Baby Monitors

[RZ1]

The wife and I are due to welcome our first born in the coming days/week.

Wife's been busy buying everything we need but has trusted me to make 2 purchases, the first being a baby friendly car to replace her mini the second being a baby monitor.

I bought her a 1 series which then was replaced with an A3 sport back.

I now need to buy a baby monitor, been looking into these and so far the Motorola MBP853 seems to tick all boxes. It has an HD camera, tilt pan zoom functions from the monitor and also the ability for me to connect to it via my iPhone when working. Two way communication, built in thermometer and it can play lullabies.

Anyone have any experience of this, or recommend any others?

[lambosagogo]

I know a few families with young kids and most of them didn't opt for a baby monitor, instead choosing to get a webcam. Normally tiltable, night vision, viewable via app or browser etc. Foscam make a few and there's plenty of others. They seem to give much better bang for the buck than the baby monitors.

[Bullett]

Just get one that does sound and maybe temp.
They are nearly all unreliable pieces of crap and unless your house is massive you will hear baby anyway.

Also, most of the stuff you "must" buy is pointless and feeds on the paranoia of new parents.

Except Calpol, calpol is brilliant.

[dave_s13]

All you need is a dead simple one way jobby that let's you hear them scream.

Anything else is just a total waste of money. I honestly can't see any reason why you need to sit there watching them just leave em be you'll soon be sick if the sight of him/her!

Congrats BTW!

Dave, father of a 6, 3 and 20m old who all had the same cheapo monitor; the youngest of which I can hear starting to grumble a bit, little bugger.

[NiceCupOfTea]

Don't bother with a camera one, they are one trick ponies. Get a good audio one (although what I don't know, we got a BT one and although it still works 3 years on, the screen stopped displaying anything and the batteries lasted weeks. Just bought some decent rechargeables and within a month they need recharging more often.

Much better video option is buying an IP camera (£50 Foscam does the trick)

[Lord Pikey]

We have been using the Tommee Tippee since my boy was born. no complaints and its quite often on special offer in ToysRUs. You can get it with or without a pad depending on what you want.
Its done everything thing we expected and with the pad we only had a couple of false alarms.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tommee-Tippee-Closer-Digit...

Also, i really recommended the Dormi App for your smart-phone. Makes travelling with a baby much easier than lugging around the baby monitor. You just need a spare smart-phone/ tablet to leave in the babies room and for the devices to be on wifi.


Edit - We did get an inferred ip camera baby monitor. This one in fact.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/D-Link-DCS-825L-Wi-Fi-Moni...

Waste of money. The night vision projected too much light into the room so the baby looked at it, the wench spent too much time just watching the baby when we should be switching off and it also looks fecking creepy as hell, like something out of a horror film. Also, the app that goes with it is the worst piece of software i have ever used.

Which reminds me, i need to find it and sell it to some other poor sap.

Edited by Lord on Thursday 27th August 07:31

[lufbramatt]

£50 foscam ip CCTV camera and a fiver on an iPad/tablet app and away you go. Night vision, sound, tilt and pan. Ours has been great. Couple of minutes to set it up with our WiFi and been perfectly reliable since.

[Uriel]

We got a similar Motorola (does all the same but no iphone option) and we love it. If I had to buy again I'd go get the exact same one or the one you're looking at.

Use the video all the time and wouldn't be without it (if the handset is unplugged and running batteries, then after a while the video times out and switches off leaving audio only and when that happens we always press a button to turn the screen back on rather than leave it on just audio). Very impressed with the quality of the IR modes too. Though I have never used any alternatives so don't really have anything to compare it with.

[ReallyReallyGood]

What's the purpose of the camera (especially HD) on a baby monitor (other than to up the price of course)?

[alock]

When you first become a parent, most of the training required is training the new parents.

The more features you have, the more you will train yourself to rely on them. The longer it will then take you to ween yourself off those features.

Keep it simple. A few months down the line, do you want to be a relaxed parent who has fitted the baby into your lifestyle or do you want to be swamped with baby aids?

[cobra kid]

Just get an audio one that has a digital signal. Job Done.

[FD3Si]

cobra kid said:

Just get an audio one that has a digital signal. Job Done.

This. Everything else will turn you into a mentallist.

[Davey S2]

FD3Si said:

cobra kid said:

Just get an audio one that has a digital signal. Job Done.

This. Everything else will turn you into a mentallist.

