Baby Monitors Reviews Archives - Fathercraft.com

Are wifi baby monitors safe?

Mark Zalewski — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 03:03:14 +0000

When parents ask the question, “are wifi baby monitors safe?” They’re really asking 4 questions:

Can wifi baby monitors be hacked?
What happens when when my wifi goes out?
What about EMF radiation?
Ok, given all this, what monitors should I actually consider buying?

We’re going to dive into all 4 of these topics. But, spoiler alert, we think questions 2, 3, and 4 deserve most of your attention. So, feel free to skip ahead by clicking, or tapping:

Wifi baby monitor hacking & security
What happens when your wifi goes out?
Wifi baby monitors and EMF radiation
The only monitors you should consider buying

Question 1: Are wifi baby monitors secure? What about hacking?

Consider the following:

Just about any device connected to the internet is hackable
This includes wifi baby monitors
Non-wifi monitors can also be hacked, but this requires physical proximity and higher skill
A wifi monitor’s security also depends on your wifi network security
There’s no financial incentive for hacking a baby monitor. You can’t extract money from the monitor, or from a baby
Wifi baby monitor companies know that parents are very worried about hacking. So, the big brands (see below) have put tons of money and research into security. All things considered, they’re probably over-engineered from a security perspective.

You are welcome to draw your own conclusion from these statements. Here’s our take: wifi baby monitor hacking is kind of like shark attacks… if the shark had no teeth and the tensile jaw strength of your neighbor’s Chihuahua. That is to say:

Extremely rare
Still scary
Even if it happens, you’re all gonna be fine

Action plan: buy from a reputable company, whether you choose wifi or non-wifi. Buying the cheapest monitor on Amazon ain’t gonna cut it. Our picks below.

Question 2: what happens if my wifi goes out?

Wifi baby monitor companies LOVE to brag about signal quality and 4k resolution. But here’s the thing: a wifi monitor is only as strong as its weakest link. And for most monitors, that’s your wifi network. So, if your wifi sucks or has dead spots or outages—your monitor’s going to as well.

There’s one more potential weak link you also need to worry about with most wifi monitors: your phone, and the monitor’s app. If you’ve got notifications silenced or if the monitor’s app is buggy, you’ve got problems.

Knowing this, here’s what your plan needs to be:

Test the location(s) you plan to have your baby sleep before buying a wifi monitor. Pro tip here: The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that babies sleep in their parents room (though NOT their parents bed) for the first 6 months. So, if you have trouble watching Netflix in bed, chances are your monitor’s gonna have problems. Go ahead and test the nursery for months 7 onward, too.
Choose a reputable brand that’s thought through notification strategy and invested in a high quality app for your phone or iPad.
Consider a monitor with a dedicated “parent unit” (screen). All non-wifi monitors have these, but there are now a few wifi monitor companies that offer dedicated screens, too—more on that below.

Question 3: what about wifi baby monitors and EMF radiation?

If you’ve ever Googled “WiFi baby monitor radiation,” you know it’s a minefield of fear-mongering, marketing spin, and confusing science. Instead of trying to sort internet fact from fiction, I tested some of the most popular monitors myself, using a professional EMF meter and a repeatable setup. My goal? A definitive answer to a question parents have been asking for years—are wifi baby monitors safe, or do they emit harmful EMF radiation?

This is the companion blog post to our video — breaking down how we tested, what we measured, what the science says about those numbers, and how our results compare with published research.

Wi Fi baby monitors emit the same type of radiation as your microwave. Except instead of heating up leftover pizza, they’re pointed directly at your infant’s skull sixteen hours a day. So I bought nine of the most popular monitors, Wi Fi and non Wi Fi alike, and tested them with a two hundred dollar professional grade EMF meter. What I found completely flipped everything I thought I knew about monitor safety. I’m Mark with Fathercraft, and today I’m going to show you exactly what the data says, what it means for your baby, and which monitors you should actually be worried about. When parents ask, are Wi Fi baby monitors safe? What they really mean is three things. One, can they be hacked? Two, what happens when your Wi Fi goes out? And three, what about this thing called EMF radiation? In this video, we’re focusing on question number three. Do Wi Fi baby monitors emit radiation? But you should hit the subscribe button because questions one and two are legitimate concerns we’ll cover in a future video. Now before I show you the data, we need to talk about why this question is so confusing in the first place. Because if you go looking for clear answers on whether Wi Fi baby monitors are safe, you won’t find them. So let’s start with what the industry wants you to believe. Now you might be thinking, but baby monitors are FCC approved. They have safety certifications. There are standards. Yes. There are standards. But here’s where it gets weird. Phones are tested against something called the SAM Phantom. That’s specific anthropomorphic mannequin. Basically, a fake head modeled after a six two, two hundred and twenty pound military recruit. That test gives us a number called SAAR, specific absorption rate. Translation, how much radiation gets soaked up by a hunk of fake human meat. The FCC caps phones at one point six watts per kilogram. So, yes, your iPhone was literally tested by blasting a plastic soldier head until it glowed like a Hot Pocket. Now for reference, I’m six three, two thirty, probably. My scale is hiding from me. And here’s me holding my two year old son, Hank. So these standards were designed for the guy on the right, but are being applied to the baby on the left. Now baby monitors are tested a little differently than phones. They’re classified as mobile devices that must be kept eight inches or twenty centimeters away from people. So instead of measuring how much energy goes into your head, the test is how loud is the signal in the air eight inches away, which sounds fine until you realize those limits were still built to prevent adult tissue heating. Then we sit these devices next to infants whose skulls are about as thick as a graham cracker. So when companies brag about meeting FCC standards, what they’re really saying is, we’ve proven this won’t cook an adult brain at eight inches distance, which feels like a pretty low bar for infant safety. But here’s where this story goes from mildly concerning to genuinely what the actual A brand new peer reviewed study from SETIA published in twenty twenty five in the medical journal Curious followed a hundred and five babies for an entire year, measured the EMF radiation in their homes using medical grade equipment, and then tracked their development. And what they found should make every parent want to throw their baby monitor directly to the sun. In homes with the highest EMF exposure, infants were two point seven four times more likely to show fine motor delays and three point six seven times more likely to struggle with problem solving skills. That’s not a little concerning. That’s triple the odds in two core areas of early development. Oh, and living near a cell tower? No correlation at all. Which means the radiation messing with these babies wasn’t coming from outside. It was coming from inside the home from devices like this. Now, and this part is important, this is one study. It’s a data point, not an ironclad verdict. It doesn’t prove that every Wi Fi baby monitor is frying neurons like bacon in a pan. It does, however, raise a very loud, very uncomfortable question. Why on earth aren’t we using infant specific safety standards for this? Now you might think, well, okay, but if it’s safe for adults, it’s probably safe for babies. Right? Wrong. Catastrophically wrong. A baby’s skull is two millimeters thick. For comparison, an adult skull is six to seven millimeters thick. That means a baby’s skull provides about as much protection from radiation as a piece of cardboard from a cereal box. But it gets worse. Research shows that infants can absorb up to ten times more radiation than adults from the same source in certain tissues like bone marrow. That’s the difference between getting misted with a spray bottle and being hit with a fire hose. So when safety standards say, this is fine for humans, again, they’re basing that on preventing tissue heating in adults, not protecting developing infant brains that are still figuring out how to make their hands work. Now here’s what’s fascinating. Baby monitor companies clearly know that parents are worried about EMF, and they’re not saying relax, it’s harmless. They’re saying, don’t worry, we engineered around it, which is kind of an admission that there’s something worth engineering around. Nanit designed a directional antenna. Miku claims a thousand times less radiation than a phone. An outlet actually publishes their SAR numbers. So no matter what the marketing spin is, the fact they’re even talking about this tells you everything. This is a real concern and they know it. At this point in our story, it’s safe to say that I have become mildly obsessed. Everyone online says WiFi baby monitors are dangerous. Buy non WiFi monitors instead. So I thought, fine. Let’s actually test that claim. So I bought nine of the most popular baby monitors on the market, six WiFi monitors and three safe non Wi Fi alternatives, and then got one of these to test them. This is a Trifield TF two, a two hundred dollar professional grade EMF meter that measures radio frequency power density in milliwatts per square meter. This is what building biologists and EMF consultants use. Yes. Building biologist is a real career. Apparently, I chose poorly. Anyways, the point is it’s not a thirty dollar Amazon toy. And because I know you’re wondering how I set up this test, first, I measured the background radiation in my house to create a baseline and then tested my WiFi router and I iPhone to ensure the device was calibrated. Then I set up cameras in realistic crib scenarios, wall mounted positions both two feet and five feet above the device, and collected a series of data over the course of a few weeks. Finally, I averaged everything. In fact, I feel so strongly about getting this right that I published my testing methodology and raw data. Check it out at father craft dot com slash e m f. And what I found should make every non Wi Fi baby monitor company deeply uncomfortable. Let’s walk through it. In most homes, background emf is basically nothing. It’s around point zero two milliwatts per square meter. That’s the quiet of modern life. Now let’s talk about the usual suspects. Your phone, while on a call and making contact with the meter, averages around one point zero milliwatts per square meter with spikes up to fourteen. Back it up to two feet, averages drop down to point two, and at five feet, down to point zero five. Your Wi Fi router at contact averages two point o with peaks off the scale at twenty plus. Back it up two feet down to point four. At five feet, point zero eight. Why? Physics. Radio waves follow the inverse square law. Double the distance, intensity drops by roughly seventy five percent. So distance from the source matters. Great. Hold that thought. More on that in a minute. For context, the FCC public exposure limit is ten thousand milliwatts per square meter averaged over time. But remember, that’s designed to prevent adult tissue heating, not protect infants lying next to a device running sixteen hours a day. Alright. So I tested nine monitors. Let me show you what I found. Now before we dig into this, I want you to notice something. See these three monitors? The VTech, Hello Baby, and BabySense. These are the Wi Fi free monitors. The ones commonly thought of as the safer alternative to the big, bad, scary WiFi baby monitors. No WiFi needed, hack proof, radiation free. Except they’re not radiation free, not even close. Let’s start with the WiFi monitors that everyone is supposedly scared of. Peaks at two feet, Nanit Pro, zero point three five milliwatts per square meter, Miku Pro, point three five, Harbor, point six one, Owlette, point six two. Hubo, point nine four. And Cradlewise, two point six five. Pretty low numbers. All orders of magnitude under the FCC limit. Most are barely above background noise. Now let’s look at the safe non WiFi alternatives. Peaks at two feet. VTech, four point five two milliwatts per square meter. Hello, baby, five point one two. BabySense, twelve point six four. BabySense, the monitor that literally has sense in the name and markets itself as a non WiFi alternative, emits thirty six times more radiation than nanic. Thirty six times. Hello Baby and VTech aren’t much better. And here’s the kicker, every single one of these monitors, WiFi or not, operates at two point four gigahertz. That’s the exact same radio band. So what’s going on here? How can the Wi Fi monitors be so much cleaner than the non Wi Fi monitors when they’re using the same frequency? The answer is painfully simple, engineering quality. The WiFi monitors, Nanit, Miku, Harbor, Cubo, Cradlewise, and Owlette are made by companies with actual r and d budgets. They use directional antennas, which beam the signal where it needs to go, not everywhere. Power optimization, which means the signal is only as strong as it needs to be, and quality components, which means efficient transmission and less power is needed overall. The budget non Wi Fi monitors, they use omnidirectional broadcasting, which means they spray the signal in every direction like some possessed garden sprinkler. High power transmission, which means they crank the volume to boost the range and compensate for cheap components. And finally, no EMF optimization whatsoever because they’re marketed as Wi Fi free and safe, so why bother? It’s the electromagnetic equivalent of the difference between a laser pointer and a floodlight. Same light, completely different delivery. And this matters because these budget monitors are being bought by the most concerned parents. The ones who did the research saw WiFi equals radiation and specifically chose the non WiFi option to protect their baby. They paid eighty to a hundred and sixty dollars to expose their infant to up to thirty six times more radiation than the three hundred dollar WiFi monitor they were trying to avoid. And here’s the thing, these budget baby monitor companies know this. They’re not stupid. They just know that no WiFi needed sells better than we cheaped out on the antenna design. Now there is some good news here. Distance still matters. Look at the five foot measurement peaks. BabySense drops from twelve point six four to four point two five. Hello, baby drops from five point one two to one point three two, and VTech drops from four point five two to one point five four. Still way higher than the WiFi monitors at five feet, which dropped to basically nothing, but it does show that distance is your best friend no matter what monitor you own. Even the dirtiest monitor gets dramatically cleaner when you just back it up a few feet. Alright. Now that I’ve scared the out of you, here’s what you can actually do without moving to a cabin in the middle of the woods and putting grounding mats everywhere. If you’re buying a new monitor, the data is clear. If you want a monitor with lower EMF radiation exposure, buy a premium WiFi monitor. Nanit, Miku, Harbor, they’re engineered to be clean. Yes. They cost more, but you’re not just paying for the extra features. You’re paying for the engineering that makes them emit ten to thirty times less radiation. If budget is an issue, buy one of the cheaper monitors, but mount it six plus feet away. Our testing shows that by doubling the distance, you cut exposure by seventy five percent. If you already own a baby monitor, first, check your distance. Most people, myself included prior to this research, mount these two to three feet away from the crib. I’ve also seen a bunch of those cute little articulating arms that mount the monitor on the crib. Do not do that. Back everything up. Six feet minimum. You can do this before your baby’s next nap. It’s free and it’s effective. Second, smart usage patterns. Turn it off when no one’s sleeping. Use audio only during naps if your monitor has that option. You don’t need twenty four seven live streaming like it’s Twitch for grandparents. Look. I get it. This is terrifying information. Maybe you bought a WiFi free monitor specifically to protect your child, and now I’m telling you that it might be doing the exact opposite. It’s a bit like finding out that car seats are made out of dynamite. But here’s the thing. You now have information that most parents don’t have. You can make choices that dramatically reduce any potential risk while still monitoring your baby effectively. This also isn’t about becoming a paranoid parent who wraps their house in aluminum foil. This is about applying the same precautionary thinking that we use everywhere else in parenting. We don’t let babies play with small objects because they might choke. We don’t give them honey because of botulism risk, and we baby proof electrical outlets even though the odds of electrocution are tiny. So why wouldn’t we take these simple steps to minimize radiation exposure when they’re this easy and the potential consequences based on that twenty twenty five study could affect your child’s development. Your baby’s brain is developing at an incredible rate right now. Every connection forming, every neural pathway being built, the premium Wi Fi companies clearly think EMF reduction matters. They’re engineering solutions and marketing their safety features. Maybe we should listen to what their actions are telling us. So here’s what I’m doing. First, I’ve personally moved the monitor I use for my son, Hank, back a couple of feet. It’s free. It’s not really sacrificing image quality, and it feels like a no brainer. Second, I’m publishing all of our testing data and our full methodology to father craft dot com slash e m f. You’ll find the chart we referenced in this video so you can compare your monitor against the others. Don’t see your monitor? Drop it in the comments below. I’ll see if I can keep updating this data over time. And please share this with other parents because right now, most people are choosing baby monitors based on Wi Fi free marketing with zero idea that their eighty dollars safe monitor might be pumping out thirty times more radiation than necessary. Your baby’s developing brain deserves the same informed decision making that you’d apply to car seats, cribs, and baby food. So go check out where that baby monitor is mounted and maybe skip the BabySense. Alright. That’s all for today. Thanks for watching. We’ll see you next time. Adios.

How I tested

Meter used: TriField TF2 (RF mode, measuring in mW/m²).
Devices tested: Nanit Pro, Miku Pro, Harbor, Cradlewise, Owlet, Cubo, vtech, Babysense, HelloBaby. As benchmarks: a cell phone and a WiFi router.
Setup:
- Monitors mounted as they would be in real life.
- Distances tested: 2′ (approximate Cradlewise crib placement) and 5′ (Nanit wall-mount placement).
- Benchmarks (phone and router) also tested at contact (0″), 2′, and 5′.
- Meter placed at pillow height (baby’s head position), pointed up at the monitor.
- Monitors set to video streaming ON.
Recording: For each run, we logged:
- Average (big bottom number): a rolling time average, sampled at 1s, 10s, 20s, and 30s, then reported as the median.
- Peak (tiny top-left number): the largest burst captured in that window.

