What Should I Look for when Buying a Baby Monitor?
For some people, a baby monitor is a modern day lifesaver, making life less stressful by allowing parents to tap into their baby’s world at any moment, from any location.
There are a number of helpful features to look for in a modern baby monitor. Often, the louder the baby cries, the more lights flash. Also, video monitors can show a sleeping baby or a baby who is awake, eliminating the need for audio tracking, or, you can take full advantage of a digital video baby monitor and utilize all of its functions together.
Some wireless baby monitors come with more than one receiver, which is a good option for larger houses or two parents who are on-duty at the same time. There are currently two main types of baby monitor, they are called analog and digital.
Analog monitors are an older technology and operate on a frequency band like am and fm radios do, sending signals directly from the monitor to the receivers. Most of the best upto date baby monitors are digital, although they can cost a little more, but this is worth while as the sound quality is better and security features are greatly improved over the older analog monitors.
There are many different brands of baby monitor systems available today, with some of the most popular being Graco, Philips and Summer Infant. Similarly, the Summer Infant Secure Sounds ($50) offers a lot of privacy, without all the special features of the more expensive Philips baby monitors.
The high-tech Mobicam ($190) lets parents tape their video monitoring or watch the videos on the TV screen, which is great if parents want to check up on the child care quality of a nursery nanny or employee.
