The Best Travel Baby Monitors

VTech VM819

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Testing Categories

Features

Though the basic function of a baby monitor is to be able to see and hear your baby, there are some great features that can enhance the usefulness of your monitor. Here were a few of our favorite features and which monitors had them.

Feature	Monitors
Two Way Conversation	VTech DM221, Infant Optics DXR-8, ANMEATE Video Monitor, eufy Security Spaceview, HelloBaby HB65, Infant Optics DXR-8 PRO, Owlet Cam, WYZE Cam v3, Babysense Split Screen, VTech VM819, KAWA S6, Google Indoor Nest, iFamily Baby Monitor, Kidsneed Video Monitor, VTimes Baby Monitor
Music/White Noise	ANMEATE Video Monitor, eufy Security Spaceview, HelloBaby HB65, Babysense Split Screen, VTech VM819, KAWA S6, iFamily Baby Monitor, Kidsneed Video Monitor, VTimes Baby Monitor
Temperature Display	Infant Optics DXR-8, ANMEATE Video Monitor, eufy Security Spaceview, HelloBaby HB65, Infant Optics DXR-8 PRO, Owlet Cam, Babysense Split Screen, VTech VM819, KAWA S6, iFamily Baby Monitor, Kidsneed Video Monitor, VTimes Baby Monitor
Noise Cancellation	VTech DM221, eufy Security Spaceview, HelloBaby HB65, Infant Optics DXR-8 PRO, Babysense Split Screen, VTech VM819, KAWA S6, iFamily Baby Monitor
Custom Alarm	Infant Optics DXR-8, ANMEATE Video Monitor, eufy Security Spaceview, HelloBaby HB65, Infant Optics DXR-8 PRO, Owlet Cam, WYZE Cam v3, Babysense Split Screen, KAWA S6, Google Indoor Nest, iFamily Baby Monitor, Kidsneed Video Monitor, VTimes Baby Monitor
Night Light	VTech DM221, Babysense Split Screen

Naturally, the video monitors boasted more features than the audio monitors. In this category, we compared the monitors to see which features they offered and how they benefited the overall user experience.

One of the most common features we noted was two-way conversation. The only one of the sixteen monitors that did not offer this function was the VTech DM111 Upgraded Audio Monitor. This monitor overall offered the fewest features, being quite literally only sound.

Most monitors also included a temperature sensor, which is helpful in ensuring baby’s room is at a safe and comfortable temperature at all times. Some critical reviews complained that the temperature sensors were very inaccurate, but we felt that they overall were pretty accurate.

Many of the monitors included some form of noise filter, such as VOX (voice activated alert) or, in the case of the Infant Optics DXR-8 PRO, ANR (active noise reduction) to filter out background noise. Most of the VOX-using monitors had the option to customize the level of sound the monitor would pick up. Though the DXR-8 did not have this in its ANR mode, there was a noticeable difference in the background noise once it was activated.

A couple of monitors, specifically the Babysense Split Screen and the KAWA Baby Monitor S6, included split screen capabilities, allowing you to see multiple cameras at once. Though not all monitors offered this feature, all of the video monitors could link multiple cameras.

There has been some research on the topic of electromagnetic radiation, and though we are not aware of any formal guidelines related to EMF emissions and baby monitors, we took measurements of each camera to test their levels. Overall, the measurements remained low, with the Owlet Cam being the highest by far, with a somewhat mid-range level according to our measuring device.

Here are the EMF emissions of each monitor:

Usability

Anything electronic has the potential to be complicated, so usability was an important aspect of our testing process.

We set up all of the monitors, timing the process from unboxing up to linkage. Overall, we found that the monitors that did not require the use of WiFi or a separate app set up the quickest and easiest, mostly just taking a couple of minutes. Monitors that required an app and WiFi for set up, like the Owlet Cam, the Wyze Cam v3, and the Google Indoor Nest tended to take longer to set up.

Here is how long each monitor took to set up:

The monitor that we had the most trouble setting up was the Owlet Cam. Pairing the device gave us some trouble the first time. The monitor requires a 2.4 GHz WiFi connection for set up, while many are 5 GHz. After several attempts, we were finally able to connect by sitting close to the router.

Most of the display navigations were pretty easy to use. The Infant Optics DXR-8 and the HelloBaby HB65 did not have volume buttons on the exterior of the unit and volume adjustments could only be made through the menu itself, which seemed a little unnecessarily complicated.

Here’s how easy the display navigation was to use for each monitor:

All of the monitors can be placed on a flat surface in a child’s room, and all of the video monitors have mounting capabilities as well. The audio only monitors, the DXR-8 and the DXR-8 PRO, both have belt clips on the parent unit.

Being able to adjust your monitor view with baby’s movement is important. Many monitors included this feature. Some, like the ANMEATE Video Baby Monitor, the Owlet Cam, the VTech VM819, and the Google Nest Indoor, have Zoom capabilities, but not remote pan/tilt options.

