Your baby needs constant attention, but you can't be in their room every hour of every day. That's why baby monitors are useful. What started as audio-only infant care devices to let you listen in on your child from another room, have since added video cameras and connected features to the mix. Many great audio monitors are available, but we focus on smart models that also provide some form of video feed and connect to your phone.
Do You Need a Dedicated Baby Monitor?
Most smart baby monitors are effectively just home security cameras—devices that let you watch another location with color video, night vision, and sound, so you can tell if anything is amiss. Because baby monitors are for keeping an eye on your little one rather than on your home and property, they prioritize different features than security cameras.
Nanit Pro Complete Monitoring System (Credit: Nanit)From a pure imaging standpoint, night vision is vital for watching your baby sleep from another room and is standard for most baby monitors. Motorized pan-and-tilt controls (which lets you swivel the camera from afar) aren't quite as common but are very welcome if you have a toddler and want to scan an entire room. The ability to record in HD is a nice plus, but you don't need the highest-resolution sensor to keep tabs on your baby—most of the monitors we test use 1080p cameras in any case.
What to Look for When Buying a Smart Baby Monitor
Watching your child from moment to moment is far more important than going over footage from previous nights, so baby monitors don't usually make a big deal about saving video for later, whether using built-in storage or through a cloud service. They can take snapshots and short clips when they detect movement, but they don't offer time-lapse videos of entire nights or let you page through hours' or days' worth of footage. Those features are useful for identifying burglars, but they don't really help you watch your child unless you're in a Paranormal Activity sequel.
Instead, baby monitors offer more options for letting you know when something might be wrong at that moment. Temperature and humidity measurements are common among high-end monitors, along with alerts and notifications for when the monitors detect movement or a lack of movement.
Miku Pro Smart Baby Monitor (Credit: Miku)All of the monitors here connect to the internet and let you watch your infant via your phone or tablet through an app just as if you were checking a home security camera. Because of this, you might not actually get a standalone display to go along with the camera. They aren't out of the question, however; some camera-only baby monitors offer viewers as an add-on or in a bundle. And if there aren't any available, you can simply get an inexpensive tablet to use as a dedicated viewer.
Are Baby Monitors Safe?
As with any internet-connected device that watches or listens to your home, it's not out of the ordinary to be somewhat wary of a smart baby monitor. All Internet of Things (IoT) devices (and broadly anything on your network) are potential soft spots for hackers to monitor you. Although you shouldn't be afraid of an epidemic of camera breaches, you should always weigh the convenience of these devices against the risk of someone getting control of the feed.
If you want a connected baby monitor or home security camera in your home, at the very least you should diligently update the firmware of both it and your router.
Other Ways to Track Your Baby
Baby monitors are just one way to keep track of your little one. For newborns, for instance, the Snoo Smart Sleeper is a bed that gently rocks your baby for better sleep and connects to an app on your phone that lets you receive alerts when your little one needs attention.
If you're interested in keeping an eye on your whole home and not just your child's room, check out our roundup of the best home security systems for more flexible surveillance options.