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What to Look For
Best All-Arounder
Hubble Nursery Pal Premium
Best Audio-Only Monitor
VTech DM221 Audio
In-Depth Detection
Cubo Ai Plus
New parents, here’s a tip: You might not need a baby monitor. A healthy, hungry baby can shriek in tones piercing enough to bend metal, let alone your poor eardrums. Nevertheless, baby monitors can provide high-quality audio and crystal-clear video streams from the camera directly to a separate device like a smartphone or tablet. This means you can move freely around the house while keeping a close eye on the baby as they sleep or play contentedly in their crib. We tested the most intuitive models available online, looking at design, features, and picture and audio quality. These are the best baby monitors that can keep a watchful eye on your bundle of joy.
Be sure to check out our other baby gear guides, including the Best Strollers, Best Breast Pumps, Best Baby Gear, and Best Baby Carriers.
Updated October 2023: We’ve added the Eufy SpaceView Baby Monitor and removed a few discontinued monitors.
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Adrienne So contributed to this guide.
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Photograph: twomeows/Getty Images
What to Look For
The best baby monitors have quick response times and come well-equipped with technology that picks up the slightest cry or fuss. They’ll give you a heads-up the moment they detect any sound or movement from the baby, so you know when it’s time to gulp down your coffee and attend to their needs. If you just want to be able to hear your baby from another room, you may want to consider a simple but effective audio-only monitor. Monitors with cameras that can capture video and stills go up to 1080p resolution, but 720p HD is plenty of pixels for a good view of your child.
A video monitor that streams footage to a separate wireless “parent unit” that you can carry around the house can be very convenient. You get real-time sound and motion alerts whenever your child moves or stirs. You may also like to consider a smart baby monitor with a camera that streams footage to an app on your smartphone or tablet. You’ll want to make sure these models have secure two-factor authentication for added peace of mind. If you’re limited to using just your smartphone, this can sometimes be a pain if you’re keen to limit screen time and turn your phone off when you’re at home. Also, check whether the storage of the monitor footage is in the cloud or on an SD card. If you want to record and save video, you may have to sign up for a monthly subscription plan.
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Photograph: Hubble
Best All-Arounder
Hubble Nursery Pal Premium
With both a parent unit and smart app control, we think this Hubble Connected Nursery Pal Premium baby monitor is a great value buy. It gives you the flexibility of being able to view your child via the 5-inch HD touchscreen unit while you’re in the house and within the 300-meter range. You can then switch to the HubbleClub app (iOS, Android) for monitoring from your smartphone when you leave the house and have the babysitter in. We particularly like the touchscreen capability of the parent unit, which makes it easy to see your baby on the display. You can simply move your finger to pan, tilt, and zoom around the room, so you get a clear picture of the nursery. Once it’s charged, you can use the parent unit wirelessly to walk around the house without having to worry about cables getting in the way.
To make use of live video streaming features from the nursery camera to your smartphone, you need to download the HubbleClub app and follow the steps to connect to Wi-Fi—this is a process we found simple and straightforward. Both the parent unit and app give you access to lullabies and white noise, which you can play to the baby through the camera unit. You can even record your own songs to play back to the baby should you feel the need to go all American Idol for the night. What’s rather unique about this design is that the parent unit also doubles as an interactive kids’ tablet. While it’s pretty basic, there is a range of child-friendly games, videos, and stories for them to watch. These may come in useful when you want them to keep still while you’re changing diapers or you just want an extra five minutes of peace.
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Photograph: Vtech
Best Audio-Only Monitor
VTech DM221 Audio
Sometimes, when you’re tired and need a little downtime, the simplest things are best and an audio-only monitor is all you need. While it doesn’t give you the reassurance of being able to see your child, this VTech audio baby monitor provides great support. It’s a small and compact set, with Dect 6.0 technology providing a reasonably clear audio transmission that eliminates most background noise.
The parent unit has rechargeable batteries that last up to 18 hours and a clip so you can carry it with you as you potter around the house. It has a range of up to 1,000 feet, which makes it easy to roam freely—that’s more than enough for you to enjoy a little backyard evening sun while the kids slumber. We think the night light on the loop of the baby unit makes for a nice touch, as does the talk-back feature that lets you talk to your baby through the unit so you can soothe them back to sleep.