Device	Distance	Reported Avg (mW/m²)	Reported Peak (mW/m²)	Peak ÷ Avg
Nanit Pro	2′	0.051	0.434	8.6
Nanit Pro	5′	0.032	0.170	5.3
Miku Pro	2′	0.151	0.570	3.8
Miku Pro	5′	0.049	0.410	8.5
Harbor	2′	0.066	0.680	10.3
Harbor	5′	0.066	0.280	4.3
Cradlewise	2′	0.300	2.600	8.7
Cell Phone	Contact	1.000	14.0	14.0
	2′	0.200	1.800	9.0
	5′	0.050	0.600	12.0
WiFi Router	Contact	2.000	20.0	10.0
	2′	0.400	3.000	7.5
	5′	0.080	0.800	10.0
Background	–	0.020	0.055	–

For those of us who prefer data in graph form, here’s the 2′ and 5′ monitor numbers visualized:

What the science tells us

How to read the numbers:

Inverse square law: RF power falls quickly with distance. Move from 0″ to 2′ to 5′ and the readings collapse, even when the device is powerful.
Bursty transmissions: WiFi and phones don’t transmit smoothly. They fire short bursts of high power, which show up in the Peak number. That’s why the Peak ÷ Avg ratio is often 5–10×.
Relative scale: Phones and routers are much noisier than baby monitors.
- Phones at contact: peaks ~14 mW/m².
- Routers at contact: peaks ~20 mW/m².
- Baby monitors at 2′–5′: peaks <3 mW/m², averages <0.3.

The obvious takeaway from these relative scale numbers: 1) don’t put your phone up to your baby’s ear so she can hear grandma talk to her. And, don’t put a wifi router near where your baby is sleeping.

Context: The FCC/ICNIRP public exposure limit is 10,000 mW/m² averaged over time. None of these devices come close. The concern for baby monitors is not raw intensity but chronic proximity — a monitor inches from a baby’s head vs mounted across the room.

Our results vs published research

Published benchmarks line up with what we measured:

Smart Cam (20 cm, McKenzie 2024): 0.32–0.85 mW/m² averages.
Baby Monitor (1 m, EMF-Portal): ~0.42 mW/m² average.
High Exposure Homes (Setia 2025): median ~8.66 mW/m², high tertile ~32 mW/m².
ICNIRP Public Limit: 10,000 mW/m².

The bottom line

Your choice of monitor matters, but placement matters more.

At 2′ (Cradlewise distance): hotter than Nanit/Miku/Harbor, but still far below phones or routers.
At 5′ (Nanit wall-mount distance): monitors blend into background.
Phones and routers are the bigger offenders in most homes.

Rule of thumb: keep WiFi baby monitors at least 6 feet from your child’s head. That step does more than comparing brand marketing claims.

Methodology and full data

Trial-Level Numbers

Type	Device	Distance	A Peak	A1	A2	A3	A4	B Peak	B1	B2	B3	B4
	Background		0.055	0.016	0.019	0.02	0.015	0.059	0.016	0.017	0.018	0.021
Control	Cell Phone	0″ contact	15.19	0.50	0.61	0.46	0.53	—
		2′	0.898	0.056	0.066	0.063	0.073	—
		5′	—	—	—	—	—	—
Control	Wifi Router	0″ contact	too hot	8.98	11.73	7.23	9.4	—
		2′	18.3	1.16	2.01	2.6	3.4	—
		5′	7.7	0.5	1.04	0.92	0.71	—
Wifi	Cradlewise	2′	2.65	0.22	0.33	0.27	0.18	2.52	0.217	0.174	0.198	0.228
Wifi	Cubo AI	2′	0.941	0.10	0.092	0.15	0.107	0.837	0.095	0.084	0.093	0.091
Wifi	Owlet	2′	0.618	0.07	0.06	0.12	0.08	0.736	0.07	0.08	0.07	0.122
Wifi	Harbor	2′	0.61	0.075	0.06	0.056	0.055	0.68	0.11	0.06	0.106	0.056
Wifi	Miku	2′	0.57	0.149	0.174	0.123	0.152	0.51	0.131	0.112	0.10	0.119
Wifi	Nanit	2′	0.35	0.047	0.044	0.049	0.053	0.434	0.047	0.054	0.046	0.067
Non-Wifi	Baby Sense	2′	12.64	4.25	4.46	4.29	4.19	13.25	4.13	4.27	4.49	4.43
Non-Wifi	VTech	2′	5.21	2.20	2.19	2.11	2.25	4.52	1.54	1.39	1.74	1.58
Non-Wifi	Hello Baby	2′	5.12	1.32	1.03	1.10	0.98	2.63	0.51	0.56	0.48	0.58
Wifi	Miku	5′	0.41	0.046	0.039	0.040	0.041	0.22	0.042	0.058	0.044	0.053
Wifi	Owlet	5′	0.322	0.24	0.24	0.24	0.24	0.403	0.25	0.26	0.26	0.25
Wifi	Cubo AI	5′	0.315	0.225	0.230	0.221	0.229	0.307	0.229	0.236	0.227	0.232
Wifi	Harbor	5′	0.28	0.061	0.065	0.074	0.066	0.25	0.069	0.058	0.060	0.059
Wifi	Nanit	5′	0.17	0.024	0.027	0.023	0.026	0.13	0.026	0.037	0.24	0.027
Non-Wifi	VTech	5′	1.21	0.33	0.23	0.19	0.26	1.06	0.37	0.44	0.33	0.39
Non-Wifi	Baby Sense	5′	0.87	0.36	0.35	0.36	0.36	2.11	0.40	0.39	0.38	0.40
Non-Wifi	Hello Baby	5′	0.54	0.32	0.30	0.28	0.29	1.09	0.26	0.27	0.25	0.26

All measurements in mW/m² (milliwatts per square meter) using TriField TF2. Scroll horizontally on mobile →

Question 4: so… what monitor should I buy?

Alright, you have the full dataset and testing.

Taking into account EMF data AND which of these monitors are actually good across the other factors I’ve tested, here’s what I think is worthy buying.

If you want the monitor with the absolute lowest EMF ratings, you should go with Nanit. And, bonus, Nanit has been our top monitor pick for many years running—it’s what we’ve used most with our own kids.

Miku and Harbor, two other wifi monitors, also have low EMF levels and are very solid picks. Harbor, the new kid on the block in the wifi baby monitor space, is our up-and-coming pick with its dedicated parent unit and fallback to a local network if your wifi goes out.

If your heart is still set on a non-wifi baby monitor…

Step 1: reconsider. Because the options, when you try to find the center of the venn diagram between 1) lower EMF scores and 2) does not suck, you will find the middle is… kind of empty.

Step 2: Do NOT mount your non-wifi monitor close to your baby. Higher EMF levels need to be countered with distance.

Step 3: Do NOT buy Babysense monitor. Worst EMF ratings AND scored low in our best non-wifi baby monitor testing (our YouTube video here).

Step 4: Choose the Vtech (Amazon). Our top overall non-wifi pick AND much lower EMF readings that Babysense. Hellobaby had a lower reading at 5′, but… it’s unfortunately a POS on just about everything else.

Please note Fathercraft is reader-supported, meaning, at no cost to you, we may earn a commission if you buy after clicking an affiliate link. Learn more. Also, we are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Harbor baby monitor review: Pros, cons, and the bottom line on connection quality

Tim Barczak — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 04:12:26 +0000

The Harbor baby monitor promises a reliable and consistent connection. And while this may seem like the bare minimum, you’d be surprised how many other wifi monitors struggle in this department. Bringing both wifi and closed, direct connection capabilities to the scene, we feel like Harbor has the potential to set a new standard in the world of baby tech.

We’ve been using this baby monitor for five months (and counting) with our now-five-month-old infant (who is, of course, the light of our world)… needless to say, our standards our high. In this Harbor baby monitor review, we’ll chat about whether or not we feel like this new brand delivers on their promises, including a bottom line on how much we truly rely on Harbor’s connection (TLDR: We keep Harbor turned on even when trying out other monitors, because we know it has our back).

The definitely-not-sleeping light of our world in question (pic courtesy of Harbor’s “capture” feature)

Read straight through for the whole picture, or skip to what you need:

What makes the Harbor baby monitor different from other wifi monitors?
The pros
The cons
Bottom line on connection quality
Pricing and where to buy
Final verdict

Please note: Fathercraft is reader supported, meaning, at no cost to you, we may earn a commission if you buy after clicking an affiliate link. Learn more.

What makes the Harbor Baby Monitor different from other wifi monitors?

Positioned as a direct competitor to Nanit, Harbor promises to outperform other wifi monitors with a connection that doesn’t fail. They back this promise up with two distinctions from other popular monitors:

Most wifi monitors rely on your phone or tablet to act as the “parent unit” (i.e., the device you use to see and hear your child). With Harbor, you can use your phone, but Harbor also supplies a large, high-resolution, dedicated unit.

Although Harbor is primarily a wifi monitor, it can automatically switch to a closed, direct connection (i.e., not your internet) if your wifi goes out. No matter what happens to your internet, you’re always connected to your child’s camera!

So, is the Harbor seaworthy? While it wasn’t smooth sailing from the get-go, we’ve come to rely on this monitor as one of our personal favorites. Even when we use our other monitor (the CuboAi), we leave the Harbor on as backup, because we know we can rely on its connection.

Harbor baby baby monitor review

Here are the pros, cons, and the final verdict:

Harbor baby monitor pros

High-quality hardware

From the beginning, we could tell it was quality hardware. With packaging similar to how Apple packs its products, the care for the product was apparent when opening the box.

A pleasant unboxing experience

Easy setup and app installation

Setup and installation was a breeze and took less than 5 minutes (i.e., much shorter than getting a baby to sleep so we could use said monitor).

The box contains this + the wall mount

Picture quality

The picture quality is terrific on the app and not too shabby on the tablet. We love the size of the tablet because we can set it up far away and still have a clear view so we don’t always have to have it right next to us.

Customizable notifications

The ability to receive actually helpful notifications to your devices is, in my opinion, one of Harbor’s best features. At first, our notifications were overly sensitive and picked up random noises like our other daughter singing the entire Frozen soundtrack a capella in her room next door. However, after some tinkering in the settings, I was able to set up specific notifications based on noise level and duration. So, if our precious little baby child is crying softly for 30 seconds we get a notification. If she is crying loudly for 5 seconds, also a notification. You can easily set up multiple different notifications to fit your preferences.

The notification settings also determine when the tablet automatically lights up and transmits audio. You can set it a “smart” feed, and you will only hear noise if the alerts are triggered. This is great if you want to block out white noise when you’re trying to snooze yourself. But if you’d prefer to have a constant audio feed, you can opt for that. We loved the ability to toggle between the two options.

Battery life

The battery life on the Harbor tablet is incredible! We are not known in our house for remembering to plug things back up. In fact, as I type this my partner’s Apple Watch is dead and in need of a charge but cannot because my phone is also on low battery and in need of a charge. Needless to say, having a tablet with a long lasting battery is quite nice.

Harbor baby monitor cons

Non-wifi expectations vs. reality

We had originally wanted to use the monitor without our wifi, but found out that the direct connection feature was primarily meant for wifi outages and/or traveling purposes with a limited range of 50 feet. Naturally we decided to connect to wifi–this improved the monitor’s functionality considerably.

Note: How much is 50 feet? We live in a 1,800-square-foot house. If my baby is sleeping upstairs in her nursery, and I’m downstairs in our kitchen, we’re about as far away from each other as you can get in our house. The direct connection (i.e, no internet) is spotty at this distance. If we’re both upstairs, it works. This is good news, because if our home’s wifi goes out overnight while we’re asleep, Harbor’s closed connection works just fine (all of our bedrooms are upstairs). So, it works as intended. But if you’re hoping to not use your wifi, this may be a struggle depending on the size of your home… for now. Word on the street is that the direct connection range will be improving to up to 150 feet pretty soon.

Wall mount vs. bird’s eye view

Out of the box, Harbor monitor only comes with a wall mount, so there’s no option for a bird’s eye view. But, Harbor sells a $20 mount that will allow you to attach the Harbor to a standard floor stand, like this one on Amazon.

The CuboAI and the Harbor side-by-side, featuring our disheveled changing table

Some connection issues at first (resolved with updates)

When we first received the Harbor, we had some connection issues (more on that below). We have also had some instances where updates occur at inopportune moments. This is a double-edged sword, though. With each update, the quality of the Harbor monitor has improved, which is nice. However, when the update comes mid-nap it is not nice. Most of the time we are able to put off the update for a better time, but once or twice we ran into a snafu.

Bottom line on connection quality

The Harbor’s whole shtick is superior connection quality.

Straight from the Harbor website: We started Harbor after Nanit failed us. We learned the hard way, apps on phones are not baby monitors.

Because this is such a big deal to them, we wanted to get super clear on our connection opinion: It’s everything we need it to be now.

We had our hands on a Harbor basically as soon as they’d ship one out (so very, very early). They quickly released updates to get their connection capabilities in line with what they promised. Now, Harbor is the monitor we never turn off, because we know if another monitor we’re trying fails, the Harbor will have our back.

A note on the remote night nanny program

I didn’t feel like I could write a review on Harbor without mentioning their remote night nanny program, but the honest truth is that we didn’t use it. For an additional cost, this feature grants temporary, secure, remote access to an actual and credentialed human who will monitor your child and alert you if you’re needed.

My wife and I didn’t feel totally comfortable with this, but I’ll admit it is a super unique feature. I’ve also seen genuinely positive reviews. One that stood out to me involved a mom who used the service when her partner was traveling. She was happy to have an extra set of eyes on the baby, and the service worked well for her.

Pricing and where to buy

Harbor actually changed their pricing model after we received our model. Instead of offering different subscription tiers, everyone now pays one flat fee for the camera, parent unit, and all the features (for life!)—no subscription required. This change was made in response to customer feedback, and honestly, we’re here for it… subscriptions for monitors and other baby gear are all the rage, with Harbor, no subscription required.

Here are the details:

Harbor baby monitor price: $499

This includes the following features for life (no need to renew in a year):

1 camera
1 tablet
Desktop and mobile app (currently compatible with Mac and iOS)
Record & Rewind
Always on Failsafe Notifications
Smart Audio
End-to-End Encryption
30 Days of Moments
On Device Storage
Access to Remote Night Nannies (additional charge)
Streams up to 2k
Split Screen Views (up to 4 kids)
Control Volume/Zoom Across Cameras
Customized Guest Schedules
Apple® Watch Notifications
Complimentary Care Text Line

You can purchase the Harbor directly from their website or from Amazon.

Harbor Baby monitor final verdict

The tablet, reliable connection (that seems to only get better), and straight-forward pricing make this monitor a yes for us. We’re crossing our fingers for a solid future for Harbor… and maybe a floor stand

Looking for more baby monitor reviews?

Here at Fathercraft, we pride ourselves on being baby gear experts. We’ve tested the best of the best and (let’s be honest) the worst of the worst when it comes to baby monitors. Looking for other resources? Check out our checklists, product reviews, and our guide to the third trimester.

CuboAi Smart Baby Monitor 3 review: How does the new model deliver on connection, resolution, and more?

Paul Zalewski — Sat, 18 Jan 2025 02:52:29 +0000

Tweet, tweet. That’s the noise the bird-shaped CuboAi Smart Baby Monitor 3 makes, via an alert on my phone, when my daughter cries.

Honestly, the little bird noise takes the edge off the 3:00am wakeups. And, beautiful birdsong aside, the new and improved CuboAi monitor has a lot going for it. So, in this CuboAi baby monitor review, we dive into the latest improvements to notification speed, connectivity, and resolution. Plus, we’ll cover how this monitor stacks up against the rest of the wifi baby monitor crowd.

Check out the whole review or jump to what you need:

What is the CuboAi baby monitor?
What’s new with the CuboAi smart baby monitor 3?
Setup and use
CuboAi pros
CuboAi cons
Is it a pro? Is it a con? You decide
Verdict
Pricing and where to buy

Please note: Fathercraft is reader supported, meaning, at no cost to you, we may earn a commission if you buy after clicking an affiliate link. Learn more.

What is the CuboAi baby monitor?

