Advice on what to look for when choosing a baby monitor plus the opportunity to purchase a range of digital, video and sensory baby monitors.
A good baby monitor allows you the flexibility to move around the house whilst your baby is asleep or safely playing safe in the knowledge that you will be alerted if your baby needs you. Baby monitors typically consist of 2 units; a transmitter to be positioned near the baby and a receiver to be carried with the parents. There are a huge variety of baby monitors available, however they can be broadly defined into 3 categories.
Audio Baby Monitors - These are the most common form of baby monitor and simply transmit any sound baby makes to the parent's receiver. They are particularly useful during the night if your baby sleeps in another room. Many audio monitors have a moving light display which allows you to monitor sounds that baby makes with the volume turned down.
Video Baby Monitors - These work on a similar principle to audio monitors but allow you to see your baby as well as hear them - this can be incredibly reassuring. Video monitors consist of a small camera to be placed near your baby and a hand held monitor fitted with a small screen on which baby's picture is displayed. It is also possible to transfer the image onto a computer or television screen. Some video monitors have an infra red function which can be switched on at night to allow you to see your baby in the dark.
Sensory Baby Monitors - These are designed with three components; a transmitter, a receiver and a sensory pad which is typically fitted under your baby's cot mattress. The pad works because of its ability to pick up very subtle movement and so can warn you if baby ceases breathing. Sensory monitors are usually programmed to go off after a period of 20seconds without movement (although check individual products for details).
Within these three categories a range of different features are available. These include the option to use rechargeable batteries or a mains adapter, nightlight functions and temperature monitors. Some baby monitors allow you to play music or talk back to your baby via the monitor when you are in another room. Additionally, some are available with two or more receivers so they can be left in different rooms of the house.
As baby monitors use radio waves to transmit sounds, it is possible that the signal will be disrupted by interference from microwaves, cordless phones and concrete walls. Additionally, this use of radio waves also means that it is possible that if neighbours are on the phone or using a baby monitor themselves, the may be able to pick up your signal. For this reason you should never have private conversations when you are in the same room as an active monitor.
Many people find a simple audio monitor to be perfectly adequate, however if you require added reassurance or if your baby has a higher risk of cot death, you may choose a more advanced model.
Baby monitor price is not a key issue when shopping with us because we search the internet to find you the best deals, you can get a high quality wireless baby monitor at the best price on a regular basis as we search high and low for baby monitor sales and post them on our website for you to save a fortune.
Manufacturer's Description
The Summer Infant "Baby Zoom" monitor has a 6.5cm display screen and automatic black and white night vision viewing. Remote control feature allows parents to pan and zoom the camera without entering baby's room! The digital technology means that the best picture is achieved from the camera at all times with high quality sound and private receiption offering piece of mind whilst baby sleeps or moves around.
Technical Details
Remote control camera pans & zooms
Colour LCD & auto black & white (night)
6.5cm display screen
2.4MHz
Multi channel for complete privacy
Sound activated light display
Customer Baby Monitor Review
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
Excellent monitor with unique features and decent value, 19 Aug 2010
By Mr. Paul Dennett
This review is from: Summer Infant Baby Zoom Digital Video Monitor (Baby Product)
We have had ours for 2 weeks now, and so far are extremely pleased. We are currently using four cameras (the maximum number supported) and a single monitor, and it only took a couple of minutes to get everything set up and working together. We have three young children so have a camera in each of the rooms where they sleep, and a fourth in the kitchen that looks over the playpen. Our house has thick walls and the cameras are spread across all three floors, but reception is excellent throughout, and seems to be unaffected by our wifi, microwave, cordless phones etc.
Picture quality is perfectly decent - certainly better than our old video monitors - and the zoom function is a helpful addition. If pushed to be critical, maybe the colours aren't 100% accurate during daylight, but neither are they at all bad or weird so don't be concerned on that front - and in any case the cameras are mainly used at night. Night vision is very good, with a clear picture and sufficient range to see anywhere even in quite large rooms. Whilst (as with any night vision) it is basically black and white, we've noticed that our GroBag Egg thermometers show up clearly in their proper colour, so as a bonus we have extra reassurance that the temperature in the room is in the right range.
