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Reviewed / Lisa Lawrence
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Credit:
Reviewed / Lisa Lawrence
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This smart baby monitor has a user-friendly, feature-packed app and wearables to track breathing. You can also sync it with a smart home device. Read More
Parents of multiples or children in two separate rooms have reason to rejoice for the Vava Split Screen Baby Monitor, which offers a larger-than-average parent unit allowing adults to both see and hear two different rooms or cameras at the exact same time. Read More
The Owlet Cam supports high-definition, wide-angle video, background audio, a temperature sensor, and integration with the Owlet Smart Sock app. Read More
With intuitive button placement, impressive video quality, and excellent battery life, this baby monitor is a joy to use. Read More
This monitor offers sleep analytics, temperature alert, two-way audio, smart home compatibility, cry-detection alerts, and a built-in nightlight and lullabies. Read More
We've heard it said that parents have eyes in the back of their heads. We think there's some truth to that. Once we become responsible for keeping alive little humans who seem bent on self-destruction, our senses heighten.
No matter how vigilant you are, little ones always manage to get away with things, like smearing the contents of their dirty diapers all over their cribs. It's for situations exactly like this that the best baby monitors—like our top-rated Nanit Pro Camera baby monitor (available at Amazon for $190.56) —are crucial to parenting. Babies need to be watched, not just listened to.
Deciding on the right video baby monitor for your family’s peace of mind can be challenging: Do you need one that can remotely pan and tilt? Do you need one that has memory card storage? Do you want a smart baby monitor or a Wi-Fi baby monitor? Is night vision the same from one camera to the next? Does price matter?
Read on and see what you think.
The Nanit Pro baby monitor stands out due to its breath-tracking capabilities.
An ideal choice for parents of multiples, the Vava monitor comes with two cameras.
Pairs with Owlet Smart Sock wearable
Good video quality
Poor sound quality
Remote pan and tilt
Good video quality
Long battery life
No motion alerts
Multiple stand options for easy mounting
Auto-capture of baby photos
Flawless video quality
Expensive
No handheld unit
Remote pan, tilt, and zoom
Interchangeable lens available
Poor image quality
Unreliable
We've had many moms and writers contribute to our baby monitor coverage, including Nadine Jolie Courtney, a journalist, novelist, and former magazine editor, Alyssa Cohen, a former television news producer, and Reviewed's Accessibility editor, Sarah Kovac.
We go through a thorough testing process to determine what we like, what we don't, what's useful, and what's not about every smart, Wi-Fi-enabled, video baby monitor that goes into this article.
We set up and install the monitor, download and set up apps as needed, use the baby monitor across days and weeks, moving it to different spots in the home both inside and outside. We also try out any special features, accessories and attachments, and examine the image and sound quality.
We recommend getting a baby monitor, even in small-space living or co-sleeping scenarios. As there are many types, you should research before picking the right baby monitor for your family.
Every baby sleeps lightly for the first six-months or so of life, which means that if you sneak into their nursery to check up on them, they may wake and think it’s time to play. This not only takes them rapidly off a structured sleep schedule, it disrupts important sleep training. With a video baby monitor, you can peek in without even getting up from your chair or out of your own bed.
Most baby monitors also record the temperature and humidity readings of the room their placed in, so you can tell if your baby may be too cold or too hot.
If you’re standing in your baby’s bedroom asking yourself where to put the baby monitor, we’ve got answers.
Many attach to floor stands or wall mounts, while some are ready to just sit on a shelf. What you should consider though, is the optimal viewing angle, and whether or not you’ve got a baby or a toddler.
You want to be close enough to see the baby, but also may want to see a wider angle of the room. Most importantly, keeping the monitor out of your child’s reach is just a safe practice; keep it at least 3 feet away from the baby. A good idea is to mount it high up on a wall or on a ceiling.
Some do, and some don’t. In order for your baby monitor to record video, you need to have an SD or micro SD card inserted into the monitor, or the monitor has to be connected to an app that facilitates recordings, whether free or through a subscription.