The CuboAi 3 shares features common to other wifi baby monitors like the Nanit (you can find all of our baby monitor reviews here):

Unlimited range. If your child unit is connected to wifi and your phone is connected to wifi or cellular, you can connect to your monitor.
Use your phone as the parent unit. No need to carry around an (often bulky) additional parent unit.
Strong picture quality. Since you’re using your phone’s display, if the monitor’s got a good camera, you’re going to get a good picture vs often lower-quality displays on traditional monitors.

CuboAi also has a solid list of advanced features that set this monitor apart:

Covered face alerts: Cubo uses AI to recognize when your child’s face is covered by a blanket or swaddle. Since a covered face can be extremely dangerous for young babies, this is a really nice safety feature… when it works correctly (we’ll talk about this later, but… holy notifications).

Temperature and humidity sensors and alerts: Cubo Plus monitors temp and humidity via a discreet cord that runs through the monitor stand (so there’s no chance of your child grabbing on—an improvement from the original model). You can set a “comfort range” and CuboAi will notify you if you’re out of range.

Safe zones and a ‘fence’ for alerts: You can set a virtual “fence” around your child’s crib that will let you know if she climbs out of her crib when she’s older, or set a “danger zone: (your kitchen, for example) for older babies or toddlers who are crawling or walking around. If your child goes past this fence, the monitor will alert you. We love this feature, because it increases the lifespan of CuboAi… it’s helpful for older children, too!

Automatic photo capture and events replay: The latest model uses its motion detection to automatically capture photos of your child moving about during the night or during naps, and you can watch video replays of your child’s night (CuboAi 3 stores 72 hours of video).

Get daily pictures like this

Sleep analytics: CuboAi’s analytics isn’t as fancy as Nanit’s, but you can get basic information about night-time wakeups, time spent asleep, and caregiver visits. You need a fancy-pants subscription to get daytime nap analytics.

And more…: Honestly, the amount of CuboAi’s features are one of its strengths. We could keep going, but you’d probably stop reading, so to quickly sum up the rest: adjustable night light, in-app lullabies, bird’s eye view.

Our original CuboAi video review is below. Want to know what’s new? Keep reading.

What’s different from the old model?

CuboAi is starting 2025 off strong, with some major upgrades on their new CuboAi Smart Monitor 3. Since I’m now out of the baby monitor stage, I asked Kristan and Tim (who also write stuff for Fathercraft) to test out this latest model with their three-month-old. Here’s what’s improved since I last used a Cubo monitor:

Faster notification speed: With improved AI capabilities, Cubo managed to speed up its notifications by 6x! In other words, you basically get the notification instantly when something’s up with your baby (e.g., she cries, covers her face, etc.). Kristan and Tim confirmed they consistently get notifications just a second or two after their daughter starts crying.

72-hour playback: Scrub through a 72-hour playback with no subscription required.

Growth tracker: CuboAi’s Smart Monitor 3 will measure and track your baby’s height.

Connection: With the very first model, we dealt with a fair number of connection issues that seemed to improve with the second model… but the internet remained skeptical. Tim and Kristan say they rarely dealt with connection issues with the Gen 3. When issues did arise, Cubo quickly released an update that resolved them.

CuboAi 3 setup and use

Like all wifi monitors, to set up CuboAi you need to first download the app (free from the Apple App Store or Google Play store), and then follow the app’s instructions for connecting the child unit to your home wifi.

The app’s setup guide is well done and much easier than the previous Cubo model’s. The old Cubo app used to have issues connecting to Wi-Fi, but the newest model has upgraded the user experience. They also included some super useful tips on the bottom of the main page. Good job, Cubo!

Setting up the Cubo!

Once connected, you can set danger zones, allowable temperature and humidity ranges, and more.

The biggest choice for parents of babies will be where to mount your Cubo. As we’ve discussed with other baby monitor reviews, we strongly prefer a “bird’s eye view” mount, which has your monitor mounted above the crib looking straight down into it. This prevents any blind spots and gives you a great view of what your baby is doing.

Cubo’s stand allows for this type of mounting, and crucially keeps cords contained inside the stand itself, preventing the cord from being grabbed by your baby and possibly wrapped around her neck. (Cords from monitors and all other devices should be positioned at least 3 feet away from your baby’s crib for safety.)

There is no automatic pan or tilt with the CuboAi, but you can manually move the camera up and down to find optimal viewing angle.

Once you’re set up, you’ll do everything from the app, which is simple and easy to use. The home screen displays the live feed, automatic photos, your child’s age, and more:

There are three other tabs in the app:

Sleep Analytics tab shows when your baby went to bed, average time to fall asleep, caregiver visits, and longest sleep period.
The Notifications tab shows a history of the camera’s alerts including temperature and humidity warnings, baby cried, motion, etc.
The Settings tab allows you to adjust settings, get help, pair a new camera, and more.

Our CuboAi smart baby monitor 3 review

CuboAi pros

Image and sound quality: With the upgrades to image quality, both Cubo’s day and night image quality is among the best, and it’s audio quality is quite good, too. These things paired with the bird’s eye view mean you can easily see, hear, and understand what’s going on with your baby. Out of all the monitors Tim and Kristan have tested or used, CuboAi takes the cake with this one. Added bonus? The cute, high-quality pictures the monitor automatically takes for you.

Breath detection: With the purchase of a sleep sensor pad, CuboAi can detect your baby’s breathing. You can see how many breaths per minute your baby is taking, and CuboAi will alert you if it detects no breathing. We’ve received no false alarms with this feature, which we appreciate.

Design—both real world and the app: Cubo is a well-designed product. It looks really nice, kids will love the design as they get older (the same cannot be said for some other baby monitors), and everything from the unboxing to the mobile app is well-designed and intuitive.

Temperature and humidity alerts are actually accurate: We’ve tried monitors in the past that never seem to have the temperature right. This monitor seems ot accurately detect the temperature and humidity of the room. Tim and Kristan can actually see the improvement when they use a humidifier, for example. Super helpful in the winter!

Distinguishes baby noise from background noise: CuboAi seems to do a great job knowing when a noise comes from your baby vs. some other kind of background noise. CuboAi “knows” when your baby is in the crib, so you don’t get notifications when your baby isn’t in the crib.

CuboAi cons

Water bag is used with the floor stand: Kristan and Tim appreciated the inclusion of the floor stand, but wished it was just weighted. Instead, you have to fill up a water bag, which felt a little sketchy.

“Covered face” alert is overly sensitive: This is by far our biggest con. Tim and Kristan’s baby tends to sleep on her side, and sometimes rests her little hand on her face:

CuboAi registers this as a “covered face” and notifies them constantly. Here, you can see where Kristan received 100 notifications overnight (some of which were also about humidity):

To be fair, you can turn this feature off, but it would be a lot cooler if it was just a bit more accurate.

Is it a pro? Is it a con? You decide

AI: Obviously the CuboAi uses AI. Hopefully, if you’re considering buying it, you’re good with that kind of thing. AI is responsible for a lot of Cubo’s standout features, like its ability to “know” when your baby is in the crib, to take pictures, and to alert you when baby’s face is covered. But we know it may freak some people out, and Kristan noted having some environmental concerns with the usage of AI.

Lack of a parent unit: Most traditional monitors come with a parent unit—the thing you carry around and use to look in on your sleeping little one. Most wifi monitors (including the CuboAi) don’t have a parent unit, because you can use your phone. Some people (like Tim) prefer this, because you aren’t carrying around an extra unit, you can get notifications when your baby cries (as opposed to having the video constantly playing), and the resolution is typically so much better it’s hardly even comparable.

But some people (like Kristan) prefer a good, old-fashioned parent unit. In her words:

I wouldn’t return the CuboAi for a different wifi monitor. I think it works great for what it is. I also love using it during the day and taking advantage of some of the features, like the breath detection and the photo library. But I still use a backup monitor with a parent unit at night (the Harbor). It’s not exactly affordable to invest in two monitors, so I think it’s important to know what you’d prefer. CuboAi’s notifications often don’t wake me up, and I sleep a bit easier with the constant stream coming from a parent unit.

A verdict

The Cubo’s design is both fun and functional, it’s feature list is substantial and full of stuff that’s actually useful. If you’re looking for a solid wifi baby monitor at a quite-reasonable price point, CuboAi is a good bet as long as you’re okay with using your phone as the parent unit.

Pricing and where to buy the CuboAi smart baby monitor 3

You have two options when purchasing the CuboAi 3:

Floor stand set: $359
Wall mount set: $239

Both sets come wiith:

The bird-shaped monitor
Either the floor stand or a wall mount, depending on. what you chose to purchase (obviously)
A mobile stand
1 free year of the CuboAi premium subscription

At the time of writing, CuboAi’s 3rd generation model can only be purchased on Cubo’s site.

What’s next?

Here at Fathercraft, we make stuff to help parents become the best versions of themselves. Preparing for a new baby? Check out our baby essentials checklist for all things baby-related and our third trimester checklist for all things parents-related.

Editor’s notes:

This article was originally published in 2021, but was updated in January 2025 to reflect our experience with generation 3
Also, we are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Nanit Pro review: Why this Smart Sleep System has been one of our favorites for 3+ years

John Doht — Mon, 24 Jun 2024 14:46:06 +0000

Product: Nanit Pro Sleep System
Made by: Nanit
Product type: Baby monitor + customizable accessories
Price: $249 – $399
Review period: 3+ years

Here’s the deal: almost all baby monitors suck. And we’ve tried A LOT of them. Picture quality, range, ease of use, sound quality… you’re always going to compromise on something.

But the Nanit—which offers a “full suite of smart monitoring“—has been one of our favorites for years.

Why? Let’s dive in.

An in-depth review of the Nanit Pro Smart Baby Monitor

We’ve spent a lot of time with Nanit. We started testing the Nanit Pro (their current monitor) when it came out in 2021. Before that, we spent a total of 2.5 years with the Nanit Original and Nanit Plus (neither of which are sold anymore), so we’ve had a front-row seat to how much Nanit has evolved as not just a monitor but an entire sleep monitoring system.

We’ve kept detailed notes, tested the top competitors, and distilled all that information down to a written review, as well as a fun, detailed, and sort of ridiculous video for you.

We’ll start with the video and then cover (click/tap on a section to skip ahead to it):

What is the Nanit?
What’s the difference between Nanit Pro and Nanit Plus?
How the Nanit works, broken down into its various parts
What about Breathing Wear?
Nanit sound + light
Nanit pricing and options
The awesome, the wish it were different, and a verdict
The Nanit vs Nest Cam
Nanit vs Arlo Baby
Nanit vs iBaby
FAQs: Alexa, HSA eligibility, and more

So, here we go.

To start, here’s a video review of the Nanit Pro, along with a deeply weird (and fake) press briefing:

Quick note: In the video below, we mention the Miku Pro baby monitor, which we were in the process of testing at the time of filming. Since then, there have been reports of hackers accessing the Miku, and the company itself went bankrupt, so we no longer recommend it. You can read our Miku review and disclaimer here. Also, the “smart sheet” shown in the unboxing portion of this video doesn’t appear to come with the camera anymore. You’d have to purchase it separately.

Editor’s note (again): Wondering WTF about the press conference? Short story: we recently got accused (via YouTube comment) of having our channel be “heavily sponsored” by Nanit. Not actually true, we’ve never received sponsorship from Nanit. We may be compensated, via affiliate links, if you click a link and make a purchase. This is at no cost to you and supports our reviews. More on our policies here.

What, exactly, is a Nanit?

At a glance, Nanit’s website can feel a little overwhelming. Monitors, sound machines, apps, and subscriptions… just tell me what I need!

The simplest way to explain the Nanit system: It’s one smart camera monitor—the Nanit Pro—with multiple options for stands and accessories. You can go simple and just monitor your baby (or multiple babies!… split screen for the win) via a high resolution live stream or you can enable sleep data and insights, breathing ware, and even milestone tracking.

Unboxing the Nanit Pro

The Wall Street Journal dubbed Nanit, “a $249 AI parent who stays up all night logging rollovers and breathing patterns.” We found this to be pretty spot-on, because of Nanit’s smart capabilities, which offer insights into how to improve your baby’s overall nighttime sleep experience.

How smart can you make your nursery? Check out our reviews of the Snoo and the Cradlewise for more ways to make your nights a little bit easier.

Sleep quality is a huge determining factor in the health and development of your child (not to mention maintaining the sanity of parents), so we think any tool that can potentially improve life in this area is worth an in-depth look.

What’s the difference between Nanit Pro and Nanit Plus?

In March 2021, Nanit launched the Nanit Pro, the 3rd iteration of the Nanit baby monitor (The Nanit Plus, version 2 of Nanit, launched in October 2018). Nanit no longer sells the Nanit Original or Nanit Plus.

So, what are the upgrades for Nanit Pro vs Nanit Plus? The biggest differences:

The big one? Resolution. The Nanit Pro brings full 1080p resolution to the Nanit. (Nanit Plus is 960p.) This is a big improvement, as shown below:

Nanit Plus v Nanit Pro image quality

Related: night vision improvements. Nanit Pro also makes a big leap in night vision image quality, offering a noticeably crisper image.

Improvements to monitoring multiple children. You can now monitor up to two children on the same split screen, including the temperature and humidity of both of their rooms.

Add-on accessories and software improvements. Nanit Pro also features an updated app experience, and some added features like baby measurement (you need Nanit’s crib sheets—”Smart Sheets” of course—for this to work, but hey, you need crib sheets anyway), and a surprisingly adorable “smart memories” feature that creates a virtual scrapbook of your babies growth and moments.

Aww, koalas.

A few more improvements Nanit has made since launch:

Two-way audio communication
Improved sound quality
App upgrades

Unboxing Nanit Pro, and how does it work?

When you purchase a Nanit Pro, you get:

The monitor/camera (the child unit)
The stand or mount you selected (floor stand, flex stand, or wall mount)
The Nanit App for your smartphone or table. Unlike most monitors, the Nanit does not come with a dedicated “parent unit” (i.e., the screen with a speaker that allows you to watch and hear your child). Nanit is BYOD (bring your own device) for the parent unit, via an iOS or Android app. More on this later, but you do not need a paid subscription for basic live stream monitoring.
Small breathing ware band (0-3 months)

Here’s what was in our Nanit Pro box (note: the crib sheet is no longer included):

What’s inside the box – the camera, wall mount and hardware, cords, and plug (bespoke knife not included, sorry.)

Let’s dive into each of these components …

The child unit (monitor/camera)

A close-up view of Nanit’s camera and monitor

If you’ve been following the self-driving car movement, you’ve likely heard of computer vision as the process by which computers can “see” through cameras and interpret visual inputs. Nanit applies this technology to “see” your baby and interpret things your baby does (tiny movements while sleeping, larger movements when awake or crying). The monitor’s camera records high definition video, which is then run through an algorithm that learns your child’s sleep patterns over time and uses this pattern recognition to send you alerts (your baby is awake, for example) and make recommendations for improving her sleep quality.

This all starts to feel very “AI baby stuff of the future” but there some distinctions that bring you back to the present. For example, Nanit’s sleep analysis works only if the camera is mounted directly above your baby’s crib, looking directly down in a birds-eye view. So you’ll forgo the sleep analysis feature if you use the flex stand that allows the Nanit camera to sit on a dresser.

There are some real advantages to forcing this directly overhead—primarily that Nanit’s wide-angle lens captures the entire crib, meaning that your child is always in view. If you’ve used a traditional monitor on top of a dresser near the crib, for example, you’ll know this can create blind spots or near blind spots in the crib that can get frustrating as your child begins to roll around when sleeping.

The bird’s eye view from the Nanit’s camera

Camera performance

Picture quality is one of the highlights of Nanit Pro. It boasts a true HD-quality 1080p real-time feed, made to look even better if you have a newer smartphone or tablet with a great-looking screen. Nanit also features infrared light for night vision, which was excellent in my testing.