We measured the overall quality of each monitor as sort of a catch-all, taking things into account like stability, materials, and if the monitors seemed to be worth the price. The DXR-8 PRO’s camera, for example, is a nice heavy duty material compared to something like the VTech VM819, which can tip over a bit easier. The Owlet is good quality if you plan to link multiple Owlet products, but we felt that you could get a similar style camera for a lower price if you only place to use the video monitor to check in on baby.

Range

A monitor that won’t stay connected won’t do you or your child much good. We tested the range capabilities of each of our monitors to see how they held up and kept their connections.

With the exception of the WiFi monitors, all of the monitors offered a claimed range:

A common complaint among parents was they could not take their baby monitor outside while baby was napping in the house, so we put each baby unit in an upstairs bedroom and took the baby unit outside.

The DXR-8, the eufy, the Babysense Split Screen, and the iFamily Video Monitor did not keep their connections well at all when the parent units were taken outside.

The ANMEATE Video Baby Monitor, the DXR-8 PRO, the KAWA S6, Kidsneed Video Monitor, and the VTimes Video Monitor tended to be a little choppy, with signal cutting in and out but still being usable outdoors.

The three VTech monitors did the best in the outdoor testing, keeping their signal perfectly. The HelloBaby HB65 also did pretty well.

Outdoor to Indoor Range Ratings:

We also tested the monitors’ indoor range capabilities by placing the baby unit of the monitor in an upstairs bedroom and testing its connection in a nearby upstairs room, a room a floor below, and two levels down in a basement.

Most of the monitors did pretty well in this testing. The DXR-8 and the ANMEATE did struggle, and the eufy, the VTech Video, and the VTime Monitor had some periodic glitching. The issues were mainly in the basement.

Indoor Range Ratings:

Sound

Sound quality is a vital component of a strong baby monitor. We performed a static background test, playing static noise at a consistent volume over the monitor, and measured each monitor’s emitted decibels at their highest and lowest volumes.

Here are each volume’s max decibels with their volumes set to the highest level:

And here are each volume’s max decibels with their volumes set to the lowest level:

Most of the monitors had at least a little bit of static background noise, but none of them were bothersome or distracting. Typically we would only really notice the noise if the parent unit’s volume was especially high.

The eufy had the clearest two-way audio, though all of the monitors were clear enough to understand everything that was said. The ANMEATE had a little bit of static popping in two-way conversation.

It’s important to be able to hear your baby over any background noise in the nursery, like lullabies or white noise. We played music through each baby unit that had the capability, and for those that didn’t include lullabies, played music right next to the baby unit, to determine how well we could hear baby over the background noise.

Generally speaking, we found that baby was a little harder to hear over the music of a monitor’s in-unit lullabies. The Kidsneed was the lowest performer in this area, as well as the overall lowest scorer in our sound testing. We had a hard time hearing baby over the built-in lullabies.

Here’s how the monitors ranked in hearing baby over background noise:

We liked that many monitors included some form of noise cancellation system, whether that was VOX or, like the DXR-8 PRO, ANR (active noise reduction). About half of the monitors included these features: VTech DM221, eufy Security Spaceview, HelloBaby HB65, Infant Optics DXR-8 PRO, Babysense Split Screen, VTech VM819, KAWA S6, and the iFamily Baby Monitor

Video

Video quality is another very important part of a solid baby monitor. We measured each monitor on the quality and consistency of their picture.

Here you can see the advertised resolution of each monitors:

We were a little surprised that the advertised resolution didn’t always seem to match up with the picture quality that we saw. The VTech VM819 has 480P, but we ranked its clarity the same as the Owlet Cam which is 1080P.

Part of a good video quality includes the color screen. Though night vision is mostly black and white, we wanted to make sure that while in day mode, the coloring wasn’t distorted. The DXR-8 PRO and the Wyze Cam had the most realistic coloring, while some, like the HelloBaby HB65 tended to add a reddish tint to the picture. Overall, though, the coloring was pretty decent on all of the video monitors.

We tested the brightness of the parent units to see how they affected the video. The broader the range from dark to bright, the higher the score we gave. Monitors like the VTimes and the DXR-8 PRO had great brightness ranges, while the HelloBaby HB65 and the ANMEATE were just alright. We wanted to ensure that a monitor was bright enough to be able to see the screen in daylight, but could dim to be in a dark room at night.

Here are the night vision rankings for all of the monitors:

A delayed feed can be annoying. Most monitors did pretty well with this, having only a second or so delay if any at all. The Owlet cam did have a pretty significant delay. The Wyze Cam was delayed a few seconds as well.

Since a monitor’s main use is typically for watching your baby overnight, clear night vision is crucial. The Google Nest Indoor, the Babysense Split Screen, the Wyze Cam, and the DXR-8 PRO all had perfect scores on night vision. However, most of them were pretty good. The VTimes and the eufy were the two that we were most disappointed by.