Not sure whether you need a local-video monitor or one that can connect to your smartphone via Wi-Fi?
Local-video baby monitors communicate directly from the camera to the portable display (often called the “parent unit”). Often the camera and display are already paired right out of the box. All you have to do is turn them both on, and you'll immediately get the video feed on the parent unit. Because they don't use Wi-Fi, they're also good for families who may live in places with unreliable or slow internet.
Wi-Fi baby monitors, on the other hand, are connected, sending the video feed to the internet on a wireless server, which then streams to your smartphone or tablet, and the signal is often delayed by a few seconds.
Despite the delay, Wi-Fi baby monitors have their merits, primarily that you can check in on your little one from anywhere. If you’re at work or enjoying a night out and want to see if the babysitter got your kid to nap, you can peek in remotely, as long as you’re connected to a phone network or Wi-Fi, too.
Many of these connected cameras also offer the ability to give temporary app access to somebody who doesn't regularly babysit for you. You can invite other people to the account so that they can also monitor your little one from their phone.
The best Wi-Fi baby monitors also offer the ability to capture photos and video from the camera feed to save or share with friends or social media.
The big determining factors that set standard, non-connected monitors apart from each other are range, video quality, and battery life of the parent unit. We tested for all of these factors and more, so you can feel confident that our best recommendations really are the best.
Smart baby monitors can do everything Wi-Fi baby monitors can do, and more. Mainly, this includes syncing with your smart home platform, like Amazon Alexa and Google Home.
Many parents have concerns that their connected baby monitor could be hacked. Plain and simple, yes, baby monitors can be hacked.
But, really, if the app that you use with your connected camera requires you to set up a unique username and password, any potential hacker would need some serious know-how to access your video monitor’s feed. Is it possible? Yes. Is it likely? No.
You should note that it’s also possible to hack standard baby monitors that aren’t even connected to the internet. The difference is that the hacker would have to be physically close to an unconnected monitor in order to hack it—say, parked across the street from your house.
There is no monitor that is absolutely hack-proof, unfortunately.
You spend the first year of your baby’s life watching them sleep on a little screen for 16 hours per day. Fast-forward to the year your kid stops napping and you have to ask yourself, is it time to stop using a baby monitor?
Largely, this is a personal choice or one affected by chronic health issues of your child. However, in general, pediatricians and psychologists recommend between the ages of 3 and 4 years old. If you’re unsure or uncomfortable, consult your child’s pediatrician.
Audio monitors are affordable and effective at letting you know if your kid is awake and making lots of noise, but having video can have huge benefits. Most parents these days prefer video baby monitors, but if you're looking for the best audio baby monitors, we've tested those, too.
Sarah Kovac is an award-winning author and accessibility editor for Reviewed. Previously, she worked with a multitude of outlets such as Wirecutter, TIME, PCMag, Prevention, The Atlantic, Reviews.com, CNN, GOOD, Upworthy, Mom.me, and SheKnows.
Nadine Jolie Courtney is a freelance writer based in Santa Monica, California. A former magazine editor, her work has appeared in Town & Country, Vogue, Oprah, Good Housekeeping, and Angeleno, among many other outlets. A graduate of Barnard College, she is the author of four books, including Romancing the Throne and All-American Muslim Girl, a Kirkus Best YA Book of 2019. Find her on Instagram @nadinejoliecourtney.
Alyssa Cohen
Contributing Writer
Alyssa Cohen is a freelance writer with a passion for honest reviews and packages on her doorstep. She's a mom to two babies under two years old, which makes her the perfect contributor to Reviewed's parenting content.
She is a former television news producer and public relations professional who loves storytelling. Alyssa earned a regional Edward R. Murrow Award in 2014 for breaking news while at WMTW-TV in Maine, and has been in the control room for some of the biggest stories of the last decade at WESH-TV in Orlando, including the Pulse Nightclub massacre in 2016 and Hurricane Irma in 2017.
She is a Massachusetts native and graduate of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University (go Orange!). Alyssa resides in Orlando with her family.
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