Mounting Nanit’s camera

Ther are three ways to mount the Nanit camera. You’ll choose one of the following options when you purchase the Nanit (you can add additional options via the bundles or purchase them separately later on):

Wall mount hardware

Camera attached to the flex stand

Wall Mount: You screw the Nanit into the wall above your child’s crib in a location that places the camera in the center of the crib. It’s critical that the camera is in the middle of the crib on a long side as the Nanit app isn’t flexible with orientation. So if you mount the camera on the end of the crib as opposed to the side, your orientation will be screwed up. (Within the app settings you can tell the Nanit exactly what area of the crib it should focus on, so even if you are forced to place the stand at the foot of the bassinet/crib the monitor should be able to capture what it needs (see app settings section for more info). The wall mount also comes with a cable cover to prevent your child from reaching through crib bars and yanking the cable. Once your wall mount is set up, the camera snaps in and out easily in case you want to bring it (along with the Multi-Stand) with you on a trip.
Floor Stand mount: For those not wanting to drill into their walls, an optional floor stand is available for Nanit. The floor stand positions the Nanit in the overhead orientation, allowing you to mimic where the Nanit would be if installed via wall mount.
Flex stand: Nanit bills the flex stand as a stand you can use to bring the Nanit on the go (to grandparents’ houses, on trips, etc). It’s a small 6-inch stand that positions the camera to face outward toward a crib, pack ‘n play, bassinet, etc. Again, it’s important to be aware that sleep analytics are not available when you use the flex stand. But it does allow you to set up alerts for if a child enters an “off-limits area.” I appreciated that the Multi-Stand comes with an 8′ cord, as it seems plugs are always further away than you want them to be.

The parent unit (the Nanit App + your smartphone or tablet)

The Nanit App is available as a free download for iOS and Android, and acts as the control center for the Nanit monitor. I’ll break down the individual sections of the app below, but an important overall note is that the app does allow for background audio, meaning that even while the app is closed on your phone, you’ll still be able to hear your child. I also experimented using an old iPad as a “dedicated” parent unit with the Nanit by disabling the auto-screen lock. This worked quite well, though it did require it to be plugged in if using for long periods with the screen on, as that required lots of battery life. Inside the app you’ll find:

The monitor’s live feed (you do not need a paid subscription for this): Here you’ll see what you’d expect from a baby monitor—the HD live feed of what’s going on in the crib, the ability to see full screen, snap a picture of your baby, turn on the Nanit’s light (this is angled upward to help you see when visiting your child, but not shine a light directly in his eyes), and the ability to turn on and off audio. There are also a few bells and whistles. Nanit monitors the temperature and humidity in the room. And finally, in the upper-right-hand corner a comforting “live” indicator and connection status bars, much like the cellular reception bars on your phone, indicates the monitor is working. Here’s what it looks like on an iPhone 8+

Live stream view of Nanit Camera on iPhone 8+

Activity (with paid subscription): Within this section of the app, you’ll be able to scroll through a history of what your child’s been up to while in his crib, and can jump back in time to previous days (up to 30 days back with the standard Nanit Insights package, up to a year back with the “Unlimited Insights” package). Within the Activity Stream, you can view a sped-up version of your child’s previous nights, showing you when he woke up, stirred, was attended to by you or your partner, etc. More on Nanit Insights below.

The activity feed.

Dashboard (with paid subscription): The dashboard is a collection of your child’s sleep stats, including an overall score, when she went to sleep, the total time spent in the crib, total time asleep, how many times you or your partner visited your child, and “sleep efficiency”, a metric calculated by how much time your child spent asleep divided by the total time she spent in her crib.

Dashboard gives you a collection of stats and a rating for your child’s night from a sleep perspective.

Settings. Within settings, you can add users (adding your partner, another caregiver, etc.), add additional cameras, etc., and do some configuration like showing the Nanit the area of its view that constitutes your child’s sleeping area.

The paid subscription, aka Nanit Insights

Nanit Insights is a software subscription service that takes all of the data collected by the Nanit camera and sensors and turns it into insights – stats, analysis, and personalized sleep recommendations for your child.

You don’t need an insights plan for the Nanit camera to work in the most basic sense (i.e., to live stream your baby’s activity). You also don’t need a subscription to access the “care log” or to monitor temperature/humidity. .

But the Insights subscription does provide some cool extras and allows you to see time-lapse videos of your baby’s night, keep a video history of these time lapses, and get sleep tips from Nanit’s experts. I found the time-lapse videos fun and interesting, but there’s only one speed at which you could play back the timelapse and it’s a bit slow for my taste.

A few other cool Insights features as of updating this review in 2024:

Multiple users on parenting “team”
Ability to save memories to an in-app album
Capture milestones like rolling over and sitting (with milestones plan)

There are two options for Insights plans:

Memories ($120/year): Limited sleep analysis plan, with 30 days of sleep insights and the ability to add up to 10 users to the parenting team
Milestones ($300/year): All the sleep analysis you could want, milestone tracking, and the ability to add up to 50 users to the parenting team

If you’re just interested in sleep analysis, you might be able to save some money with the Memories Insights Plan. But if you want to go all out with videos and images, the Milestones plan might be for you.

What about Breathing Wear?

Nanit breathing wear involves a band (or a band incorporated into a sleep sack or pajamas) that allows Nanit Pro to monitor your chid’s breathing using the camera to “watch” the movement of a special pattern of shapes printed on the breathing wear band. This differs from some monitors (like Owlet) that monitor breathing by attaching actual tech to your child’s foot. Breathing wear includes no tech in the band that attaches to your child, just fabric, which is certainly a benefit.

In our testing, we’ve found Nanit to be a strong option for monitoring breathing, if a bit of a hassle in the sense that you need to manually lock on to the pattern each time you put your baby using the Nanit app. Purchase of your Nanit Pro includes a breathing band for 0-3 months, but continued breathing monitoring does require the additional purchase of something from the breathing wear line of products. We were okay with this, because you’re going to want a sleep sack anyway, and the Breathing Wear Swaddle is a good one. When your baby is rolling over, you can transition to the Sleeping Bag or Nanit Pajamas. You will need to purchase an Insights plan for the full breathing ware experience.

Manually connecting to the Nanit Breathing Band using the app.

Nanit Sound + Light

Nanit’s latest offering is a smart sound + light machine. Like other sound machines on the market, the Nanit Sound + Light machine ($99) works as a nightlight and can play different sounds to help your child sleep or cue them to wake up. But the Nanit machine also offers audio monitoring, cry detection, and temperature and humidity monitoring. With an Insights subscription, you can also get predictive monitoring.

Nanit Pro Price & Options

By itself, the Nanit Pro is fairly comparable to other baby monitors on the market. But when you start adding floor stands and subscriptions, it can get pretty darn expensive. That said, it’s clear with Nanit you’re also paying for quality—a truly excellent camera and monitor (see below), a well-thought-out design, an intuitive app, and a really impressive insights.

There are three ways to buy a Nanit Pro:

Nanit Pro + Floor Stand: $399
Nanit Pro + “Flex Stand”: $249
Nanit Pro + Wall Mount: $299

A few other items of interest:

Insights plan: $120/year – $300/year
Sound + Light Machine: $99.99
Breathing Wear Swaddle: $30
Breathing Wear Pajamas: $30

Total:

$249-$699, depending on options, accessories, and subscription plan. The cheapest option is to buy the Nanit Pro with the flex stand for $249, but you’ll basically be getting a high-quality camera (cool) with no extra sleep analytics or smart features (not as cool).

Bundles & Discounts

It’s definitely worth checking Nanit’s website as the company offers discounts fairly regularly (at the time of updating this review [June 2024], they’re offering a free sound + light machine with the purchase of a Pro!). They also offer several bundles that can help save you some money.

Nanit also offers a 45-day “worry free” guarantee, meaning you can return it, no questions asked, within 45 days for a full refund, less the cost of shipping it back to Nanit.

The awesome, the “wish it were different” and a verdict

The awesome

Picture and sound quality is simply outstanding. The Nanit’s HD camera, paired with a retina-display-quality smartphone makes for truly excellent live video feed quality. Even when zooming in, very little picture pixelation occurs. This was one of the things that consistently surprised me about Nanit – the experience of being relatively far away from Calvin and seeing a crisp, clear picture was so unexpected versus other baby monitors I’ve used it was an ongoing positive surprise. Likewise, sound quality, produced by the Nanit’s highly-calibrated microphone and my phone’s speaker (I used my iPhone 12 for testing) produced extremely clear sound.

Unlimited range. When we made our complaints about baby monitors to kick off this review, lack of range was a big one, and often something you end up sacrificing. With Nanit, so long as you have a reliable wifi network where your baby is located and you and your smartphone or tablet are either connected to either that wifi network, a different wifi network, or cell service, you’ll be connected to your baby. Practically, I found this to come in handy when I was:

Separated from Calvin by several floors (he’s currently sleeping in our room on the top floor, our traditional monitor wouldn’t reach to the basement.
Outside doing yard work. Our wifi doesn’t reach all the way to the edge of the yard, but with cell service, I remained connected.
At work and wanting to check in. A magic moment happened for me with the Nanit when I was at work and Calvin’s grandpa was watching him. I got a text that Calvin was moving around a lot, and wondering if he should be gotten up. I was able to check Nanit, see that he was just doing his normal stirring, and tell his grandpa to let him be for a bit. Calvin slept for another precious hour.

Portability. If you travel with your baby or have family you visit frequently, you’ll know the pain of trying to bring your monitor with you – unplugging both the parent and child units, packing them (and their individual cords) up, setting them up at your new location, etc. Nanit has two advantages here – first, since your smartphone is the parent unit, that’s coming with you anyway and isn’t an extra item (and cord) to pack up. Second, since the camera easily snaps into and out of the wall or floor stand mount, and the Multi-Stand is designed for travel, it’s as simple as grabbing the camera, the Multi-Stand, and walking out the door. When you’re back, just snap the camera into your permanent setup at home and everything’s good to go and perfectly set up. This is quite different than a monitor that doesn’t snap into and out of a permanent wall or floor stand – with those monitors, you end up trying to remember exactly where you had it set up, and needing to reposition to find that perfect angle again. Heads up that connecting to hotel wifi networks that don’t require a password or have some non home-wifi type setup may be challenging or impossible. We recommend the Cloud Baby Monitor app for those instances—any two phones or tablets, one is parent unit, one is child unit.

App bells and whistles. Overall, the app has an intuitive and easy to use interface. And its bells and whistles can come in handy. For example, you can have Nanit’s app alert you if the temperature drops below a certain pre-set threshold. Over the winter when we were out with Calvin for the evening, I got an alert that the temperature had dropped due to our Nest Thermostat’s Eco Mode. I was able to use the Nest App to adjust the temperature so it was a comfortable sleeping temp by the time we got home, which was good because it was emergency bedtime for Calvin upon arrival.

Movement Maps — another cool bell (or maybe whistle?

Safety and security. I really appreciated the fact Nanit has put so much effort into safety and security across a number of different areas. Cables are well managed and kept away from your child, which is particularly useful for older children apt to reach through crib bars. Nanit features 256-bit encryption and, according to the company, “IP addresses that can’t be hacked” to keep your baby’s images and data safe. If like us, you have some level of concern about signals from devices and wifi, this is comforting. It’s also something other forward-thinking connected-devices for kids companies are thinking about – we appreciated a similar feature in the Snoo robotic bassinet from Happiest Baby.

The bird’s eye view. Because of the way Nanit is mounted (with the wall mount or floor stand) the camera looks down on your baby from directly above. This took some getting used to vs. a typical monitor that looks at your baby from an angle, but as Calvin got older and started rolling around, I came to deeply appreciate the fact it was impossible for him to roll out of view behind crib bars or into a corner – he was always captured perfectly by the Nanit’s wide-angle lens.

The “wish it were different”

The floor stand is expensive when sold separately. If you haven’t bought a Nanit yet, this is something to be aware of. If you purchase the floor stand after the fact, it’ll set you back $200. For us, this was annoying because we wanted Calvin in our room for the first 6 months or so (as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics for safe sleep) and didn’t want to drill a hole in our bedroom wall knowing we’d be moving Calvin, and the Nanit, into his room after that.

You can’t rotate the camera’s orientation. The Nanit’s camera captures a rectangular field of vision and is designed to only fit your child’s crib in that field of vision … if you install the camera on the long side of the crib as opposed to the end of the crib. If you don’t, you’ll still be able to see your child, but you’ll also see large swaths of the floor and a much smaller image of your child. Here’s what the view looks like if set up rotated 90 degrees from how Nanit is designed:

If the Nanit camera is positioned at the end as opposed to the side of the crib or bassinette, the picture will look like this.

The Verdict

$300+ is a lot of money to spend on a baby monitor, and there are certainly functional, if frustrating, video monitors available for a lot less than the Nanit. So, if cost is your most important decision criteria, you might look at other monitors (though do check the Nanit website first for discounts).

If you’re looking at a monitor as a long-term investment that’s going to serve you for years to come (and perhaps can be used for multiple kids), Nanit is by far the best monitor we’ve tried. After spending over three months using Nanit, I can confidently say it hits high marks in all the right places. From its superb picture quality to its unlimited range to its sleep insights, Nanit actively seeks to help your child get a better night’s sleep (and just maybe you too!) – and that is worth quite a bit. You can check out our full list of best baby monitors here (hint: Nanit is the overall winner).

There you have it, our complete Nanit review. Hopefully, that was helpful. If you’re looking for more thoughts on the Nanit, this page on the company’s site updates with the most recent reviews from buyers.

Before we leave, we’ll tackle:

How does the Nanit stack up vs other baby monitors?

Nanit vs Miku

We no longer recommend the Miku Pro baby monitor, due to their issues with hacking and bankruptcy, so… Nanit wins this one.

Nanit vs Nest Cam

There’s really no comparison between Nanit and Nest (we’re talking the Nest Cam Indoor here) because the Nest Cam isn’t a baby monitor, and isn’t particularly useful when used as one, primarily because you can’t hear the sound from the Nest Cam unless the Nest App is open. Since hearing sounds your baby is making is one of the primary functions of a baby monitor, this is pretty much a non-starter for using Nest Cam as a baby monitor. (The Nest Cam *will* give an alert when it senses movement even while the app is closed, as a typical alert on your smartphone.)

As we’ve discussed, the Nanit does play sounds made by your baby even if the Nanit App isn’t open on the smartphone or tablet you’re using as your Parent Unit. If you’re interested, we further discuss using the Nest Cam as a baby monitor here.

Nanit vs Arlo Baby

The Nanit and the Arlo baby are a relatively close match for picture and sound quality (Arlo has the edge), but Arlo has severe user experience drawbacks and we don’t recommend it because of those. To dig more into the Arlo Baby, you can see our review here. The Arlo Baby edges out the Nanit when it comes to image quality and sound quality. It’s also cheaper, retailing for $199. And the Arlo packs a few features the Nanit Original does not—the ability to play white noise for your child, for example (Nanit Plus adds the ability to play white noise).

However, the Nanit is the clear winner from a user experience perspective – its app is an absolute dream compared to the mess that is Arlo’s app. And, the Nanit’s sleep insights and recommendations are in a class of their own – these aren’t even something the Arlo tries to tackle. Since reviewing the Arlo, we’ve also noticed severe latency issues, up to 4-5 seconds and heard about software issues from readers. 4-5 seconds of latency (lag time between real-world and when you see/hear through the monitor) might not sound like a lot, but in our experience, when you’re wondering or worried about a newborn, it can feel like an eternity.

The Arlo is available on Amazon.

Nanit vs iBaby

We reviewed various iBaby monitors in depth here. What we’ll say here is that Nanit is in a league of its own. In testing, iBaby monitors proved solid, if unintuitive, and have some cool features around air quality monitoring (though our testing brought into question just how accurate this might be). Another feature offered by iBaby and not by Nanit is two-way communication – the ability to speak to your baby through the monitor. (Again, Nanit promotes the lack of this feature as a feature – they maintain that two-way communication creates a security risk.)

Price is another consideration. Depending on setup and options, Nanit can be considerably more expensive that iBaby monitors, which start at around $135 for the iBaby M6S on Amazon and range up to a about $250 for the flagship M7. Nanit, while you can get it for as cheap as $279 for a camera + wall mount, can certainly cost more with additional accessories and features.

Overall, Nanit’s picture quality, birds-eye mounting setup, intuitive user experience, and Nanit Insights make it the superior, if more expensive choice.

