Here's what's good about this monitor: it just works. The sound is good (some static aside), the camera/mic picks up just about everything, and the night vision works as expected. It's an analog system (900 MHz), so there's basically no chance of it losing its digital signal, freezing up, etc, or interfering with our house's wireless. While you only get the occasional complaint about that with digital baby monitors, I'm not taking any chances. There's always the chance that it'll interfere with 900 MHz phones, but really those are so old that I haven't had or seen one in more than 10 years.
That said, there are a lot of minor issues with this product. My biggest complaint is that we've gone through two of the LCD monitors, and on both the power button has failed after several months. It's apparently not the best design. I took one apart and managed to force it into the on position, but now it's stuck like that. Not only that, but the LCD itself is a widescreen, yet the camera clearly sends a 4:3 aspect ratio picture, and ends up making things look a bit distorted. Couldn't Summer have just made a 4:3 LCD, and let my baby look normal?
The handheld unit works fine, but for some reason doesn't like most rechargeable batteries (it works for a minute or two, then cuts out), and constantly replacing alkalines seems wasteful. I finally found some Sanyo pre-charged Eneloops that seem to work. There's a light on the handheld that is green with fresh batteries, and goes yellow when your charge is running low, then it's supposed to turn red when it's too low. The problem is, it turns yellow way too fast, and stays that way for most of the life of the battery. It doesn't turn red until it's already stopped receiving a signal, so I find myself constantly worrying that the battery has run out.
You can find better sound from cheaper audio-only monitors, but I'd still use this over most any other baby video monitor. It's been my experience that most baby products, which you'd think have pretty high testing standards and quality control, simply don't measure up. Most of the digital monitors I've looked at have too many performance or usability quirks. In my opinion, it's better to stick with this relatively older tech.
I bought this camera and monitor a few months back and cannot get over how much I love it!!!!!! I work from home and love having my daughter home with me, but I spend a lot of time on the phone in my office and can't always sit with her. She loves to sit and play with her toys while watching play house Disney and never really gets into trouble so having my job and her home with me works out perfectly. But while I was working I would keep getting up to go check on her because I was nervous she could get into something or hurt herself. I found this camera on Amazon and thought it would be a great idea. now she plays in the living room and i have the camera set up so it can see the whole room, and i have the monitor in my office so that while I work, I can see everything shes doing. It's great. And she knows I can see her so every now and then she waves at me. It's great. My husband and I love it so much, we use it for everything. When she goes to bed now, we put the camera in there. This way if she wakes up or needs us for anything we can see her from our room. It is such a great product. We are expecting again and I may buy one for their room as well!!!!
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