9mo ago

Baby Monitor vs Security Camera

My wife and I have just recently had our first child and I'm looking at getting a decent baby monitor (or security camera) setup.

Our place is not very big at all (think a studio with a separate bedroom/bathroom). I was given a cheap security camera to use for now but I want to start planning for when we move into a bigger apartment (security cameras) and a generally better system for monitoring our baby when we are in another room and cannot hear.

Should I invest in a baby monitor now or would it be better to invest in a decent security camera system instead?

I'm based in the EU and am quite tech-savvy so I don't have a problem setting things up myself if it means a better system.

16 comments

It's hard to hear with the first baby, but YAGNI ("You aren't going to need it") applies.
Unless your baby was born with political enemies, (it's fine to) get a simple rechargeable audio monitor.
Source: for my first kid I setup a secure wireless camera with night vision. For my latest kid I got a cheapo glorified walkie talkie. They're both fine (the kids are both fine, and the solutions are both fine.)
- We like having one because our little one does some funny stuff sometimes.
  It has been useful before for telling what kind of crying he's doing. You can tell a lot from audio, but audio/video has helped sometimes.
  
  Yeah. That's fair. I've had that kid, too.
  Ironically, I don't think I had the nice monitoring rig setup for that kid.
  
  I’m not having another kid but if I did I would do my exact setup still. Audio to wake me up and video to see if a response is needed or if they need to cry it out.
- For our first kid we got an audio monitor. After a couple of weeks we sort of stopped using it. With our second kid, we didn't bother.

Whatever you do, don't talk to the kid if you are not in the room. Two way monitor is a bug not a feature.
Made that mistake once, kid was crying I thought it would be comforting to hear me.... Nope, disembodied voice freaked the fuck out of the poor little dude.
The extra 30-40s of crying while I walk up stairs is way better than the hour of hugs to get him back to sleep.

I just took old android phone and used it as ipcam mounted on her crib.
The sound is easy to hear, but it was assuring to also see the camera view what she was doing

Congrats on the baby, and I wish you both get some sleep in the near future!
I honestly preferred using a baby monitor that didn't have too many techy features. The one I've had the longest was from Infant Optics - just their baseline model worked fine. No wifi or phone connections. It's just a basic video/audio monitor.

It’s been a long time (my kids are 8 and 10) so I’m sure features have changed but I figured I’d chime in with my favorite baby monitor feature. Not all of them had it but I found it invaluable.
I think ours were Samsungs? And they had a “vox” feature. Essentially, if the room was quiet, the monitor screen and microphone would turn off. If there was a noise, it would pop back on. (In this way, it’s different than an audio-only monitor which I presume is on all the time.)This allowed me to sleep (when sleep was available…rarely with our first) and be awoken when needed. I was way too sleep deprived for Nest Cam alerts on my phone to actually get through to me, especially since they popped up once; if I missed it then, it wasn’t going to keep nudging me.
That said, the monitors themselves were cheaply manufactured junk, and not inexpensive. I liked the vox feature enough that when the first one started having problems with the antenna, we bought a second one and immediately taped the antenna down. Hopefully you have better options out there these days.

We have a cheap WiFi camera with PTZ hooked into Frigate. It has been really great, although I ended up buying another wifi AP because our 2.4Ghz is pretty crowded with IoT stuff.
- Congrats for the baby!
  I also use this. I added sound recognition (crying) with a homeassistant notification on the phone. It works like a charm. You can use it to trigger some other automations, like turning on a light in the room you are, or playing a sound on a speaker.

When our first child arrived I had a cheap IP cam lying around that I could flash with something I trusted and integrate into my other stuff (Homeassistant in this case). The camera didn't really support a wired connection, only 2.4 wifi. This has probably been my single complaint about the setup generally. We live in a somewhat dense neighborhood and the surrounding 2.4GHz noise affects the stream quality, making it somewhat less reliable.
I would say that if reliability and complexity are your biggest concerns go with one of the decent baby monitors. Very reliable, zero complexity. We didn't find the reliability to be an issue in practice and I didn't mind the complexity. I would say that if you go the IP cam route, do your best to go wired or at least 5GHz.

If the security camera has alerts like a decent baby monitor, then I see no need to change.
If you already intend to have security cameras, being able to have one that works as a baby monitor but is completely integrated into a real security system just seems like the best of both worlds.
If you currently use the camera to spot check your baby, with no real alert system for issues, then I'd jump straight to a security system that's capable of that to reduce price over time.
I had a security camera with a built in mic, a cheaper one, and besides getting some false positives, it worked perfectly until my kid didn't need one anymore. I got an alert on their app when it detected sound and I opened the camera, it wasn't straight audio, but all I needed was a notification to check it myself.

I'd skip the baby monitor altogether. Most of them are sub grade garbage dressed to look expensive to prey on new parents because it looks like a baby item or whatever...
Get a proper security system, and try to keep it locally hosted and not cloud based.

U could get something exactly the same with more range depending on the size of your new place. It’s not entirely necessary but helps to have video.

Hello and congratulations! I've been using a HelloBaby HB 65 for the kiddo and no complaints here. I like the dedicated monitoring system instead of a camera with a phone app or other setup. If you have baby sitters, they don't have to download a phone app or something specific to keep an eye on them.
Link

16 comments