There wasn’t much glitching from any of the monitors. We noticed a little bit occasionally from the ANMEATE and the DXR-8, but it was never very bothersome or interfering.

Battery Life

One of the biggest complaints we noted in our critical review research was that the monitors batteries did not last long. We tested each monitor by charging it from a dead battery to a full charge to see how long the charging process would take.

Here are the hours each monitor took to charge:

The VTech DM221 audio monitor took the longest to charge at nearly 8 1/2 hours. However, it had an incredible battery life of over 19 hours. We were most disappointed with the DXR-8 PRO as it took nearly seven hours to charge, but the battery lasted less than 6 1/2 hours.

Unfortunately, we could not note the time it took the VTech DM111 audio monitor to charge. The monitor does not include an indicator on when the battery has gone from charging to full charged.

We tested each of the monitors’ battery lives as well by running them from a full charge to a dead battery.

Here are the results in hours:

All three VTech monitors had the best battery lives, with the VTech VM819 video monitor lasting over 19 1/2 hours, the VTech DM221 audio monitor lasting over 19 hours, and the VTech DM111 Upgraded audio monitor lasting over 11 hours.

The iFamily lasted about 11 hours as well, with the rest of the monitors gradually decreasing in battery life. The DXR-8 PRO had the shortest battery life.

Note that we scored the battery life on the first of three battery tests that we ran, which you will see in more detail below.

These tests did not apply to the three security style cameras: the Owlet Cam, the Google Nest Indoor, and the Wyze Cam. Since these are WiFi monitors that connect directly to your smartphone, their batteries are dependent exclusively on your individual device’s battery strength.

Battery Longevity

In our research on baby monitors and their battery lives, people often noted a deterioration in the battery quality over time. When they would first purchase the monitor, the battery would last, but after several charges, the battery would deteriorate to the point that it had to remain plugged in at all times.

We decided to test the battery deterioration to see if we could measure the average deterioration of the batteries, if any. In this process, we fully charged each monitor and then let it run unplugged until the battery died, measuring the exact amount of time of the battery life. We ran this test three times, noting any change in the length of battery life to help us determine the rate of deterioration.

Some monitors had very distinct changes in their battery length, while others were not so clear, or even increased their run time rather than decreasing.

Below are the results for the battery tests:

Monitor:	VTech DM221 Audio	DXR-8	VTech DM111 Audio	ANMEATE	eufy	HelloBaby	DXR-8 PRO
Test 1:	19 hours, 11 min	6 hours, 59 min	11 hours, 2 min	9 hours, 9 min	8 hours, 2 min	9 hours, 28 min	6 hours, 18 min
Test 2:	22 hours, 8 min	6 hours, 53 min	11 hours, 37 min	9 hours, 1 min	8 hours, 23 min	10 hours, 45 min	6 hours, 7 min
Test 3:	21 hours, 59 min	6 hours, 51 min	11 hours, 57 min	9 hours	8 hours, 11 min	8 hours, 7 min	6 hours, 11 min
Monitor:	Babysense Split Screen	VTech VM819 Video	KAWA	iFamily	Kidsneed	VTimes
Test 1:	9 hours, 37 min	19 hours, 36 min	8 hours, 17 min	11 hours	7 hours, 12 min	7 hours, 26 min
Test 2:	9 hours, 19 min	19 hours, 46 min	7 hours, 51 min	10 hours, 13 min	7 hours, 4 min	7 hours, 17 min
Test 3:	9 hours, 18 min	17 hours, 49 min	7 hours, 51 min	10 hours, 18 min	7 hours, 8 min	7 hours, 24 min

The VTech DM221 audio monitor didn’t have any notable deterioration, with its second and third tests actually running longer than the first. The VTech DM111 Upgraded also had an increase in battery life during the three tests.

Once again, these tests did not apply to the three security style cameras: the Owlet Cam, the Google Nest Indoor, and the Wyze Cam.

Here are the overall percentages of deterioration that we noted in our testing:

Baby Monitor Safety and Security

Safety is a top priority for any parent, and each of the monitors we tested took special care to note their security features to avoid dangers such as monitor hacking.

Most of the monitors do not require a WiFi signal, which provides security all in itself. Most of these monitors also included FHSS (frequency hopping spread spectrum), which uses rapidly changes carrier frequencies to transmit the signals. This adds an extra layer of security by making it more difficult for someone to come across your monitor’s signal, whether intentionally or by accident.

Even the WiFi monitors incorporated extra safety features to prevent them from being hacked, such as AES 128-bit encryption. The Google Nest Indoor also requires 2-step verification.

Our 16 Tested Baby Monitors

Though there were some monitors that we like better than others, all of the sixteen monitors that we tested had their merits.

Audio Monitors

Two of our sixteen monitors were audio-only monitors:

Standard Video Monitors

Our overall monitor preference in the testing process was the standard, non-WiFi video monitor style:

WiFi Camera Monitors

We tested three WiFi security style cameras as well. Though they were not our preference, they were still pretty good.