Finding the perfect baby monitor (babyphone) with good performance in terms of functionality, portability, features and cost can be difficult for even the most knowledgeable parents. Parents trying to find the best baby monitor are faced with confusing choices among different baby monitors. In the market; It is possible to see many models with wifi connection, multi-camera system, breathing, motion and crying detection. If you don’t know how to choose the best baby monitor among the various baby monitor options, here are some practical tips:
How to Choose a Baby Monitor?
1- Day and Night Vision Clarity
When wireless baby monitor systems with screen were first introduced; it used old screen technology that presented a grainy, distorted and often unreliable image. Newer baby monitors; It uses a liquid crystal display similar to those used in your smartphone and other electronic devices. That’s why these video-capable baby monitors tend to have good quality color contrast and high resolution. It also becomes significantly more reliable. Baby monitors today usually all have high-quality screens. Relatively old-fashioned models can still be seen on the market, but these models are not recommended for safety. No color is used in night vision. Therefore, the screen is either grayscale or a slight green tone is provided. It’s important to keep this in mind before trying it for the first time.
2- Traditional and Wifi Baby Monitors
Many parents from 2010; Instead of using baby monitors with cameras and screens, it started using baby monitors with wifi cameras that can stream via smartphones, tablets and personal computers. Parents who want to be able to see their home environment even when they are not at home should use a wifi monitor instead of a typical baby monitor. A wifi baby monitor (some wired, some via wifi only) connects to your internet. In this way, live video is streamed to the application on your phone. This feature works at home or outside as long as you have a fast internet connection.
Internet speed can become a challenge for wifi cameras and wifi baby monitors. Cameras with high-definition video (720p or 1080p) are desirable, but most internet connections are not fast enough to stream this high-quality video in real time. Therefore, parents may be really disappointed with HD wifi baby monitors as they find the video choppy, laggy and unreliable. Most modern wifi cameras allow you to lower the resolution of the video. So you can still see your baby, but not in high definition.
Most people don’t have unlimited data on their smartphones and are surprised to see such high data usage after only watching their wifi baby monitor for a few hours. With HD video, you can spend several gigabytes of data in just a few hours. So keep that in mind. It doesn’t matter if your phone is connected to wifi but if you are using cellular data you can definitely have slow video quality and a lot of data usage.
If your internet goes down, your baby monitor will turn off. a wifi baby monitor; It uses your home internet connection to communicate with servers and then with your application. So if your internet connection is cut off, you will not be able to watch your baby’s video. This is a very important point to keep in mind. Because you never know when your internet will slow down, stop working for a few minutes or hours. There are several wifi baby monitors that will continue to communicate locally (within your home network) when the internet is down. This feature is provided by switching from the internet to the local area network when an outage is detected. So you can be sure that you will see your baby even if you are connected to your home wireless network.
Your phone’s battery life may not be good. Many parents who use wifi baby monitor find that their smartphone battery life is not that good when streaming live video and audio from the baby monitor. If you have a newer iPhone or Android device, it will probably do pretty well. But if you have an older phone, the battery is probably a little weaker and you’ll notice your battery life dropping pretty quickly during use. So, definitely consider your smartphone’s battery life and charging options when choosing between a traditional baby monitor and a wifi baby monitor.
If you can’t decide between baby monitor monitors that offer wifi service and have a traditional baby camera, baby monitor monitors that both offer a traditional parent unit screen and have the option to broadcast over wifi on a smartphone application are also available in the market.
3- Good Range Portable Headunit
Babies go to sleep earlier than their parents and like to sleep during the day. If you don’t want to spend your time sitting next to the baby monitor head unit watching the video stream, you’ll want a unit with a long range and good battery life. This feature allows you to take the unit with you while you are still seeing your baby and take out the trash, for example, or take your dog outside if you have one. Even better, most of the top-rated baby monitors are completely wireless and work by running iPhone or Android apps on your smartphone to wirelessly view digital color video streaming wherever you are. This feature gives you a more portable baby monitor and makes baby monitoring easier than ever.
4- Adjustable Camera: Pan, Tilt, Zoom
One of the most frustrating things that can happen when using a baby monitor is when you close the door and turn on the video monitor and realize that the camera is not facing your baby and you cannot see your baby. Most baby monitor systems require you to go back to your baby’s room and manually adjust the camera. However, some of the new systems may have remotely adjustable camera angles. So you can pan the camera angle, tilt the camera up and down, zoom in and out without having to go back to your baby’s room.
5- Interchangeable Camera Lenses
Some of the latest baby monitors come with interchangeable lenses to best fit your baby’s room. If you have positioned the camera close to the baby, such as the edge of the crib or a nearby dresser, you may prefer the wide-angle camera. If you’ve placed the camera relatively far from the baby, such as on a bookcase on the other side of the room, you may prefer the regular narrow-angle camera.
6- Voice Communication System
Some of the best baby monitors feature voice communication that lets you talk to your baby (say, sing a lullaby) or talk to each other as parents.
7- Child Safety
Safety issues with baby monitor systems can also occur due to parental care. Try to fix the cables where your baby can’t reach and see them, and make sure you put the camera out of your baby’s reach. radio, camera and monitor; Keep away from water and humidifiers. In addition to these basic security tips, newer; heart rate monitoring, respiration monitoring and motion tracking systems can reassure parents who are concerned about their baby sleeping in a different room.
Reliability There are many baby monitors on the market that promise excellent features but tend to fail or break completely within the first few months. This is especially true for many unknown brands. For this reason, you may need to make sure that you are buying a baby monitor from a reliable brand. Another point worth mentioning regarding reliability, most modern wifi baby monitors provide a local connection to your app even when the internet is down. So as long as you’re still at home, you can continue streaming video even when the internet is down.
