But we read multiple complaints in app reviews about the app crashing or being generally unreliable, and we were concerned about the company’s potentially lackadaisical approach to security.

I received my monitor as a shower gift and have been using it for the past 2 months with my little one. It’s also more complicated to hand over the task of checking on a sleeping baby to other caretakers. Because the Owlet Cam 2 couldn’t connect to a dual-band router, we had to relink every smart device in our home just to set up this one camera.I especially love the power save option and the split screen - both being the main reasons I chose this camera. Over the past seven years, we’ve tested roughly 60 baby monitors, trying them in homes with different layouts and construction, including the most recent test environment, my rambling, three-story, 1930s plaster and lathe home with a challenging brick-chimney placement—a difficult place for any wireless device. Security: Like any other device you connect to the internet, Wi-Fi–enabled baby monitors can be a potential security vulnerability. That’s because you should never connect a Wi-Fi baby monitor to the unsecured Wi-Fi at a hotel or other public place; you should use a Wi-Fi monitor only on networks that you know and trust. She also collaborated with Wirecutter staffers to establish our security and privacy criteria for Wi-Fi baby monitor picks (two-factor authentication is a must).

Over time, it helped me spot trends such as my baby being more likely to stay asleep when I placed him on his side and then softly rolled him over onto his back, rather than laying him straight down. We decided not to test the CuboAi Plus Smart Baby Monitor, as it has a separate humidity and temperature dongle that attaches to its main unit and just begs to be lost, and half of its iOS app reviews are one star, with complaints about trouble connecting to the app or frequent crashes.Whereas the Nanit Pro has an 8-foot cord for the floor-stand model and a 14-foot cord for the wall-mount model, this VTech monitor comes with a cord that’s only 6 feet 6 inches long. Finally, pairing this monitor with Owlet’s Dream Sock resulted in a false alarm when the sock moved overnight. And you can play lullabies or white noise from the monitor itself, either continuously or in 15-, 30-, or 60-minute increments. Beyond that, the app doesn’t support two-factor authentication, raising security and privacy concerns. We didn’t test the costly Miku Pro Smart Baby Monitor because it puts a heavy emphasis on tracking breathing, which is not one of our criteria for the models in this guide.

The camera itself looks and feels like a clumsy extra-large version of other monitors, and the display kickstand has just one setting. Software was to blame in the case of the iBaby camera vulnerability in 2020; that security hole made it possible for just about anyone with an iBaby camera to see other users’ iBaby data. The Eufy SpaceView and Eufy SpaceView Pro were previous picks in this guide, but our testing in late 2023 ruled them out in favor of newer models.

Thanks to the talk back button, you can communicate with your baby or your partner without having to go in the room. The camera can pan 360 degrees horizontally—it’s our only pick with that capability, though the Babysense MaxView is right behind it at 355 degrees, which is useful if you have multiple children in the same room. If you want to be able to keep an eye on your child from a restaurant on date night or during a work trip out of town, you need a Wi-Fi–enabled monitor, which links a camera’s feed to an app on your smartphone. You can talk to your baby, play music or sounds, toggle the camera, control the night-light, take a video or photo, or review previously recorded moments that top out at seven seconds.

signal without the need for WiFi, it offers a long-range connection that keeps you connected to your little one from anywhere in the house.We also like that this model has white-noise, lullaby, and night-light options, as well as an accurate temperature dongle outside the main body of the camera. The Nanit Pro consists of a futuristic-looking camera head that attaches easily to three different styles of mounts: a wall mount, a floor stand, or the portable Flex Stand. And the app has an important but shockingly rare feature: an always-on audio feed, which allows you to hear the audio from your baby’s room even if you leave the app.