The registry list handed to me had four Wi-Fi baby monitors on it. I put one in the cart, took it out, put it back, then opened the setup page, which began with creating an account, and closed the tab for good. Three weeks before my due date, in January, I ordered the HelloBaby 6 inch no Wi-Fi video monitor instead. It arrived in the same order as a sound machine, a swaddle and a blackout blind, and nothing in that order has been replaced since.
Milo is nine months old now. He took his first crib nap at about two weeks old with this camera sitting on the dresser, and he has slept nights in the nursery since mid August, when he got too long for the bassinet beside my bed. I have used the HelloBaby for every nap in that room and every night since August. Here is what nine months of that looks like, including the parts that irritate me.
The camera that keeps working when the router does not
A 6 inch screen on the parent unit, no Wi-Fi, no app, no account, and a battery rated at 18 to 33 hours. It has sat on the same dresser for nine months.
Amazon Check Today's Price on Amazon →Ten Reasons It Earns the Spot on the Dresser
Nothing to log into at 3 a.m.
There is no app and no account here. The camera and the parent unit talk to each other directly on 2.4GHz, so I pick the unit up off Nate's nightstand and the picture is already there. No loading wheel. No password reset with a baby crying in the next room. That single detail is why I crossed off every Wi-Fi model on my list, and nine months in it is still why.
It keeps working when the internet does not
Nate is an HVAC technician and he is out the door at 5:30, and our router picks the worst possible moments to restart. Storms knock the power around here a few times a year. The HelloBaby does not care about any of it. It is not on the network, so there is nothing to reconnect and nothing that drops while I am in the basement with a basket of laundry and Milo is upstairs in the crib.
A 6 inch screen you can read from the doorway
The screen is 6 inches and it is an IPS panel, which matters more than I expected. I can see the whole crib from the kitchen doorway at an angle, not only when I stand directly in front of it. I can see his back rise and fall. At 3 a.m., that is the difference between walking across the hall to look and going back to sleep.
One charge covers a full day of naps
The listing says 18 to 33 hours, depending on how you use it. My real number, with the screen running on and off all day, is about a day. In the audio only power saving mode it leans clearly toward the top of that range. I plug it in every night out of habit rather than need, and it has never quit in the middle of a nap on me.
Pan the whole room without moving the camera
The camera pans 355 degrees and tilts 120, and it runs from the parent unit. That means the camera stays where it is, on the dresser with the cord run down behind it and well away from the crib, and I move the view instead. The motor makes a small whirr when it turns, which is somehow the one sound in this house that has never woken Milo.
Nine months of naps, and I have never once waited for a video to load before I could see the crib.
Night vision for the check you would rather skip
Infrared night vision means that room can be properly dark, the way the blind on the window makes it, and I still get a picture. The other option is opening the door and letting the hall light in. I have done both, more than once. Only one of them has ever ended with me back in my own bed before I fully woke up.
Two way audio that does not need your phone
There is a talk button on the parent unit. I use it to say something to Nate when he is upstairs and I am in the basement switching laundry, and I use it to tell him the pizza is on the counter. I do not use it on Milo. The first time I tried, at about six weeks, it startled him and I stopped. The feature is fine. My timing was not.
Cry detection and sound LEDs, so you can stop staring
The alert type on this unit is audio, and the front of it has sound level LEDs that jump with the noise in the room. That is the feature that quietly broke my worst habit. With a video feed I was watching the screen half the night. Now the LEDs tell me whether that was a real cry or a grunt, and I look at the picture only when they say to. Nate keeps the screen at night.
Room temperature on the screen you already hold
The unit reads the nursery temperature and puts it on the same screen as the crib. It runs a degree or two off the hall thermostat, which I have made my peace with, because the number I actually want is whether that room is warmer than the rest of the house before I decide what Milo sleeps in. I check it the way I check the clock, without noticing that I did.
It follows you through the house and takes a second camera
I have carried this thing to the kitchen, the living room and the basement laundry with no dropouts. It sits on a tabletop or goes on a wall mount, so it can move with us from room to room. It also accepts a second camera, which I have never bought, because one child and one crib. If there is ever a second baby in this house, I know what I am adding.
What I'd Skip
Two things on this monitor I would not pay extra for. I would not buy the second camera until a second room is actually in use, because one camera on one dresser has covered nine months of naps. I would also skip wall mounting it if a dresser already sits across from the crib, which is what happened here. Tabletop has been fine, and keeping the cord short and tucked behind furniture is easier than finding a stud.
The bigger skip is every monitor that puts the feed behind an app. Nine months in, the value of the HelloBaby is that there is nothing between me and the crib except a screen that is already on. The trade is real and I will name it: I cannot watch from outside the house. On the one weekend we traveled, to my mother's in Erie, the monitor came with us and worked exactly as it does at home, and the menu still took me three presses to find the volume.
The other honest complaints are small and they have not changed how I use it. The motor whirr when it pans. The temperature reading that runs a degree or two off. A menu that is not obvious on the first night. That is the whole list. Dr. Bell would tell you no monitor is a medical device, and she is right, so this is a review of a camera, not a promise about sleep.
Nine months, one camera, zero app logins
6 inch IPS screen, 18 to 33 hours of battery, remote pan and tilt, night vision, two way audio, and no Wi-Fi or account anywhere in the setup. It is the only monitor I have owned, and I would order it again.
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