Baby monitors

[gem]

We have the Sony audio-only monitor ("Baby Call," I think). When we turn it on there is often feedback and static, but once it is in place it's fine. We've only used it once or twice though. There is no where in our 2 story house that I can't hear cries of "MaaaaaaaaMaaaaaa" pierce the blessed quiet of nap time.

[ladymoreta]

Mine isn't wifi. My Babies R Us brand video monitor did seem to interfere with the wifi throughout our house. One of its many problems. I haven't had any issue with the Motorola and our wifi.

[oceanchild]

We have a Summer Infant video monitor, and even in our tiny house with adjacent bedrooms, I like the video capability. It does not use the wifi, but occasionally interferes with our Chromecast (weird, but probably explainable by someone more knowledgeable than me). The audio is on all the time, which means it can be a little noisy if you turn it up loud, so that's an advantage to the ones that only kick on the audio over a certain threshold.

[SoonerTexan]

For video monitors, do you all have the wifi kind that sends to an app on your phone, or the standalone kind with a separate monitor screen?

Do they use a lot of bandwith and slow down your wifi? Do the app based ones notify you in real time? I like the idea of a plain audio one because it doesn't "go to sleep", you don't need an app notification to know when she's crying, the batteries last a long time, it doesn't clog up the wifi, etc. Can a standalone video monitor have the audio always on like a traditional monitor? Do the batteries last long?

I bought a Foscam to do the wifi thing and could never figure out how to set it up so I could use my phone as the receiver (and oy did I try), so it was never really used for a year. Then the stories about hackers breaking into them came out and I decided I wasn't comfortable having that in our home as we pretty much never turn our monitors off. So it is sitting on the wall dead. But it is a nice feature if you want to check on your little one with a sitter while you are away from home.

Our video monitor has about the same battery life as our audio only monitor. At night I turn the video off so it is audio only--it would be too bright otherwise and I keep it on my nightstand. It's super easy to turn back on if I hear something and want to check on the kids. It doesn't have a VOX mode, which was a little annoying at first (it always has to be on at a low level to hear anything) but it doesn't bother me now. Not relevant to you now, but we got the version with 2 cameras and I love it. Seeing what the toddler is up to was just as important as the baby. The receiver scans between the two cameras every 10 seconds, so I can hear what is going on in both rooms.

If you do get a video monitor, don't get the Foscam version. I had 2 go out on my in such a way that my son was screaming in the middle of the night and we had no idea the monitor had died (it was plugged in--the charger stopped connecting). After that, I moved to the Motorola one and we've been happy with it.

ETA: Oh and the Motorola one is not WIFI, but we have never had any interference issues