FAQs

Here are some things we get asked a lot about Nanit:

Does Nanit Plus integrate with Google Home or Amazon Alexa? As of Fall 2019, yes! Nanit added Echo Show integration, which allows you to stream video from a Nanit to your Echo Show. Google Home is not yet supported.

Is Nanit Plus HSA eligible? Yep. (At least some configurations.) If you purchase Breathing Wear products OR the Nanit Complete Monitoring System, you’ll be able to pay for them with your HSA or FSA accounts.

Editor’s Notes:

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
We purchased a Nanit Original for our original review but have received several free monitors from the manufacturer for testing. We never guarantee positive reviews or bias in exchange for a free product, but thought you should be aware.
This Nanit review was originally published in January 2018 but was updated and republished in November 2019 based on new information after spending more time with the Nanit and adding the Nanit Plus to our review, plus information on new Breathing Wear products, Echo Show integration, and HSA eligibility. It was updated again in February, 2021 with information on the Nanit Pro, and again in July 2021 with further Nanit Pro information. This review was updated a final time in June 2024 with additional information about the Nanit Pro, as well as updated information about its competitor, Miku.

Our updated Owlet Dream Sock and Cam 2 review: Is Owlet worth it?

Paul Zalewski — Wed, 03 Jan 2024 18:28:53 +0000

The Owlet Dream Sock (formerly known as the Owlet Smart Sock) has been a hot topic at Fathercraft for several years. On one hand, Owlet products have the potential to give parents something they previously regarded as a myth – peace of mind.

On the other hand, rumors of increased anxiety, false alarms, and an ominous FDA letter in 2021 might leave parents hesitant to include the Owlet on their registry.

So, what’s the verdict? In this Owlet review, we give the full story, including why we stopped recommending the product in 2021 and why – after retesting the product this year – we might just be recommending it again.

Read on to learn more about:

The Owlet FDA Letter
What is the Owlet Dream Sock?
The Owlet Cam 2
Our Owlet Review
The Verdict
Pricing and Where to Buy
Frequently Asked Questions

But first, let’s address the elephant in the room – Did Owlet receive an FDA letter? And why?

Was the Owlet discontinued?

In late 2021, Owlet received a warning letter from the FDA regarding the misclassification of its Smart Sock as a medical device. It’s worth noting this warning had to do with the company’s marketing, not the actual performance of this product, but at the time, it raised a lot of parents’ concerns – for us at Fathercraft included (we take our baby tech very seriously). In response, Owlet changed the Smart Sock to the Dream Sock. Before testing the freshly named Dream Sock, we stopped recommending the product to our readers, despite an initial positive review from Fathercraft. Now, we’ve had the chance to re-test Owlet’s Dream Sock, along with the Owlet Cam 2, so we’re here with a new review. What is the Dream Sock? How is it different? Is it worth the relatively hefty price tag? Read on to find out.

Please note Fathercraft is reader-supported, meaning, at no cost to you, we may earn a commission if you buy after clicking an affiliate link. Learn more.

What is the Owlet Dream Sock?

The Dream Soc k — formerly known as a “smart sock” — isn’t literally a sock. It’s a fabric contraption that wraps around your baby’s foot to hold a sensor in place against her skin. The soft fabric fits snuggly so it doesn’t slip off with middle of the night tosses and turns, but since you choose the right size for your baby and use velcro to put it in place, it’s not uncomfortably tight either. The Owlet uses “PPG technology” – the kind of tech found in other wearables that detect things like heart rate – to track “sleep quality indicators.” These indicators include:

Heart rate
Average oxygen level
Movement
Wakings

While measuring these indicators, the Owlet will notify parents via lights and sounds if their baby’s “comfort or sleep quality changes.”

The Owlet Dream Sock vs. the Owlet Smart Sock

If you’re thinking that the Dream Sock sounds awfully similar to the discontinued Smart Sock, you would be correct. So, what changed? There are two key differences. The first is that the Owlet Dream sock is advertised to measure sleep quality. If there is a concern with sleep quality, you will get alerted. While parents may still find this beneficial (after all, indicators like heart rate are still factored into Owlet’s sleep quality readings), Owlet no longer claims to provide medical alerts with the Dream Sock (for that, you’ll need the FDA-cleared, prescription-only, Owlet BabySat – more on that later).

The second key change is the addition of “predictive sleep technology.” Owlet’s app will give parents information about wake windows and when their baby should sleep next (if you’ve never had a baby, let us be the first to tell you: knowing when your baby should sleep isn’t as intuitive as it sounds).

So, is the Owlet Dream Sock still worth it, even after the changes? We’re in a bit of a baby shortage here at Fathercraft, so we enlisted our friends Jon and Andrew – and their newborn, Gordy – to find out.

Unboxing

The full Owlet Smart Sock package costs $299.99. Owlet also offers a payment plan with Affirm, so you can slowly pay off the device with payments as low as $25 per month. Additionally, Owlet offers a 30-day Peace of Mind Guarantee. So if there is anything you do not like about the product in the first 30 days after purchasing it, you can return it — plenty of time to understand if the product meets your needs.

Here’s what comes in the box:

One Dream Sock sensor
Four fabric socks (fitting babies from 5-30 pounds, up until about 18 months)
One wireless charging base
Access to the Dream app and predictive sleep technology

You can also choose to order a Sock Plus, which fits children up until 5 years of age.

Oh, and you can select from 4 different colors when ordering the sock, just in case you want your baby to be monitored in style.

Setup

Setting up the Owlet is fairly straightforward. You download the iOS or Android app to your phone or tablet, which guides you through the setup process and connecting the Owlet base station to your home wifi network (required for the Owlet app to function).

Answer a few basic questions about your child, set your preferred range, and you’re good to go.

The sensor slides easily into the sock, and you choose the sock size that best fits your child at any given time. Here’s the “sock” and sensor. The sensor slides in through the slit in the sock

Note: For setup, both the Owlet device and your phone or tablet need to be connected on a 2.4GHz network. Once you’re initially connected, you can move your phone or tablet back to a 5GHz or hidden network (this means the Owlet works with a dual-band monitor). If this all sounds like gibberish, you can check your Wifi’s name; if it doesn’t have a “5G” next to it, or if there’s a version without the “5G” next to it, you’re in the clear. Most devices only connect to 2.4GHz, so if you’ve had luck in the past, you should be able to connect your Owlet.

The Owlet sensor connects to the base station (which is designed to go in the parents’ bedroom) via Bluetooth, and has a range of about 100 feet.

Owlet phone app

The base station allows you to quickly see your baby is ok with its light ring that displays different colors for different kinds of alerts, but for more details, head to the phone app.

In the Owlet app, which is available for iOS and Android, you’ll see your baby’s heart rate & blood oxygen levels, base station status, and battery level. You’ll also be able to view sleep history and trends, Owlet’s analysis of sleep quality, and predictive sleep information (i.e., when your baby is due for their next rest).The app will also serve as your parent unit if you’re using the Owlet Cam or Owlet Cam 2, Owlet’s companion video baby monitor (more on that below).

What about the Owlet Cam?

By itself, the sock doesn’t provide audio or video. So, Owlet now has two options for video monitors to purchase if you’d like to be able to hear and see your baby (which many parents do):

The Owlet Cam, released in 2019
The Owlet Cam 2, released in 2022

At Fathercraft, we’ve now tested both of these cameras. We found the original 2019 Owlet Cam pretty bare-bones from a feature perspective (especially when compared to something like the Nanit Plus—our review here), but it has a high-quality camera, great night vision, and the ability to turn the Owlet into the complete package. Both Owlet Cams also include 2-way talk, motion & sound alerts, and background audio (meaning you’ll be able to hear your baby while doing other stuff on your phone when this feature is activated). As a spoiler, Andrew and Jon found the Owlet Cam 2 to be “the most rock-solid piece of tech” they’ve had. In addition to everything listed above, it also features cry notifications, the ability to save and share video clips, and new exclusive color options.

Owlet Monitor Duo

The Owlet Monitor Duo isn’t some completely different product, it’s just the Dream Sock and Cam sold as a bundle. The Owlet Cam 2 is $159 as a standalone item, or you can buy it in a package with the Dream Sock for a discounted package total of $399. You can also save a few dollars by getting the original Dream Duo package (Owlet Dream Sock + original cam) for $369. One nice thing about purchasing this way is that it makes the complete package HSA/FSA eligible, if you’ve got one of those.

Our latest Owlet review

Let’s get to the information you’ve been waiting for – do we recommend this product?

Fathercraft has tested the Owlet twice. In 2020, our friends Paige and Todd tried the old Smart Sock for 3 months – and they were impressed. Their newborn, Miller, was in the NICU and came home with supplemental oxygen. They found the Owlet to be reliable and it gave them a peace of mind with continued monitoring. They also were able to confirm its accuracy, because while he was still on the supplemental oxygen, they had to complete medical-grade home oxygen tests. This meant that they got to compare the Owlet’s results directly to the medical-grade, professional oxygen test administered by a nurse. It was accurate to the professional oxygen test within a few percentage points every single time. They also mentioned they were able to monitor Miller closely when attempting a (nurse-approved) trip up a mountain – the Owlet helped them see that Miller was starting to struggle, and they came back down. You can watch our original review below:

Of course, in 2021, Owlet received that FDA letter — and we stopped recommending it until we could try out the re-branded sock.

Now, our friends Andrew and Jon have tested both the Owlet Dream Sock and the Owlet Cam 2. They’ve been testing since they brought their newborn home back in early 2023, and they are continuing to use the sock now (8 months later, at the time of writing) — so, they like it.

We’ll get into “the awesome” and the “wish it were different,” but, generally speaking, both Andrew and Jon said they feel much better with the sock than without it. While both of them recognize that “billions of babies have survived without the sock,” they felt the Owlet Duo was the best thing for them monitor-wise, and they noted how they realized they had more monitoring on their newborn the first night home than they did at the hospital.

Does the Owlet increase anxiety?

Since our initial review, the medical community has expressed some concern over the Owlet sock. Despite Owlet’s claim that 96% of Owlet owners report more peace of mind when using the Owlet, some medical professionals warn that the Owlet could increase anxiety, especially with reports of “false alarms.” Additionally, some medical professionals find the Owlet unnecessary, claiming many babies that young don’t need the Owlet’s level of monitoring. However, Jon is a doctor, and he emphasized he’d rather have the Owlet than not have it – and that false alarms (which were rare) weren’t as scary with the camera.

Ultimately, baby sleep is anxiety-inducing for many parents, and for some – like Jon and Andrew – the extra monitoring helps more than it hurts (by the way, we cover safe sleep practices and SIDS/SUID risk-reduction here.)

So, what specifically have our Fathercraft friends liked so much about the Owlet?

The awesome

The phone alerts: These were instant, giving them confidence that they could get to their baby as soon as he started to show any signs of distress.

Travel: The Owlet sock is easy to travel with, which makes a huge difference, especially if you’ll be changing elevations

The Dream Sock Fit: The Dream Sock fit great and didn’t bother Gordy or Miller.

Accuracy: When Todd and Paige saw that their sock’s readings matched the medical grade readings, they were sold. Similarly, Andrew and Jon never felt that false-alarms were an issue (and they trusted it more than other smart technology, like the Cradlewise). The Duo Package: Andrew and Jon loved the complete monitoring made available through having both the Owlet Cam 2 and the Dream Sock. When an alarm sounded, they could quickly see what was going on (for example, they could see that Gordy was awake and putting himself back to sleep).

The ‘wish it were different’

Metric History Glitches: After about a month, Andrew and Jon suddenly couldn’t see history for some metrics.

It’s a Little Pricey: In our original review, Paige and Todd mentioned that they felt they still needed video monitoring. And Jon and Andrew definitely enjoyed having the Owlet Cam – but purchasing a video monitor after spending the $299 on the sock can get pretty dang pricey.

Hotels and the Cam: The Owlet Cam 2 can’t connect to open wifi networks; so, although the sock travels well, the cam doesn’t work in hotels. This is to keep the connection secure from hackers, so – while potentially inconvenient – you may decide you’re okay with this.

Scares: The sock alerts parents if it stops monitoring. Although this type of false alarm was pretty rare, Andrew and Jon admitted it could get scary for some people (Note: The light ring displays a different color when the sock stops monitoring due to a technical issue, which may help with this).

Changing Sock Sizes/Dream Sock Plus: The sock fit great for Gordy until he outgrew the smaller sock. When he started using the larger sock, it fit a little big for a few weeks.

The ultimate Owlet Sock verdict — Is the Owlet worth it?

After using the Owlet Duo for 8 months, Jon and Andrew agree with our original reviewers – the peace of mind provided by the Owlet is worth the hefty price tag. No product is perfect, but they both felt better having the Owlet despite any of the “wish it were different” considerations.

To wrap up, let’s dive into some frequently asked questions about the Owlet Smart Sock.

Pricing and where to buy

For fast, free shipping and the company’s 30-night guarantee (plus occasional special offers—Owlet is offering a free leopard-print sock set with purchase of a Sock or Duo at the time of this writing), shop Owlet on the company’s website.

The Owlet Dream Sock is available for $299. (HSA/FSA eligible)

The Owlet Monitor Duo (Sock + Cam 2) is available for $399 (HSA/FSA eligible)

The Owlet Cam 2 is available for $159. (Not HSA/FSA eligible)

Alternatively, you can also purchase the Dream Duo 2 on Amazon, with price varying by color, or the Dream Sock by itself (on sale for $234 at the time of writing).

Additional questions

Do pediatricians recommend Owlet?

Like we discussed earlier, some medical professionals are hesitant to recommend the Owlet (or flat-out don’t recommend it at all, due to increased anxiety). However, some of this tension has been resolved with the FDA-Cleared Owlet BabySat, which requires a prescription and provides alerts based on oxygen saturation and pulse ranges set by physicians.

Do you need WiFi for the Owlet?

The Smart Sock connects to the base via Bluetooth, meaning it can function without wifi, which is nice in case your wifi stops working or your phone battery dies. However, to connect the base station to your phone so you can get notifications on your phone, you’ll need to connect it to your home wifi network.

You will also need wifi for the camera if you choose to purchase it.

What is the range of the Owlet?

The Owlet sock and base have normal Bluetooth range, meaning about 100 feet. If your base station is connected to wifi, you can receive alerts and monitor your baby via the smartphone app anywhere you’re connected to wifi or have a cellular connection (if enabled).

How long do the Owlet batteries last?

The sock’s battery will last for 16 hours on a full charge (which takes 90 minutes), and you can get an 8 hour charge in 20 minutes. Then you’ll need to recharge it, and you’ll need to get in the habit of dropping the sock’s monitor into the base station for charging when you remove it from your child.

How do you clean the Owlet Smart Sock?

To clean the Smart Sock, all you will need to do is remove the sock sensor, hand wash in lukewarm water and mild detergent, and hang dry.

Can you use an FSA/HSA account to pay for Owlet?

You sure can, at least for purchase of the Smart Sock or the Smart Sock & Cam bu ndle. Purchasing the Cam by itself is not HSA/FSA eligible, as monitors that are eligible have to include a breathing/movement monitoring component.

What is PPG Technology?

PPG stands for Photoplethysmography, and it is a non-invasive technology that detects volumetric changes in blood circulation. It’s used in many wearables – like your Apple Watch – to detect heart rate. Owlet uses PPG tech in its sensor to detect pulse.

What’s next?

Thanks so much for reading! Looking for more? You can:

Check out our in-depth baby gear buying guide here

Or, browse our free resources for new and expecting parents here.

Editor’s Note: This review was originally published in November 2018, but was updated in November 2019 to include new information on Owlet Cam & additional details and FAQs, and then updated again in December, 2020 to include info on the Smart Sock 3. Finally, it was updated in September 2023 to include Jon and Andrew’s thoughts on the Dream Sock and Cam 2, with a minor editorial update in January 2024. We truly have been on quite the journey with Owlet.

Miku baby monitor review

Paul Zalewski — Sat, 02 Sep 2023 20:05:17 +0000

IMPORTANT NOTE: In April 2023, Miku users began reporting issues with the Miku Pro; for those reporting issues, the monitor abruptly stopped working. Miku Inc. released a statement linking the product malfunction to a firmware update conducted during the months of November 2022 through April 2023 and offered to send impacted users a free replacement. However, on August 14, 2023, Miku Inc. filed for bankruptcy. This sequence of events concerns us at Fathercraft, and we are not recommending Miku products at this time. The product review below was written prior to these events and should be read only with the above context. It may be more worthwhile to check out our other baby monitor reviews here.

