My husband and I are what you could call tech savvy gadget lovers. So, it’s no surprise that we were interested in something more than the traditional baby monitor. When Rissa first came home, I often watched her sleep. I would even sneak up to her bassinet to closely watch the rise and fall of her breathing. Several times I was afraid my eyes were playing tricks on me so I’d gently lay my hand on her chest. (I suspect I’m not the only mother that has done this, right?)

So the idea of a video monitor was right up my alley! Although my daughter isn’t so little anymore (15 months old) and I don’t get as worried as I did in those first few months, I don’t like to leave her unattended for long. She’s a quick one and super curious. No matter how safe I think we have made Rissa’s play area, she constantly finds new ways to get around safety gates and tries to climb everything! Even though running downstairs to the basement to toss in a load of laundry doesn’t take too long, having a pair of eyes on Rissa helps reassure that she is safe.

We received the iHealth iBaby Monitor sold at Best Buy for review. The iBaby Monitor is compatible with Apple iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. It is also compatible with the PC. This video monitor retails for $199.99 and includes the following equipment: iBaby Monitor camera, AC adapter, ethernet cable, Wi-Fi antenna, camera mounting unit for the wall, PC installation CD, and an instruction manual.

The camera itself does not take up much room. It is 5.5 inches tall, 6.5 inches wide, 8.75inches deep, and weighs only 2.2 pounds. The instructions are pretty straight forward. The camera needs to be connected directly to your wireless router then using the PC installation CD or the app it gets set up for your Wi-Fi. You can connect up to four devices/people to your camera to be able to view your little one. We did not use the PC installation, only the iPhone application (which is free from the Apple Store).

To use the baby monitor with Wi-Fi, your router needs to have somewhat lower security set since their FAQ says you need to disable your MAC address filter. This setting tells the router to only allow certain devices to connect to the Wi-Fi. We use it to have more security, though it’s probably overkill for most people. So, we didn’t particularly like having to lower our chosen security settings in order to use the camera.

The camera and the app are kind of neat though. Whether you are home or away, you can open the app and see what’s going on. With a swipe you can turn and tilt the camera to survey the room.

There is a snapshot feature, so you can take a picture with the camera. Here I took a picture of myself while having the camera set up in the living room play area. While it’s not the highest quality, it gives a pretty clear picture of what is going on.

The iBaby Monitor also uses infrared night vision so you can use it at night and low lighting. Here you see one of the cats checking out the camera. I was moving it side to side, which caught his attention.

The camera can transmit audio to my iPhone as well to hear if Rissa fusses or cries. If you connect speaks to the camera (there are audio outlets in the back) you can attempt to soothe your baby by speaking through it. We did not have speakers to hook up to the camera, so I wasn’t able to test the 2-way audio capabilities. The app does allow you to set up alerts for motion or noise and set different sensitivity levels. I found the sensitivity had to be pretty high to pick up movements and sounds. For example, I had it set at 7 out of 10 (the higher the number, the more sensitive) but it did not always set off the alarm when someone walked past it. Also, the alerts only notify you if the app is open. You cannot multitask on your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad. I would have liked to receive notifications when doing something else, such as checking email, but we could not find a way to give notifications except when the app was open. If there was movement or noise to trigger the alert while I was out of the app, it would sound off as soon as I opened the app back up.

Conclusion: This monitor has some nice remote use features so you can see and hear your baby, if you want to have peace of mind while away or if you set the grandparents up so they can peek in on your child from time to time. It works well enough as intended, but I’d like to see improvements with alerts while the app is closed. We would also prefer not to have to lower our chosen network security in order to connect and use the video monitor. It is also quite expensive compared to competitors, but I cannot speak to their functionality or quality.

__________

Disclosure: I received this product for free from Best Buy in order to evaluate it for this review. No other compensation was received. All thoughts and experiences shared are my honest feedback and not influenced by anyone else.

About Darcy

Darcy Zalewski is a married, stay-at-home mom who is discovering her greener side, starting with advocating for cloth diapering. When she's not changing diapers or singing the Itsy Bitsy Spider, she can be found at Tales From the Nursery, where she shares tales of motherhood as well as product reviews, or at ShePromotes, a resource for blogger support.

View all post by Darcy