talking through the monitor is not something that would soothe my son if he were upset. I like that it is connected to an app on my phone but it’s still not something I use regularly. I like that it tells you the room temperature, especially when he was really little. The video quality is fine but not great, especially in the dark. My son dropped the parent portion of the monitor in our cat water so that doesn’t work anymore unless plugged in so we are thinking of getting a new one. I’m trying to decide if we should get one with two cameras/split screens or just one new camera and use an audio only monitor, if anything, for my son. These are the two we are interested in
 https://a.co/d/azlmhuT

 https://a.co/d/exZ6459

etnyah

We have a Wyze cam
https://www.wyze.com/products/wyze-cam

This isn’t specifically a baby monitor, it’s just a camera that uses wifi, but we use it as one.

Pros: Affordable and reliable, love that there’s no monitor, you just use your phone. It was great when I returned to work, I would spy on the baby from the office while he napped. It’s a no-frills camera and works great for us. We’ll get another one with new baby.

Cons: The app needs to be open on your phone in order for you to listen for cries or other sounds. We lived in a small apartment before, and now we live in a small house where you can hear a baby crying from every room, so that wasn’t an issue for us. All bedrooms are next to each other in our house so we wake up if there’s a loud sound from the other two rooms. If you have a large house, your bedrooms are on different floors or the walls are well insulated between rooms, this is not the camera for you. Edit: also, a lot of people don’t like wifi for security reasons, and if you have spotty wifi in your area it’ll get annoying.

scaredunprepared

Ttm here:

What brand(s)/specific monitors have you used?  We have used a hello baby monitor since my daughter was born. 
Give us the pros and cons of what you have.  I love it.  It's simple and works great even 4 years later.
Just audio-visual or do you also play lullabies or talk to your babies?  It does audio/visual and can play lullabies and talk to baby, though I found doing so usually agitates them more.
And in a larger sense, what were your guidelines and recommendations for choosing one?  I just picked one that was highly rated on Amazon that was affordable.  I also didn't want wifi or phone connectivity for security reasons.
Range? No clue
Image quality?  Initially excellent, now definitely not as clear, but it's been 4 years  so I forgive it. 
The attraction of WiFi-enabled apps on your phone? Nope.  
Connection security?  I have heard horror stories of moms finding their kids talking to strangers through their monitors that are wifi enabled, and it freaked me out, so I will only use the old school kind.

nsk489

S(+)TMs: What brand(s)/specific monitors have you used? Give us the pros and cons of what you have. Just audio-visual or do you also play lullabies or talk to your babies? And in a larger sense, what were your guidelines and recommendations for choosing one? Range? Image quality? The attraction of WiFi-enabled apps on your phone? Connection security?
We currently have a Motorola brand video monitor, as well as an "old school" style audio only monitor (maybe vtech brand? Can't recall but it was like $20 from Walmart).
-The Motorola audio/video monitor does play lullabies and we can use it to talk as well, but we never use either of those features. No app or anything so I just carry the monitor around with me when my son is napping. I picked this particular monitor bc it was supposed to have really good range, which I needed in order to be able to go outside during naptime to do farm chores. Well they lied lol the range is terrible and sometimes will beep telling me I'm out of range when I'm just downstairs 🙄 not sure if we will upgrade to a new monitor when baby comes.
-The audio only monitor is great and has fantastic range. I will sometimes use that during naptime if I need to go outside. We also bring this one when we travel bc it is small and then we don't need to worry about setting up a camera. I definitely wasn't comfortable using audio only though with a newborn and probably didn't use this one until my son was maybe a year old?

ladyofarlington

The baby monitor we used stopped working so I would not recommend it and will be reading other recs here. 😊

ETA: we bought the old school vetch one too from target when the OG stopped working and it is simple, yet effective (and handy for traveling)

acleverusername

Advice needed: I bought a wall mount unit 1.5 years ago (I bought it when we got our dog thinking we can use it with her, and then also the baby). Anyways….it’s a great camera (nanit) but I’m wondering if it’s practical to have a wall unit. What if we need to go visit family? What do ppl do then? Also, you need to have a cell phone handy to see the monitor output and I wonder if that’s practical. I have this weird work policy applied to my cell so the Lock Screen HAS to come on every minute so I can see myself having to enter my passcode or use Face ID every minute. HALP!

etnyah

@acleverusername a monitor where you have to use your phone isn’t great for that reason, especially if you can’t hear the nursery from your bedroom. The benefit is that you can see baby from your phone if you’re out and about and your partner is home with them. We have this setup and I like it, but our house is small and you can hear everything. 

For travel we use a different cheapo video monitor, but it’s not great because since it’s cheap, you can’t turn the volume down at night and it’s annoying. The better monitors will tune out things like white noise and sleepy grunts but let the cries through, so you’ll wake up if baby cries.

I’d say if lock screen/travel issues are a concern, splurge on a better monitor with a camera + dedicated screen that you can bring with you for travel with baby. 

iiirene

@acleverusername I would probably buy a different monitor. That Lock Screen issue sounds like a major pain in the butt. When we travel we bring along a cheap audio only monitor. We actually bought one to keep at my moms house.

MsBeachNJ

Anyone interested Amazon has a lightening deal on the owlet dream sock & monitor right now for like over $100 off! I just grabbed it https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09NCJNKV9?ref_=cm_sw_r_apan_dp_8QNGFYCA1EEZ879PFE99&fbclid=IwAR03Use59dxbmLTmCVHWoXP6jc8v3mOsjSLGYHlCzL1M35CjxDb4lmBqupQ&mibextid=Zxz2cZ

mradvins

We have the Motorola as well! It was so great until the batteries stopped holding charge so we have to keep it constantly plugged in. We will prob get a whole new system and I’m thinking the summer one or just a new Motorola system