+2 We have the Angel care one. It came with the sensor pad you put under the mattress but we never used that. Friends with them said that it just made them paranoid as it would go off for no reason at all.

[budgie smuggler]

I've got a Foscam video one. It does temperature, night vision, tilt, etc.

I think it's great and would never recommend a plain audio one. If the baby makes a noise (or is totally silent for that matter! ) , instead of running upstairs you can just keep an eye on it. Also the temperature monitor has been pretty useful, although I get the feeling it reads a tad high. The remote is also battery powered and the signal good enough to be used in the garden.

For well under £100 it's a no-brainer IMO. BTW you can turn off the screen function if you want just the audio, but we never bother. All we do is dim it right down for night time.

Edited by budgie smuggler on Thursday 27th August 08:57

[E36GUY]

alock said:

When you first become a parent, most of the training required is training the new parents.

The more features you have, the more you will train yourself to rely on them. The longer it will then take you to ween yourself off those features.

Keep it simple. A few months down the line, do you want to be a relaxed parent who has fitted the baby into your lifestyle or do you want to be swamped with baby aids?

This. The biggest thing we learnt as new parents was when to turn the damn thing off. We'd be charging into 1st born's room at the mearest hint of a shuffle making sure he had his dummy in so wouldn't wake up. What we realised is that we don't need to hear every single little sniff and whimper and actually, he more often than not wouldn't wake up. Our house was small enough to hear him if he went for it so once we turned off the monitor life became better. For the OP - this is after about 6 months though. 2nd born we hardly used it! First few months are the hardest part, you can't breastfeed so you are essentially useless at this stage but I'd suggest a monitor with a temp gauge. You don't really need the video part.

Best of luck to you.

[lufbramatt]

ReallyReallyGood said:

What's the purpose of the camera (especially HD) on a baby monitor (other than to up the price of course)?

sometimes its just nice to be able to see what they are up to We don't sit constantly watching it just a glance now and again. Don't get the need for HD though.

Our little boy often will wake up and start rolling around the cot without making much noise so it's good to be able to see he hasn't got wedged in the corner or something. Plus next doors horrible yappy dogs constantly set the audio alarm off if we have it on audio only.

[Sheepshanks]

Davey S2 said:

+2 We have the Angel care one. It came with the sensor pad you put under the mattress but we never used that. Friends with them said that it just made them paranoid as it would go off for no reason at all.

Going through this all again with grandchildren. Both of ours have the AngelCare and the sensor pad works fine.

Rather than false alarms, the thing to be aware of is that it's very sensitive to external vibration - even a desk fan in the room is enough to make it think all is OK.

E36GUY said:

We'd be charging into 1st born's room at the mearest hint of a shuffle making sure he had his dummy in so wouldn't wake up.

If you have a camera you don't need to do the charging into the room!

Even though our oldest granddaughter is now 4, it's good to be able to have a look - we'll hear a thump as she gets out of bed but often she's just getting something and will go back on her own. But if she starts playing then we can go in and steer her back to bed.

I also think it's good when they're smaller as you can choose the best point to go in the morning - if you wait until they cry then they learn that you'll go in when they cry.

But do whatever you want - one of our daughters immediately wanted a camera when she saw ours but the other won't hear of having one.

Edited by Sheepshanks on Thursday 27th August 09:18

[RZ1]

Thanks for all the responses, lots of divided opinions.

I'm still very keen on having a camera, reason for this is that the nursery will be on the top floor of the house so during the day I don't want to be running up 2 flights of stairs at every sound. If however we can see him on a screen then we might see that he is just making a few sounds but then fall back asleep.
Also as the little guy was very premature he makes lots of premature noises. Been in the hospital with him and heard him make noises that has made us jump up and take a look. Apparently these noises are very common with very premature babies.

Ideally I do want to go with a dedicated unit but might explore looking at the webcam option too.

Had a think about the monitors that came with the pads to measure breathing rates etc, however decided against it as were worried about false alarms and being paranoid if it did/didn't alarm.

[williamp]

Sorry, I disagree with all of the "just get audio". We have a camera and it is really useful to see whether we need to attend or not. Ours both cry but settle very quickly. On many occassions, going in before would wake them up properly. But being able to judge this allows them to "self settle" and means you dont have to move.

Etter for them, better for you...

[Jasandjules]

We read this.

http://www.emfanalysis.com/safe-baby-monitor/

Could be all stuff and nonsense, but we are buying a low/no EMF baby monitor.....