The Miku baby monitor is a wifi monitor that tracks your baby’s sleeping and breathing patterns. It’s in the same family as other wifi monitors we’ve reviewed, like the Nanit Pro, and the Lollipop Cam. So, how does it stack up? Let’s dive in.

Please note: we received a free Miku from the manufacturer as they were interested in our review. We don’t guarantee positive reviews in exchange for free products, and always disclose free products. Also, Fathercraft is reader supported, meaning we may earn a commission if you click a link and make a purchase. More here.

A review of the Miku Pro smart baby monitor

You know the phrase “sleep like a baby?” Well, there’s a reason people say that. It’s because when babies are asleep, like, really asleep, it can be hard to tell if they’re actually breathing. They’re so still, and their chest is so small, that figuring out if they need help or are busy having sweet dreams is enough to make any parent get up and check on them every 20 minutes, or as we like to say, slowly lose their mind.

Enter smart baby monitors, like the Miku Pro baby monitor, that not only alert you when your baby is crying or fussy but also let you monitor your baby’s breathing.

If you prefer your reviews in video form, here’s our video review of the Miku Pro. If not, keep scrolling.

The Miku Pro smart baby monitor (this is the second version of Miku’s baby monitor, and a major upgrade over the Miku Original) connects to your smartphone and has military-grade technology that tracks your baby’s breathing and movements just using the camera and software so you don’t need to worry about wires or wearables. All you need to do is mount the Miku baby monitor camera above your baby’s crib, then download their smartphone app. It’s supposed to be a breeze to set up and use.

We put it to the test.

What is the Miku smart baby monitor?

Miku, like many of the more recent baby monitor companies to join the scene, notes that the company is made up of moms and dads who understand the panic parents undergo when it comes to getting their babies to sleep and making sure they stay safe while they sleep. And, we agree, if you’re designing something to used by parents, get parents’ perspective on it. So, good work Miku. The company also touts its “military engineers” as providing next-level tech. But, all of other baby monitors we’ve reviewed have their own spin on this talking point.

Speaking of the military, all active-duty military, veterans, retired military, and military spouses get an automatic 10 percent discount. First responders, including police, firefighters, and EMT also get a 10 percent discount, available on Miku’s website.

Back to the monitor. Like other baby monitors, the Miku consists of a child unit—a camera with a speaker and microphone, and a parent unit. In the case of the Miku Pro, the parent unit is an app that you download on your smartphone (both iOS and Android apps are available). You can also download the app on your iPad or Android tablet, though note the app isn’t natively designed for a tablet (it’ll be small).

Note that while anyone who is going to be using your Miku monitor (like babysitters, grandparents, etc.) will need to download the app on their own device, you can control who gets access privileges from your app. This provides enhanced security so that only the people you grant access to can actually get access to the Miku camera. It’s also really handy when you have a babysitter or the in-laws watching your baby.

Here’s a rundown of the tech involved in the Miku smart baby monitor:

The Miku camera

Like most other cameras in the new class of wifi baby monitors, Miku works with a bird’s-eye view, so you’ll need to mount the Miku camera to the wall above your baby’s crib. The Miku camera also houses what Miku calls “SensorFusion technology“. This is what captures your baby’s breathing, sound, and movement patterns without a wearable device (our other top pick for a wifi monitor that monitors breathing is the Nanit (our Nanit Pro review here, using their tech requires a special ‘belly band’ or sleepwear with a geometric pattern on it that helps the camera pick up movement.

Mounting the camera

You can still use the Miku monitor if it’s not attached to a wall. The support page says that as long as the monitor is six feet away from your baby and out of reach of your baby (obviously), it should still work. But, for optimal performance, the Miku baby monitor should be mounted to your wall. If you have drywall walls you won’t even need a drill—everything you’ll need to mount your Miku camera to drywall is included in the package along with your monitor.

If you have another type of wall, such as concrete, brick, plaster, or sheetrock (like me), you will need a drill. Miku includes mounting supplies for other types of walls in the box, so you shouldn’t need to go out and buy anything else. However, if you’re like me and hate drilling holes into sheetrock but still want the monitor mounted, you might want to get crafty and make your own baby monitor stand. You can check out what I did around minute 4:30 on this video review of the Miku smart baby monitor (though be sure to make sure cords are kept at least 3 feet from your baby).

One downside of doing a DIY mounting stand, aside from the whole DIY thing, is that you might end up with a longways view instead of a wide view, and it’s harder to get a perfect view of your baby if you go this route. There are ways around it, like mounting it to the wall as intended or setting it up without a stand, but It’s something to be aware of.

Camera image quality

Bird’s-eye view is perhaps the most critical component to a great picture of what’s going on in your baby’s crib. The next most important factor is the quality of the image that you see. The original Miku smart baby monitor had an HD imaging at 720p, the Pro version is now full 1080p. Also like other video monitors, the Miku camera has night vision, so you can see what your baby is doing in the night when she’s fussing or making noises. In testing, we found the Miku Pro’s image quality to be quite strong and a major upgrade over the original, but, particularly in the dark with night vision turned on, not quite as good as Nanit Pro.

Detail of the Miku’s camera

While we find excellent image quality to be a big benefit in a baby monitor, there’s certainly a point of diminishing returns past a certain point, and Miku does get the job done. Sure, you need to be able to see your baby, but do you really need crystal clear imaging? For a lot of parents, monitoring your baby’s movements and breathing is a lot more important than watching your baby sleep through a camera.

Audio

Hearing your baby and being able to speak to your baby might be more important to you than being able to see your baby in high definition.

One issue we have with the Miku baby monitor is that the two-way communication feature has a 15-second timer. As I mention in my video review, this can make it really hard to get through my power ballads as I lull my son back to sleep. The 15-second timer can be annoying, but it isn’t necessarily a deal breaker.

The camera also has a white noise option. Now, if your baby is really into trippy sci-fi noises, then Miku has you covered—there are some deeply weird “white noise” options on the Miku. But, there’s also the classic “white noise”. And, your baby will be able to enjoy sci-fi ambiance through speakers that might begin his or her path to audiophile—Miku makes a big deal about “dual Ole Wolff speakers” which, we admit, without being audiophiles ourselves, do sound pretty darn good, even if they also seem somewhat unnecessary.

The Miku smart baby monitor app

You and anyone who you authorize as a user can view your baby and keep track of her movements and actions through the Miku app, which you’ll download on your smartphone. At this point in time, the Miku app only works on smartphones. You can also use the app on an Android tablet or iPad, but the app isn’t native to tablets (it’ll be small on you screen).

Miku has done a ton of work upgrading its app over the years, and deserves a most-improved award in the baby monitor space — early versions of the app were buggy and the user interface was overwhelming. Not so in 2023.

Here’s a look at what’s inside.

Analytics

The analytics tab in the app has seen a major overhaul of late that makes it remarkably more useful. Within the analytics tab, you get an overview of daytime and nighttime sleep summaries, and an overall analysis of your baby’s sleep at night. Within the activities tab you can scroll through video recordings detailing sleep activity like movement, sound, and non-movement.

And, critically, all of Miku’s analytics features are available without a subscription — a major selling point vs other monitors (it seems like just about every baby monitor out there has a subscription these days). And, to be clear, Miku does have a subscription too, called Care+, it’s just not required for any of the core features of the app. More on Care+ in a bit.

Not a lot of movement during Calvin’s nap …

Here are some of the things the Miku smart baby monitor tracks:

Activity
Movement
Sound
Sleeping pattern
Breathing pattern
Temperature and humidity
Ambient light

Analyzing RPM (respirations per minute) using Miku analytics

Alerts

As we’ve discussed in other reviews of monitors that use a smartphone as the parent unit, there are a few nuances you’ll want to be aware of and differences from traditional baby monitors that have a dedicated parent unit.

First, you’ll need to have your smartphone in a state in which you’re able to hear and see your baby. Meaning, you can’t use airplane mode or Do Not Disturb. You’ll need to allow notifications from the Miku App and adjust those to your liking.

In addition, you’ll need to enable “background audio”, which is the setting that allows the Miku app to control your phone’s speakers even if your phone screen is off, or you’re using another app. With background audio turned on, you’ll be able to hear your baby crying while you scroll dance vids on TikTok during nap time.

Care+

Miku introduced Care+ in 2022, presumably because just about every wifi baby monitor on the planet has a subscription. But, two things we’ll note:

Miku did an honorable job keeping the core features of the monitor free — it’s 100% functional without Care+, so you aren’t going to feel forced to buy it to access something you need (though that won’t stop them from trying to convince you).
Care+ includes some useful stuff — weekly emails with sleep tips from experts based on your baby’s age, trend tracking for temperature, sleep quality, and more, and unlimited video storage.

Now that you’ve got an understanding of what the Miku baby monitor is all about, let’s jump into our thoughts.

The awesome, the wish it were different, and a verdict

The awesome

Technology. Miku is a pioneer in baby tech, using military-grade technology in their baby monitor that can track your baby’s movements and breathing without wearables. This is huge for parents who don’t want to worry about things attached to their baby or pads under their baby to track movements and breathing while they’re asleep or in their crib.

Miku’s proprietary technology is called SensorFusion, and it combines image and video processing, RADAR, and other tech to allow tracking without wearables.

Sound output on the monitor. Miku has two high tech speakers, so any sound that comes out of it sounds really good. Your baby will be able to hear you loud and clear, and your voice will sound natural instead of tinny, like with other monitors.

Security. The Miku baby monitor has 256-bit encryption, which puts it on par with other high-end monitors like the Nanit. What makes Miku unique is that every Miku monitor comes with a physical, tamper-proof chip that protects your personal encryption keys, even if someone physically gets their hands on your monitor. Necessary? Probably not. Sounds cool? Yep.

The wish it were different

Time to connect to video feed. The original Miku could take 10-15 seconds to load the video feed once you opened the app. As you’ll soon learn, 10 second can be an eternity in parenting. The Miku Pro and regular app updates have dramatically reduced this load time. It’s still not as quite as fast as the Nanit, but much improved.

15-second timer for communication. The 15-second timer feels pretty short and can be disruptive if you need more than 15 seconds to communicate with your baby.

Price. No getting around it—this is an expensive baby monitor. The Miku Pro starts at $399, but you can easily see yourself wanting a floor stand ($99) and perhaps a Care+ subscription ($99/year) … and, yeah, that’s a lot. To Miku’s credit, they’ve kept all their core functionality out of the subscription, and the base model does include a wall mounting kit, so you can certainly get away without those two items.

The verdict

The Miku smart baby monitor is more expensive than other monitors, but when you consider the technology involved in it, the price seems more reasonable. Plus, there aren’t any membership or subscription fees to use core services. You pay once and then have access to the app plus upgrades as they come. If you want a breathing monitor that doesn’t involve a wearable device, then you’ll want to seriously consider the Miku smart baby monitor.

Miku Pro Baby Monitor vs. Nanit Pro Baby Monitor

It’s no secret that we love the Nanit Plus baby monitor (it’s our pick for best baby monitor of 2023), but Miku gives the Nanit a run for its money in a few ways. Here’s a quick comparison of how the two monitors stack up side-by-side.

Aesthetics: They both look great. We give this one to Miku because of its sleek design. It will look good in any room or nursery.

Video quality: Miku Pro and Nanit Pro both upgraded to 1080p and were big improvements over their predecessor models and resulted in more clear and detailed night vision. Nanit Pro still wins with a slight edge in video quality.

Sound quality: With its two high tech speakers, the sound that comes out of the Miku is clear. Unlike the Nanit Pro, which sounds more like you’re in a big room that echoes, the Miku sounds natural. So the Miku wins for sound output of the monitor (what your baby hears). However, when it comes to the app (what you hear), Nanit Pro is the clear winner. Nanit wins for sound output of the app.

White noise: Both baby monitors could use an upgrade here. Nanit wins mostly because we just don’t like the dystopian-type white noise options on the Miku.

Security: Both Miku and Nanit have 256-bit encryption. Miku stores encryption keys inside the physical tamper-proof chip so if it’s stolen or if you sold/gave away your monitor, the encryption key can’t be accessed. Nanit stores their encryption keys using a software-based system. Because we aren’t security experts, we aren’t going to make a claim on which one is safer for you.

App UX: Both apps are straightforward and clean, but the Nanit app provides more useful functionality like sleep coaching. The settings tab on the Nanit gives you more control over customizing features like crib position and security positions and bandwidth settings. The Nanit also has an insights package for you to make use of your data. Until another monitor can provide this level of support, the Nanit Pro will continue to have this as their ace in the hole to trump all wifi monitors. The award for app UX goes to Nanit.

We hope that was helpful for determining whether the Miku smart baby monitor is right for you. And if you’re looking for a monitor with a lot of potential, Miku’s got that.

To explore our picks for best baby monitor, and how we think about what’s important in baby monitors, head over here.

Pricing & where to buy

The Miku isn’t cheap—it’s $399 for everything you need to set up and use the monitor.

Miku is available on Amazon , but the place to buy is the company’s website, for a couple of reasons:

You can see all of the company’s options, including bundles.
Accessories including extra power supply (if you want to leave one at grandma’s, a floor stand, and more.
Occasional sales and deals, definitely worth keeping an eye out for.

Final thing to note on price … Miku is HSA/FSA eligible due to its technology. If you have access to this as an option with your healthcare plan, you can buy the Miku with pre-tax money, which can make a big difference.

What’s next?

Hopefully that helps your decision about the Miku!

To see all of our baby monitor reviews and get more insights on how to select a baby monitor, head right over here …

Bunny ears & features galore – an Arlo Baby review

John Doht — Thu, 09 Sep 2021 06:39:00 +0000

IMPORTANT NOTE: Arlo has discontinued the Arlo Baby monitor and isn’t providing helpful support for it. We do not recommend buying this monitor as a result. What you’ll find below is our original review, published in 2018.

We’ve heard from Fathercraft readers they’ve experienced issues with this monitor including connectivity problems, a decreased allowable livestream length, and more.

Instead, check out our list of best baby monitors of 2021, here.

Our Arlo Baby review was a surprise to us for a couple of reasons:

we’ve always thought of Netgear (Arlo’s parent company) as a company that makes routers – turns out they have a whole line of home security cameras and decided to add a baby monitor to the Arlo brand too
the Arlo Baby seemed like an unexpectedly good baby monitor at first, and deep flaws didn’t reveal themselves until months into our testing (and notes from a Fathercraft reader, thanks!)
we were initially confused by seeing things like “Arlo baby discontinued” around the internet. Turns out, it hasn’t been discontinued, but Arlo originally planned to make a 7″ dedicated touchscreen display for the Arlo Baby, but then decided not to release that, favoring, as many other monitors do these days, a free app for your phone or tablet that acts as the ‘parent unit’.

Let’s dive in, starting with a video, where John walks through unboxing the Arlo Baby, its features, and provides pros, cons, and a final verdict. [NOTE: this video doesn’t reflect some of the issues we found later … latency and software issues.] If you prefer reading to watching, just scroll past the video.

Editor’s notes:

we’re a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Learn more.
This review was originally published in August 2018. At that time, we thought the Arlo had some flaws but was overall worth considering. Based on new information (see below), we’ve updated the review as of November 2018 and are issuing a new recommendation—do not buy until critical issues are fixed. This remains true in 2021!

An in-depth review of the Arlo Baby monitor

In this review, we’ll discuss the various components of the Arlo Baby, setting it up and using it, detail pricing and options, and provide our thoughts – the awesome, the wish it were different, and a final verdict.

For our testing of the Arlo Baby, we enlisted the help of John’s son Calvin (8-9 months old at the time) and Oliver (6 years old at the time) to judge how the Arlo Baby performed as a true baby monitor and also as a monitor for older children who are still in that phase where it could be helpful to keep an eye on them. So, here we go.

But what’s with the bunny ears? All about the Arlo Baby

The Arlo Baby bills itself as an “all-in-one” baby monitor and “a super nanny”. By these statements, they must mean stuffed to the gills (or more accurately ears) with features.