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Photograph: Cubo
In-Depth Detection
Cubo Ai Plus
This clever baby monitor is designed to support you from the newborn stage up until your child is 5 years old and beyond. The Cubo Ai Plus sends real-time alerts to your smartphone if it hears your baby fussing or crying. It’s particularly sensitive in its monitoring and will send you instant alerts not only when it detects a baby moving, but if your baby’s face is covered or if they have rolled over or have their face down. Its “danger zone” detection also comes in useful when you have a curious toddler. This means you can set up a zone in your house—be it the kitchen or stairs—and you will get alerted on your smartphone if your child enters that area.
Made from child-friendly polycarbonate, the Cubo Ai Plus is designed to look like a bird and comes complete with bird-chirping alert sounds—a sweet touch. In the box you get an attachment to place the device on the crib or on a stand so you can position it for the best view. This was a little fiddly to set up, but it sat firmly in place once finished. Should you want to move the monitor from room to room or travel with it, you can make use of the small stand.
The Cubo’s 1080p Sony lens is wide-angle and rotatable, which means it gives a good range of view of the crib and provides a crystal clear picture. The app is easy to navigate too and features customizable alert settings. If you’re someone who loves a lot of data, you won’t be disappointed, as there’s also information on how much sleep your child had and how many times they woke in the night. You can also use it to access photos and videos that the camera auto-captures of your child as they sleep via the livestream (secured via two-factor authentication). Perhaps superfluous for anyone who isn’t that interested in reliving the previous night’s (lack of) sleep. You get one-year free access to the Cubo Ai Premium service, which means you can view the sleep analytics for longer and download some of the data and up to 18 hours of video playback. After the first year, you’ll have to sign up for the $5 monthly fee.
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Photograph: Hubble
Split-Screen View of the Room and Crib
Hubble Nursery Pal Dual Vision
Hubble’s Nursery Pal Dual Vision stands out from the crowd because of its unique camera design that provides a normal and wide-angle view from the same device. The set comes with a 5-inch HD-screened parent unit that streams the pictures from both cameras on a split-screen view. While the camera has a 1080p resolution, it’s worth noting that the parent unit displays images in 720p, but we found that this is more than enough for you to get a good view—either in daylight or via the infrared night vision when dusk falls or the blackout blinds go down. On the unit, you can also make use of two-way talk so you can hear the baby and speak to any caregiver in the room as well as track the nursery’s room temperature. The most convenient aspect of this monitor is that you can also get a live feed of the baby directly to the HubbleClub app on your smartphone with the option to get notifications when sound, motion, or temperature fluctuations are detected.
While the top camera will stay pointed at a baby in the cot, the lower camera will use motion-tracking tech to follow the movement of the person in the room by panning and tilting. This dual-camera functionality is a great concept, as it means you needn’t take your eye off your baby when you want to scan the nursery. There’s also a ConnectChat button on the base of the baby unit. When pressed, it creates a one-way video call with the Full HD HubbleClub app, so you can speak to whoever is in the room with the baby or use it to soothe the baby back to sleep. If your partner is in the nursery trying to find the baby’s pacifier in the dark or needs you to bring up another bottle of milk from the kitchen, this can also make communication around the house easier.
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Photograph: Owlet
Heart Rate and Oxygen Level Readings
Owlet Dream Duo 2
This smart baby monitor goes a little further than your standard monitor. It combines a “Dream Sock” wearable that you attach to your baby’s foot and a Cam 2 monitor that you place in the nursery. You can then keep an eye on your baby as it streams 1080p HD video over Wi-Fi to the very comprehensive Owlet App on your smartphone. With the sock wearable in place, you can track your baby’s heart rate and average oxygen level. We found this effective enough, though of course it won’t be as accurate as a hospital-grade tracker.
The app comes with lots of useful extra info, and it can monitor the nursery room temperature, humidity, and noise level. We like the fact that it comes packed with lots of useful sleep data—possibly more than you’ll ever need, but it’s a bonus. As well as watching and saving video clips of your baby, you can analyze your baby’s sleep patterns using the data from the app. The “Predictive Sleep Technology,” for example, will try to identify your baby’s sleep patterns to get to know when their next nap or sleep time is. (It’s a great idea in theory, but good luck with that.)