Some reviewers have commented on the number of lights on the camera, but we haven't found these to be a problem. They consist of a single standard green LED, and an inverted 'horse shoe' of nine incredibly faint red lights. We have a crib on my side of the bed and so I have one camera on the far side effectively pointing towards my face from a range of about 2 meters, and whilst it is of course visible at night, it certainly isn't intrusive (and of course disappears when you close your eyes!). None of our children seem the slightest bothered. I guess if your child is incredibly sensitive then you could cover up the green light, which should be pretty simple, but I suspect this isn't going to be necessary for the great majority.
Sound is also very clear. We haven't had any issues with background buzzing noise, which was a constant irritation with our old monitors (more on them below). We'd read a couple of comments about there not being a mute button, but can't really understand what the problem has been for those reviewers as there is the volume scale includes a 'zero' option. Even when the volume is down and/or the image off, the monitor has a bar of lights which show when the camera detects a noise (more lights = louder sound, with red lights showing for big noises!).
Clearly one of the biggest selling points for this system is the ability to remotely move the camera around - I didn't find any other baby monitor offering this. We've been really pleased at how well this has been implemented, with the motors being extremely quite and the range of movement extremely wide. It has been great for tracking my one year old in close up as he wanders up and down his cot, plotting his escape, and for keeping an eye on my three year old as she potters around her bedroom looking for a teddy or causing mischief.
The monitor is a sensible size, being small and light enough to be very portable, whilst still having a big enough screen to have a clear view of your child. There is a toggle button at the top of the monitor for switching the image on and off. If you are using the monitor on the battery rather than plugged into the mains, the image will automatically switch off after a couple of minutes as an energy saving measure. A couple of reviewers have been annoyed by this, but it seems pretty sensible to us as you still have the sound and the light bar to alert you if anything interesting is going on, and then all you have to do is hit the toggle button to get the picture back. We tend to have the monitor plugged into the mains all night, and despite regular use during the evening, haven't yet had the battery charge drop below around 50%.
The menu system is simple and intuitive. My one suggestion for an improvement for the next generation model is to add a manual button for quicker and easier switching between multiple cameras, but it only takes a couple of clicks to do this via the menu, and as we tend to leave it set to our newborn's camera most of the time anyway, so far it's not been too annoying
We bought the Summer Zoom model as a replacement for the BosieBoo video monitors we'd been using for the previous 3 years. The reasons for the upgrade were (i) the steady degeneration of quality in the images and sound on the BosieBoos, to the point where only one of our three cameras and one of our two monitors was functional, and (ii) the interference we got on the BosieBoos, for example losing all reception whenever the microwave was on. Whilst the BosieBoos were the most attractive of all the monitors we've researched, they clearly had issues with build quality (especially the fragile plugs/adapters) which I'm sure contributed to them going (I think) out of business.
It is too early to tell how well built the Summer monitors are, but they look and feel very sturdy and we've read dozens of reviews - including many from the US - and there don't seem to be any common problems showing up, aside from the very occasional dud that seems to happen to any range of electrical kit. In fact, our first camera had an intermittent fault, but Summer immediately sent us a replacement and have let us keep the original as a spare, so no stars lost for this review.
There is also an issue to look out for if you are adding extra cameras, but we got back directly to Summer customer services and they've been refreshingly excellent in resolving this quickly too. We ordered two additional cameras (I believe the only way to get these is directly from Summer, but they are reasonably priced at under £50 each, though don't forget to order an adapter/plug with each one as they aren't included). Neither of these new ones seemed to work properly, and it turns out there are two batches of cameras and they don't like being mixed up on the same network. Summer got us to read the codes off the bottoms of the cameras and were then able to send us out (next day delivery) replacements from the same batch as the original. This has sorted the problem. Again, the speedy, helpful and courteous customer service from Summer saved a star being lost!
In terms of value, we've ended up spending about the same amount on this monitor as we would have done on one of the more sophisticated audio-only monitors and having previously benefited from having video (saving endless unnecessary trips up and down stairs) there really was no chance of us trading that in return for the benefits of two-way chat, the ability to play lullabies or a thermometer. Other quality video monitors we were considering were coming in at £100+ more expensive for an equivalent set up, particularly as extra cameras would have been double the price, and lacked the panning and zooming functionality of the Summer.
So all in all, an excellent video monitor with unique features and decent value, backed up by great customer service (something iCandy could learn from, but that's a whole other story so don't get me started.....)