The Arlo Baby is a wifi baby monitor (utilizes your home wifi network to connect you to your child, not some other signal) that utilizes your smartphone or tablet plus a free app available for Apple/Android as the parent unit (the way you see and hear your child). As we’ve discussed in our other baby monitor reviews, wifi monitors have the advantage of unlimited range, so long as you’re connected to the same wifi network, a different wifi network, or have a cellular connection with your device. It’s also important to note they’re only as reliable as your wifi network and connection are.

Let’s discuss each of the Arlo’s components.

Everything that comes in the Arlo box

The child unit

The Arlo Baby’s child unit houses the camera, plus a fair number of other things – the speaker to play sound/allow you to talk to your child, the nightlight, a battery so you can take it on the go, and a wall mounting kit (and, of course, the bunny ears).

Camera performance

The Arlo Baby’s camera features the best image quality we’ve tried in a baby monitor. When you set the image quality to 1080p, you’ll be able to see your child in crystal clear HD. (Arlo also allows you to set a lower resolution to save bandwidth.)

1080p resolution is complemented by modern smartphone and tablet screens and looked great for closer monitoring (ie crib) and whole-room monitoring (ie for toddlers).

Looking down on a crib in 1080p at a 130-degree field of view, which you’ll notice creates a slight fish-eye effect

Another interesting aspect of Arlo’s camera is the ability to change the field of view with the app – you can change it from 90 degrees to 130 degrees to change how much of a room the Arlo captures. This is in part necessary because while it’s possible to manually do so, the Arlo does not allow you to pan or tilt the camera in a motorized way via the app. It’s also helpful if you’re wanting to monitor a whole room and you stick the Arlo in the corner.

Here’s how the 90-degree field of view compares to the 130-degree:

90-degree on the left, 130-degree on the right

Night vision

As we’ve said before, you’re often going to be looking at your baby in the dark. So, a baby monitor’s night vision performance is just as important as its daytime image quality.

Arlo’s night vision is also excellent. Here’s Calvin in a nearly dark room:

Arlo notes that the night vision works for up to 15 feet, so that could become an issue if you’re monitoring a whole, large, room.

Audio quality

The Arlo’s microphone is *really* sensitive. I could hear Calvin’s (8 months old) gentle snoring through the monitor. This was pretty cool, but as we’ll discuss in the review section below, also got annoying – I could hear my dog barking 3 rooms away through the monitor. And any little sound picked up by the monitor turned into a notification on my iPhone, which got old really fast (you can turn these off or schedule them).

Sound quality, 2-way communication (and white noise!)

The Arlo Baby features “2-way communication”, giving parents the ability to communicate with a child through the app and the child unit’s built-in speaker. Sound quality on this feature was pretty good. The other aspect of sound has to do with one of the “bonus features” – the Arlo Baby has the ability to play music, and (more importantly to us) white noise through its speaker. We appreciated this since, as we’ve said before, finding a consistent way to play white noise for your child all night long, if you’re into that (and we are, 4 kids later), is actually a pain in the neck – in our experience it’s meant finding an old phone or tablet, a place to plug it in, and having that be a dedicated white noise machine.

So, having white noise built in was helpful, and the sound quality through the speaker was just fine and seemed good enough for Calvin.

A note about background audio

We’ve started including a note about background audio in all of our baby monitor reviews that cover monitors that use your smartphone or tablet as the parent unit. Why? Well, it’s important and not obvious if you haven’t used one of these things. Since you use your phone for other things, it’s not a ‘dedicated’ parent unit for your monitor. So, when you go to check Twitter, you still need to be able to hear your baby. When you turn off your phone’s screen to do other things or at night, you still need to be able to hear. This is background audio.

With Arlo Baby, background audio worked well, I had no issues, once I found the button. To turn on background audio you have to press a button, which is unintuitively placed and took me a minute to find (it’s the image of the speaker in the upper-left). To control the volume of background audio, you use your phone’s volume controls.

Battery power

Unlike any other monitor we’ve tested, Arlo Baby features an option to use the camera without it being plugged in, thanks to a built-in rechargeable battery. While this was a cool concept, in practice we found the battery lasted only about 2 hours, so it wasn’t practical to use to take the camera with you overnight, and we couldn’t think of too many good use cases for when we’d want to use the battery-powered option. I did use it once when I was upstairs getting ready for work for a few minutes while Oliver and Calvin were playing downstairs.

Everything else – nightlight & air monitoring

The Arlo Baby also features a nightlight, which, thanks to it being LED-powered, can be displayed with nearly any color on the visible spectrum. As the other member of the Fathercraft team Paul likes to talk about, this means you can eliminate blue light, which can be harmful to your child’s, and your own, sleep quality. You can also play a light show with the nightlight, but we have a hard time imagining a use case for this.

The Arlo Baby’s air monitoring features monitor temperature and also something called volatile organic compounds or VOCs. Other monitor’s like the iBaby family do the same. In practice, we found two things to be true of Arlo’s air quality monitoring – 1) when you get alerts about air quality, it doesn’t tell you *what* it’s sensing, just that it’s sensing something. This caused me some apprehension – was Arlo detecting some harmful gas leak in Calvin’s room, or just a dirty diaper? 2) the air quality monitor seems to either be quite aggressive, or both Paul and I have poor air quality in our homes (he experienced the same thing when reviewing iBaby monitors.

And, of course, the bunny ears

No review of the Arlo Baby would be complete without mention of the bunny ears. We’ll make it a short one. We asked ourselves, “why?” and didn’t come up with much. Sure, they make the Arlo Baby cuter. But, we wondered who this was for. Parents? Kids? It’s likely your kid has plenty of cute stuff in her room, and we wonder about the wisdom in calling more kid-attention to something you don’t really want your kid messing with.

The parent unit (the Arlo Baby app)

Using the Arlo Baby’s app was kind of terrifying. The combination of an abundance of features and a whole lot of alerts produced an overwhelming experience.

The home screen of the app, like every other app-powered parent unit we’ve tried, features a live feed of your baby and allows you to access the other features. Here’s what it looks like:

Another quirk that got pretty annoying was the fact that Arlo Baby defaults sound to on each time you open the app, and if you turn it off, navigate to another screen within the app, and navigate back to the live feed, you’ll find the sound back on again.

Setting up the Arlo Baby

Setup was pretty easy – plug it in, briefly connect to the Arlo’s wifi through your phone’s settings (an act that will be familiar to anyone who’s used an internet-connected device). Then, just enter some simple info about your baby and you’re off to the races. It did seem to take a while for the connection to become stable, though this could have been my wifi. By the day after setting it up, the connection seemed rock-solid.

The awesome, the wish it were different, and a verdict

The awesome

Video feed. The Arlo Baby has by far the best image quality and video feed we’ve seen in a baby monitor, which is great for keeping an eye on your baby and identifying the little things like whether a pacifier is in or has been lost.

Sound quality (good, also can be annoying, see below.) Arlo Baby’s microphone on its child unit is incredibly sensitive. The fact you can hear your child gently snoring is comforting (and cute) in the sense that it makes you confident you’ll hear your child when he needs you.

Built-in white noise and night light. There’s a lot of stuff you need in your child’s nursery or room, so being able to combine things is great. The Arlo’s night light and white noise features both proved useful, even if the number of options for each was a bit overkill.

2-way communication. With Calvin, I didn’t find myself using the 2-way communication feature on the Arlo Baby — as he was 8-9 months old during testing, it would have been a one-sided conversation. But as we’ve had good luck being able to calm our older kid and get him to go back to sleep through a monitor, to me, having this feature extends the useful lifespan of the Arlo.

The wish it were different

Latency [updated]. We started to notice latency issues with the Arlo well after our initial review was done—a good chunk of the time, sound and video feed from the app was a good 4-5 seconds behind the real world. At best, this is annoying with an older child, but to us it’s a dealbreaker for babies.

Numerous software issues [reported by reader, Arlo Support Community—updated November 2018]. A Fathercraft reader alerted us to numerous software issues she’d experienced with the Arlo – pixelation, app crashes, and lack of sound. While we didn’t personally experience these issues, we did some investigation with Arlo’s Community Support Forums and found dozens of similar complaints. Our reader also noted Arlo Support was quite unhelpful.

The app experience. The Arlo Baby app is a case study in feature overload and the user experience that produces. Navigating around it was stressful and it took quite a while for me to get used to where everything was vs other monitors with more intuitive apps we’ve tested.

Notifications and sound sensitivity. Notifications on the Arlo drove me nuts. I didn’t need to be notified by the Arlo that my dog was barking in a different room, but it happened.

Sound defaults to being on, even within app sessions. As we discussed above, the fact that the Arlo Baby’s sound defaults to on was obnoxious.

A verdict

Overall, there’s a lot to like about the Arlo, especially if you’re willing to put in some time and frustration to learn how to use the system. It’s image quality, sound quality, and some of the additional features proved really valuable. We appreciated the versatility of mounting and placement options, which allow for everything from a birds-eye view of a baby in a crib to a room-wide view of your toddler’s bedroom.

The app experience, on the other hand, left a lot to be desired. We would note that after you get used to it, it becomes more manageable, and some of what we experienced seems like it could be fixed by Netgear in future software updates.

And, critically, latency issues we began to experience a few months into our testing, plus the note from our reader and research on the Arlo Support Community lead us to our final recommendation—we DO NOT recommend the Arlo Baby as of November 2018.

If crystal-clear picture is at the absolute top of your priority list when buying a monitor, you might decide to ignore our recommendation. And, if software issues can be fixed, we think the Arlo is with the leaders of the pack from a longevity (infant to toddler/young child) perspective. If you’re looking for a camera specialized in being a baby monitor or with features like sleep analysis, we’d recommend checking out the Nanit.

For monitors we do recommend, here are all of our baby monitor reviews.

Pricing and where to buy

The Arlo Baby retails for $199, including the monitor, a pair of bunny ears and feet, a wall mount kit, and 7 days of cloud storage. If you want to store the videos from your monitor for a longer period of time, you can purchase a paid plan after the fact from Arlo.

Arlo Baby is available at big box stores like Best Buy, Fry’s, and Walmart, and also from Amazon, where it’s got 2-day free Prime shipping.

Additional accessories include (Amazon links) a table/floor stand (MSRP is $39.95, and which we have to admit we like because the Arlo appears to hold on with its feet, and more practically, can be positioned in a ton of different ways) and ears/feet combos to turn your Arlo into a puppy, or a kitten, – both of which have an MSRP of $19.95.

Security Camera or Baby Monitor: Our Wyze Cam V3 Review

Nat Taylor — Sat, 10 Apr 2021 02:53:36 +0000

It may not be built for monitoring your baby, but boy does it do a good job of it, and for cheap too. If you want a baby monitor with all the neat bells and whistles without the crazy cost, then the Wyze Cam V3 might be a strong fit for you.

What to expect in this review (click to jump to section):

What is the Wyze Cam?
The Awesome
The Wish it were Different
The Verdict
Wyze Cam V3 vs. Nest Cam

We’ll dive into the what’s, why’s, whodunnit’s, and whoop-de-do’s in a minute, but check out John’s video review first!

What is the Wyze Cam?

The Wyze Cam V3 is actually not a baby monitor by design! Wyze V3 was made to be a security camera, but it doubles as a pretty dang good baby monitor. Let’s do a run down of the Wyze V3, shall we?

In the box:

Wyze Cam V3
Wall Mount Plate (+Tape)
Screw Kit
6 Ft. Outdoor Rated Cable (+Indoor USB Power Adapter)
Quick Start Guide

Features:

Priced $23.99
Color Night Viewing
- Starlight CMOS sensor that lets you see color even at night! More on this later…

This snapshot was taken in complete darkness.

Indoor and Outdoor Use
- Weatherproof (it can get rained on y’all), temperature tolerance from -4°F to 113°F, mountable anywhere
HD Image Quality
- 1080p
Cloud and Local Storage
- Free 14-day cloud storage out of the box, or add storage with the Cam Plus subscription. Wyze V3 is microSD card compatible.
Magnetic Bottom for Metal Mounting
- The Wyze V3 also comes with a little screw hole if you want to mount it on a wall

Magnetic Bottom + Articulating Body

Mount, Swivel, View
- The Wyze Cam V3 has an articulating mount, a swivel head, and a 130° view lens. You’ll be able to achieve just about any set-up you want with these features.

As you can see, this nifty little cam packs a lot of punch for just $24, but is it really worth using it as a baby monitor?

The awesome, wish it were different and the verdict.

The awesome

First off, the night vision is stunning. This is by far the clearest night vision we have seen in any cam review we have done, simply because the added color provides a whole new level of detail. Although it was really fun testing the Wyze V3 in the dark, it has the potential to add some serious value to making sure your baby is sleeping soundly. Black and white views can make it hard to distinguish what is going on in your baby’s crib, so adding the color erases that confusion.

The body of the cam has some great mounting features. Between the articulating mount, the swivel head, 130° view lens, and the magnetic base, you can put this puppy pretty much anywhere and get a good view of your baby. Parents tend to get creative when mounting options are limited, so we’re sure you would be able to MacGyver rig something, but the Wyze Cam V3 just gives you a little more creative space to work with.

Motion and sound detecting is a huge feature for us. When the Wyze V3 picks up any motion or sound, it will automatically create up to a 12 second video clip of what is going on and send it to your phone. Additionally, there is an adjustable detection zone so the Wyze V3 will only capture motion in a specified area. However, there is a cooldown period of 5 minutes before it will record the next clip. You can get rid of the cooldown by having the $1.50/month package called Cam Plus. More on that later.

The wish it were different

The biggest downside for us is that there is no background audio feed. That means if you lock your phone, there won’t be an audio feed coming through and you will not be able to hear your baby. There is a work-around, though. You can get an audio-only monitor and put that in your baby’s room, but that just creates another device to carry around. Still, the $25 Wyze V3 plus a $16 audio monitor is still a whole lot cheaper than a $200+ baby monitor.

The Wyze V3 is an awesome camera and it we love the features it provides for such a small price point. However, if you don’t get the Cam Plus package for unlimited storage, unlimited clip size with no cooldown period, and human motion detection, then the camera is just okay. Luckily the package is cheap, because $10/month versus $1.50/month could easily surpass the cost of a specialized baby monitor in no time. Well technically in like a year’s time, but the point stands.

The verdict

The Wyze Cam V3 is a great low-cost solution to buying a crazy expensive baby monitor. With the low-cost Cam Plus package, you will get some amazing features that compete with even the best cams in the business.

The color night vision and the ease of mounting makes this cam a really versatile baby monitor replacement, and we were really impressed with the motion detection alerts that it sends out even without the Cam Plus package.

A few things to look out for are the lack of background audio feed while your phone is locked and the cooldown period if you don’t have the package. We recommended adding a audio monitor to your shopping list to work around the lack of background audio feed, but the choice is ultimately yours.

We would recommend this cam to parents who are looking for a cam that can get the job done well without dropping hundreds of dollars on an expensive baby monitor. You’ll be able to make sure your baby is sleeping safe and soundly with the Wyze Cam V3, and that’s all that really matters, isn’t it?

Wyze Cam V3 vs. Nest Cam

Wyze Cam V3 (Left) vs. Nest Cam (Other Left)

We have done a review of the Nest Cam before, and that is just another example of a house camera that has been adapted to become a baby monitor. If this is the route that you want to go down, let us do some comparison for you here. We’ll look over a few different things: feature list, picture quality, mounting, and our score.

Feature List

The Wyze V3 again comes out on top here with a crazy feature list. The Nest Cam lacks the fine-tuned motion and audio detection that the Wyze V3 has and those two mean a lot in the world of baby monitors.

Additionally, The Wyze V3 is way cheaper than the Nest Cam. You get to have all these awesome features for like a fifth of the price for the Nest Cam, so what is there not to love?

Quality

Both the Wyze V3 and the Nest Cam boast an HD picture quality. Well, we tested them side-by-side and we have to say that Wyze V3 came out on top. Between their daylight HD and their color night vision (which Nest Cam lacks), the picture on the Wyze V3 was clearly better. Get it? Clearly? Ok moving on.

Image Quality Comparison (feat. John’s Face)

Mounting

This is a close call. Both cams are able to be mounted in pretty creative ways, because they were meant to be mounted in difficult places. The Nest Cam comes with fun mounting attachments, like the wire coil that lets you wrap it around stuff, but then again the Wyze V3 has the two-way adjustable head and the super wide lens.