The Owlet monitor itself sends real-time motion and sound alerts direct to your smartphone when your baby moves or makes a noise. It has a 4X zoom, wide-angle view, and night vision, and it also gives you the option for two-way talk when you want to soothe your baby with your voice through the camera. The entry-level wearable sock is designed to suit babies up to 18 months old, but you can opt for a larger design that works up to 5 years. (We suspect, though, that it will work best when the baby is younger, as they’re less likely to pull it off.) We do wish the kit included a separate parent unit so you weren’t entirely reliant on your smartphone, but that would be icing on the cake. We’re still big fans of this baby monitor.
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Photograph: Simshine
Rollover Alerts
Simshine Baby Monitor
You’ll need to connect to the SimHome app (iOS, Android) on your smartphone to access real-time video of your baby when using this monitor. While its design is styled to blend into your nursery decor and comes in sweet blue, pink, and yellow options with wings that look like a little bird, its clever onboard tech is far from cutesy and will give you a reassuring, crystal=clear picture of your baby.
Simshine’s smart baby monitor is, in fact, packed with heaps of high-tech features that you can make use of as you see fit. With 360 degree rotation and 2K resolution, the camera can pan and tilt and track your baby’s every movement. With real-time sleep and awake data and alerts for rollovers, “face covered,” and more, there’s plenty covered in the app should you feel the need for reassurance in those first six months. Whenever your baby rolls over in their sleep or their face gets covered by a soft toy or swaddling blanket, you’ll get real-time alerts on your smartphone or tablet. The camera can also be set to detect when your baby cries and can automatically play soothing music as it sends you an alert. This is rather special as it will give you a tad more me-time, and as any new parent will confirm, every second or minute counts.
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Photograph: Infant Optics
No Wi-Fi or Smart Apps
Infant Optics DXR-8 PRO
What we like most about this Infant Optics monitor is that it operates on a frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) connection in a closed-loop system that doesn’t require connecting the device to Wi-Fi. This means there’s no need to fuss around with Wi-Fi and there’s no smart app to contend with. All you need to do is set up the camera for optimum viewing, plug in, and you’re good to go. In the kit, you get a 5-inch screen on the parent unit that provides 720p HD playback picture of your baby. While this isn’t the clearest-resolution picture you can find, it’s sharp enough. There’s also night vision for when the lights go out. The viewing control is particularly impressive, as the compact camera allows you to pan, tilt, and zoom around the crib as much as you need to.
With a decent speaker on the parent unit, the set provides a noticeably loud volume and crisp sound playback. With its active noise-reduction feature that cuts out any background noise, you’ll also hear your baby only when they make a sound. This works well if there’s a fan in the room or, say, the distant hum of a lawnmower when you’re trying to settle the baby. And when you’re trying to settle the baby, there’s always a distant hum of something in the background.
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Photograph: Eufy
A Cheaper No-Wi-Fi Baby Monitor
Eufy SpaceView Baby Monitor
A major appeal of the Eufy SpaceView monitor (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is that you don’t need to connect it to your Wi-Fi network. It operates on a closed-loop FHSS system, meaning you simply turn it on and start using it. The large, billiard-ball-sized camera has a 330-degree horizontal rotation, a 110-degree vertical rotation, and an optional wide-angle lens that increases the viewing angle to 110 degrees. Eufy also sells accessories to let you attach it to the wall or clamp it onto the crib. (While the clamp is easier to set up and move around, a toddler can likely reach a crib-clamped camera.)
The handheld monitor unit offers just 720p video quality. It’s easy to see whether your kiddo’s eyes are open and where the pacifier rolled to, but it isn’t high definition by any means. Eufy says the camera and monitor unit have 460 feet of range, but WIRED editor Adrienne So got around 250 feet from the camera before it lost connection. You’re able to control night vision, change the camera angle, adjust screen brightness, and much more from the control unit, but the interface feels a little dated compared to newer smart devices. Still, it works great and is more reliable in my bedroom than my phone’s Wi-Fi signal ever is.
Emily Peck is a journalist with 20-plus years of experience writing about interiors, food, well-being, gardens, technology, and everything in between. She has held in-house positions at the BBC and Ideal Home magazine, and regularly contributes to WIRED, GQ, The Telegraph, Livingetc, Techradar and GoodtoKnow.
Nena Farrell covers consumer tech at WIRED and specializes in smart home products and parenting gear. She previously wrote for Wirecutter and Sunset. She lives in San Diego, where she can be found pushing her child around in various strollers.