Alright then, we’ll call it a draw.

Our Score

The Nest is great and all, but you really can’t beat what the Wyze Cam V3 has to offer, especially with it’s way lower price point. Neither of these have that super crucial background audio feed, so minus points for both of them as baby monitors. To sum it up, the Wyze V3 can do anything the Nest can, but better, so we are going to have to side with Wyze this time.

What’s next?

If you’re in the market for a baby monitor, we recommend you check out all of our baby monitor reviews, as well as our picks for best baby monitor, here.

Our Infant Optics DXR-8 Review

John Doht — Tue, 23 Feb 2021 22:00:00 +0000

A Quick Note from Fathercraft

Hey everyone! A lot has changed in the world of baby monitors– even since we first reviewed the Infant Optics DXR-8 Pro back in 2019. We can’t believe we are saying this, but Infant Optics might have hit a homerun with their new Infant Optics DXR-8 Pro. Alright, well, maybe not a homerun but it wasn’t a swing-and-a-miss like the Infant Optics DXR-8. This is a long post explaining why you shouldn’t buy the DXR-8, but if you are curious about the DXR-8 Pro, and why you might consider that one, then head down to the bottom where we take a deep dive. See ya there!

Jump to Section

A Cautionary Tale About the Infant Optics DXR-8
DXR-8 Purchase and Setup
The awesome (In this case just good)
Wish it Were Different
The verdict: the Infant Optics DXR-8 is obsolete
Alternatives
The Infant Optics DXR-8 Pro

A Cautionary Tale About the Infant Optics DXR-8

In the Fathercraft “Battle for Best Baby Monitor Royale“, the Infant Optics DXR-8 Baby Monitor loses in the first round, and falls squarely into the category of “cautionary advice”. Despite its overwhelming popularity on Amazon, our own experience with the DXR-8 has us wondering “Just how can such a clunky old school device hold its position as the top-selling baby monitor at Amazon?”

Our guess is that prior to the introduction of the new breed of “smart” baby monitor technology, most baby monitors fell far short of parental expectations (a polite way of saying they all sucked), so DXR-8 buyers are comparing their “new” monitor to older “audio or video only” non-wifi monitors with very limited functions.

If you’d like to check out our video review of the Infant Optics DXR-8, here it is in all its glory:

Today the much-touted FHSS wireless technology of the DXR-8 and its 360p images is a far cry from the 1080p resolution and the “Tesla of Baby Monitors” such as the state-of-the-art Nanit.

These new products of Silicon Valley not only give you the peace of mind a good baby monitor should, they even give suggestions and advice for improving your baby’s sleep. We’d imagine it’s just a matter of time before word gets out and the old DXR-8 is toppled from its top-selling throne at Amazon.

There is also the fact that the DXR-8 is only available exclusively at Amazon. The San Francisco firm Infant Optics does not sell their product directly. A quick trip to the Infant Optics company website directs you right back to Amazon to purchase. Check out the 4,250 critical reviews before being wowed by the top seller status of the DXR-8. Many of the 73% positive reviews come from new buyers but over time the reliability flaws of the DXR-8 become all too apparent and all too common. There are many complaints about signal interference from wifi routers, inconsistent signals, faulty power connections, and premature battery failure.

When you compare the DXR-8 with the new cutting-edge smart baby monitors available today, it’s obvious that the Infant Optics offering is resting on its laurels. It may have been leading-edge technology 4 years ago but the DXR-8 has since fallen far behind high performance 2019 challengers such as the Cocoon Cam, and the Nanit. And we should know. Our DXR-8 from 4 years ago is identical to the one we just purchased for further testing in December 2018. So much for a top seller staying on the leading edge of baby monitor technology.

Unlike the industry leaders, the DXR-8 has not been improved over time, and a shallow boast about its status as “the first baby monitor with interchangeable lens technology” is poor compensation for a lack of reliability. Reliability is the prime consideration for baby monitors. Doubts about monitor reliability defeat the whole purpose of the device which is designed to give parental peace of mind. You’ll make enough back-and-forth trips to care for the baby, the last thing you need is a compulsion to check on the intermittent performance of the baby monitor.

At the risk of pointing at the top-selling Emperor of Amazon Baby Monitor Land and declaring loudly that “He has no clothes!” the Dads at Fathercraft are going to tell it like it is after testing not one, but two DXR-8 units. We purchased the second unit to ensure fairness by ruling out the chance that we’d gotten stuck with a rare malfunctioning oddball lemon that somehow squeaked past the Infant Optics quality control team. We’ll follow our usual review format, and we’ll even mention a few positive points about the DXR-8, though it would be a stretch to put those points in the “Awesome” category we usually include in each of our baby gear reviews. Perhaps “Good” would be more applicable when it comes to our wayward pair of DXR-8s.

DXR-8 Purchase and Setup

Why would anyone consider purchasing the DXR-8? One of the selling points of the DXR-8 is that it is a traditional monitor as opposed to the more technologically evolved wifi monitors available now. For parents and sitters with unreliable wifi, we can see how a traditional monitor might be preferred since it will keep on working even when the wifi is down.

Another common concern with wifi baby monitors is that they’re vulnerable to hacking. And, this is true. Though we’d liken this fear to that of a shark attack where the shark has its jaws chained shut:

Incredibly rare
Really scary
No physical harm done

You see, there’s no financial incentive for a hacker to hack your baby monitor. And, a hacker would have to be BOTH really good at hacking AND the sort of creep that likes to yell at babies through a monitor. We’d warrant this is a rare combo.

This “old school” approach is certainly understandable but hardly justifies the $165.95 price tag, especially when parents on a budget can get advanced features such as breathing monitoring with a wifi based smartphone-app-powered monitor like the Cocoon Cam for just $149. More for less will always score major points with us here at Fathercraft. Less for more puts you on our cautionary advice list, and in our view, the DXR-8 is simply not a good baby monitor at any price. It just doesn’t fulfill the basic purpose of a baby monitor in terms of reliable performance, and even when it is functioning properly, mediocre visual results are about the best it can deliver.

Old School Tech

The old school still rules when it comes to the setup of the DXR-8 as well. Close proximity to the crib is strictly forbidden, which is made alarmingly clear by the User’s Manual with all of its warnings about choking hazards and strangulation risks. The DXR-8 must be placed at least 3 feet away from the crib to prevent cord entanglement hazards, and the manual clearly identifies the optical lens and lens hood parts as choking hazards. A color-coded wire tab must be mated to the appropriate slots in the parent unit before the lithium-ion battery pack can be fitted into the battery compartment (a sharp pen is recommended to do this), and the unit can’t be used until the battery is fully charged.

The Infant Optics website is pretty sparse when it comes to additional support information, offering only PDF downloads of the quick start and full versions of the User’s Manual, and not much else. Of course, the DXR-8, as a “traditional” non-wifi baby monitor is considered “plug and play” since there is no app configuration to consider. This might be considered as a plus until it’s time to add additional cameras for additional kids.

Nothing says old school tech quite like needing a sharp pen to connect your battery

The awesome (In this case just good)

Parent Device Battery

The rechargeable lithium-ion battery in the parental unit is rated for 10 hours in standby mode and 6.5 hours with the screen continuously on. That’s pretty good as long as you happen to get a unit with good power connections.

Additional Cameras

Additional cameras can be added, up to 4 total, for $99.75 each. Lens choices include a wide angle lens for $11.98 and the optical zoom lens included with the starter kit is also sold separately as a replacement component for $19.99. Cameras need to be “paired” or “registered” with the monitor unit via the menu bar and a six-step process. The last step ominously states, “If unsuccessful, delete the camera channel and attempt to pair again.” After all that, there is no split screen viewing mode available, so each channel must be searched for and viewed one camera at a time from the parental monitor.

We do like the idea of a dedicated parent unit which isn’t reliant on working wifi. We also like the Pan and Tilt functions which can be operated remotely from the parental monitor. This is especially convenient when the toddlers go mobile and you need to track their activity across the entire room. We’ll also give some credit for the instant video feed access, but really that’s just a second or two advantage over the smartphone-based monitor delay. This small advantage is not nearly enough to be a deal breaker when it comes to favoring smartphone-based wifi capable baby monitors.

And that’s about it for the good characteristics of the DXR-8. Now it’s time to dive into the performance issues experienced with not one, but two of our DXR-8 baby monitors.

Wish it Were Different

Sudden “Out of Signal Coverage”

One of the most widespread flaws experienced in one of our two units is that the DXR-8 suddenly stopped working. This is an inherent range problem with the non-wifi DXR-8, and a Google search revealed that the same thing has occurred to other people quite frequently. Even when the parent unit is right next to the child unit we still got an “Out of signal coverage” alert. That’s well within the 700′ unobstructed parameter advertised by Infant Optics.

Infant Optics makes a selling point out of the 700′ unobstructed range but think about that. How often do you have an unobstructed area, free from walls and floors? We would expect, more realistically, that a decent monitor should be able to perform inside at about 85 feet with up to four walls between parent and baby, but suddenly we weren’t even getting that limited coverage once the mysterious “out of signal coverage” issue surfaced. A search for range extenders for the DXR-8 was fruitless. We did find numerous DXR-8 consumers with similar issues though, including interference from routers and microwaves and the notoriously annoying beeping alarm which sounds for low batteries or lost signal. One reviewer at Amazon titled her 1-star review “Living Nightmare”.

Wifi based baby monitoring has unlimited range and obstructions aren’t even a consideration. Using John’s house (3 stories including the basement) as an example, even when it is working as advertised, the DXR-8 left you severely restricted. If he wanted to keep an eye on Calvin in his room, that meant the garage, back yard, and different sides of the house were all off limits. A good baby monitor permits a certain level of parental freedom to keep up with the domestic demands in the rest of the house after all, so a monitor which can’t handle the inevitable “obstructions” between parent and child fails at the most fundamental level.

Can’t see well with old-school resolution

While today’s modern monitors are pushing into the 1080p territory, the DXR-8 can only deliver 360p resolution. We needed daylight or a light on in the kid’s room to view the general layout, but even then the low resolution makes it impossible to distinguish facial expressions. When testing with John’s 4-year-old Oliver, whose bed was across the room from the camera, and it was difficult to tell if he was actually in the bed. Naturally, night vision with such primitive resolution was pretty poor, yet another fundamental failure of the DXR-8. Since it is much healthier for kids to sleep in the dark, it’s only reasonable to expect that a good baby monitor should function well in the dark. Without night vision capability you’re paying big bucks for what amounts to an audio-only monitor, just one more example of how the DXR-8 provides less for more.

The verdict: the Infant Optics DXR-8 is obsolete

With so many excellent smartphone-based baby monitors available today the DXR-8 is long past its prime. The best baby monitors use wifi and smartphone apps to their advantage. With the DXR-8 the presence of a wifi router can actually be a handicap, and what modern household is willing to forego wifi? Old school technology such as FHSS wireless transmission is much too prone to signal interference from common sources such as microwave ovens and smart IoT devices, and interchangeable lenses don’t enhance the low-resolution 360p video.

The DXR-8 fails across the board of criteria we use at Fathercraft to evaluate baby monitors, with shortcomings including poor range, poor picture quality, poor night vision, and severe usability issues.

Performance of the DXR-8 is marginal at best, and just plain non-functional when the out of signal range issue surfaces out of nowhere. It’s obvious to us at Fathercraft that the DXR-8 is long past its prime, still coasting on an out-of-date reputation, supported by a serious lack of awareness about just how good the new best baby monitors perform.

Alternatives

In the same price range as the DXR-8, the Cocoon Cam Plus is a much better investment for parents on a budget. At just $149 it’s the least expensive of next generation baby monitors and it features the innovative breathing monitoring app. Good image quality and an overhead “bird’s eye” view combine to provide much-needed peace of mind for anxious new parents.

The Cocoon Cam provides so much more than the DXR-8 in terms of versatility. Your smartphone or tablet becomes the parent unit with a very respectable 720p image quality. That’s twice the fuzzy 360p resolution of the DXR-8. Night vision quality is also far above the DXR-8, which you can see for yourself at our Cocoon Cam review page.

Another great baby monitor is the Eufy Spaceview. This is one of the top baby monitors that we recommend, because it has high quality video, it has voice-activated alerts, slim parent device, and the set-up is oh so easy. Check out our full review on the Eufy Spaceview Review Page.

The Infant Optics DXR-8 Pro: What’s New, What We Like, and What Took Them So Long??

What’s New

To start off, the Infant Optics DXR-8 Pro sports a new 720p, 5 inch parent unit which is an upgrade from the 360p quality the DXR-8 has. Guys, that’s like double the quality. However, keep in mind that most of the other baby monitors out there today are rocking 1080p parent units, so this was a long-overdue update for Infant Optics. Volume and brightness controls have also been added to this larger unit, which make life easier for the parent.

The range of the camera has been extended by nearly 50% to a maximum range of 1000 ft. as opposed to the original model that had about 700 feet. Unluckily for us, we don’t live inside of a football stadium, so we really can’t even tell the difference in utility with this new update. Most of the video disruption that you will run into has to do with other electronic devices anyway, not necessarily the range (unless you are 1000ft away), but you can read more about that here.

The biggest update to the Infant Optics DXR-8 Pro is the active noise reduction feature. Most baby monitors use an omni directional microphone, which basically picks up sound from every direction. This includes any background noise like: fans, A/C, spooky ghosts, etc.. What the Pro does is block out that background noise and instead only lights up when it hears sounds from your baby. This is actually pretty awesome (wow are we really saying that?) and it makes life easier for those who always hear that annoying hum from their parent unit.

What We Like

Most of the new stuff is amazing. The screen quality is day and night, the noise reduction is a game changer, and the set-up is way easier. However, a lot of these things are already being done by the baby monitor brands. The screen quality is just now catching up with several other wifi monitors and even non-wifi monitors like the Eufy Spaceview. Even still, it makes a huge difference from the normal DXR-8 so we like it.

The noise reduction might be our favorite part about it. It is relatively new technology in the baby monitor market, and it solves a real pain point for parents. Back in our day, when we were tired of the low hum we just turned the volume down on the monitor and looked for the LED volume indicator instead. So the noise reduction is sweet but does it justify the cost difference between the DXR-8 Pro ($199) and the Eufy Spaceview ($169) in itself? We’ll let you be the judge on that.

Finally, the set-up is easy and painless. No complaints with a new set-up user experience from us. Nobody likes troubleshooting or tinkering with annoying click-through settings, so we are glad that they made it user-friendly.

Has Infant Optics Redeemed Themselves?

Short answer, yeah. Is this the new best baby monitor on the market? Short answer, no! This is a great upgrade to the Infant Optics DXR-8, but it still doesn’t outshine some of the better monitors like the Eufy Spaceview and most of the wifi/connected monitors.

Most of the changes that the Infant Optics DXR-8 Pro brings in are just things that are catching Infant Optics up with market standard. So we see the market standard as above the bare minimum, meaning we will recommend this to you. BUT check out our other reviews and really do your research on the baby monitor that is right for you. If noise reduction from the parent unit is your number one priority, then by all means the DXR-8 Pro is the baby monitor for you.

What’s next?

For the full roundup on the latest baby monitor tech check out all of our baby monitor reviews and our picks for the Best Baby Monitors of 2020 here.

A Motorola Halo Plus Review

Paul Zalewski — Sat, 09 Jan 2021 22:32:27 +0000

Ah, the Motorola Halo+ …

It’s got something that we get asked A LOT here at Fathercraft: what’s the best baby monitor with an app and a parent unit? Or, said a different way, what’s the best wifi baby monitor that also offers a standalone parent unit in case you don’t want to use your phone?

Well, the Halo Plus does include both of those things. You’ll get a standalone parent unit, but you can also connect to this monitor from a smartphone app.

But, is it any good? John finds out in this of the Motorola Halo Plus review …

So, sorry to disappoint, but the Halo Plus is not the droid you’re looking for.

And, honestly, we haven’t found any monitor that fulfills this promise.

Your best bet in our opinion? The Nanit Plus + an Echo Show.

Explore all of our baby monitor reviews, plus our pick for best baby monitor right here.