The Best Baby Car Mirrors of 2023 (Tested)

Rohent Camera Car Mirror

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In addition to 15 reflective mirrors, we also evaluated 3 camera and monitor based mirrors. We recommend the Rohent Baby Car Camera because of its excellent picture quality and monitor mounting flexibility.

Camera-based “mirrors” have a digital camera that attaches to the headrest facing baby. The camera is attached to a wire that you thread behind the vehicle seat, across the floor and up to the dashboard of the car.

The Rohent has a suction cup that can stick to the dash or windshield. The Shynerk and Itomoro camera-based systems we tested mounted the monitor to the dash with double-sided adhesive or simply a non-slip pad. We found these mounting methods ineffective and potentially dangerous. Having a baby monitor flying around the vehicle is no better than a baby mirror projectile.

The downside to camera-based systems is that they can block windshield visibility. The Rohent is no exception but the suction cup makes it easier to move around.

The Rohent monitor held firm in our strike test which is encouraging. We haven’t used it long enough to know whether the suction strength will decrease over time.

The camera attaches with velcro straps to the vehicle headrest. It was challenging to pull the straps through and stretch them enough to get them attached with only two hands. Once attached we weren’t worried about it coming loose.

Getting the whole thing unboxed, the instructions read, and set up in the van took about 20 minutes. It can most easily be powered by the cigarette lighter, but there is also a wiring option to get power from the radio, or fuse box.

The monitor has menu options for adjusting brightness, contrast and color. We liked the wide coverage area of the camera as well as the quality of the night vision picture. The camera didn’t need any adjustment but it swivels up and down. One annoying thing about the camera mount is that you need to loosen it with a Philips screwdriver to change the angle.

Why You Can Trust Us

Jeff Hunt father of four and grandfather of four performed the research and testing for this article. Jeff has extensive experience in the baby and kid product arena having tested scores of products from baby blankets to stroller wagons. Becky Hunt CPA, and founder of Experienced Mommy® reviewed and consulted on this work.

We purchased all the products in this review at retail prices and did not receive any incentive or compensation from manufacturers. All recommendations and opinions are our own.

Our research process included reading all of the critical customer reviews of the leading baby car mirrors. We studied safety guidance from the NHTSA and used those findings as part of the criteria for identifying products to evaluate.

Our Video

Are Baby Car Seat Mirrors Safe?

We are not aware of any credible research on the safety of baby car seat mirrors. Nor are we aware of any statistics directly related to accidents involving baby car seat mirrors.

That said, there are many CPST’s who advise clients against the use of such mirrors and have made claims that the mirrors can become projectiles.

It is obvious that each time a driver takes her eyes off the road to look at her baby there is an increased chance of a vehicular accident. This risk of distraction means that parents and caregivers must use baby car mirrors with caution.

Baby car mirrors provide ease of mind about how babies are doing and what they are doing in their rear-facing car seats.

The benefits of monitoring your child need to be weighed against the potential distraction risk to determine whether buying a baby mirror is a wise choice.

How We Tested

Our research shows that the most common complaints about baby car mirrors are related to quality and durability. Inferior design and part quality can influence product safety, so parents are justified in their concerns.

Usability and visibility are also important criteria for the best baby car mirrors.

We tested and ranked each mirror in four categories:

• Quality (40% weighting)
• Installation (20% weighting)
• Stability (20% weighting)
• Visibility (20% weighting)

We installed every mirror in our van on an adjustable headrest. Although you can make some of these mirrors work on fixed headrests, none of them stay on or stay positioned well.

We tested in bright sunlight and at nighttime. We constructed devices to evaluate product strength and durability under stress.

Product Ratings, Tests and Specs

Value

Car Mirrors range in price from as low as $10 on sale to $60 or more for digital camera systems. The funbliss mirror, our Budget Choice, is at the low end of that scale. Most mirrors can be purchased between $20 and $30.

Baby car mirrors like the Skip Hop and Munchkin Brica Cruisin Mirror that offer songs, sounds and lights are more expensive but don’t work well.

Product Price Performance

Testing Categories

Quality

In this category we measured how likely a mirror is to break, scratch, and move when jolted. We evaluated the quality of the crucial components including clips, ball joints and straps. Here are the scores in the Quality category:

Note that digital cameras were measured on different criteria and are not included in the table above.

Weight

If installed and maintained correctly, baby car mirrors should not come loose from the vehicle headrest and become a projectile hazard. However, heavier mirrors have more momentum and require a stronger support system. Our ranking system slightly favors lighter mirrors.

The Diono Easy View is only 7 ounces and 7.5 inches in diameter.

Shatter and Scratch Rating

We threw all the mirrors in a clothes dryer for several minutes to rough them up.

A few didn’t do so well:

And some had very few scratches:

Here are the dryer test ratings:

Crash-Tested and Shatterproof

Many of the mirrors we purchased are advertised as crash-tested and shatterproof. Munchkin uses the phrase shatter-resistant, which is probably more accurate given the results of our dryer test.

Strike Rating

We simulated a sudden acceleration and stop to evaluate how well mirrors hold their positions.

No mirrors came loose. Most didn’t even rotate any significant amount, though a few dropped like the Britax, funbliss and Onco.

Digital cameras are small and lightweight so there is not much risk of having them come loose and cause damage or injury. However, the monitors are slightly larger and heavier.

This Itomoro monitor attached by the provided double-sided adhesive pad, flew off in our first test. We pressed it on tighter and it stayed on the next two tests.

Stress Rating

Mirrors can have a hard life in a car full of kids. They are pulled on and hung on and bumped. We tested the ball joint and mount strength of each mirror by hanging 42 pounds of weight on them.

Here’s what happened to the Hocany:

Stress ratings:

The Munchkin Brica 360 and Zacro balls came out of their sockets. The Hocany, DARVIQS and Skip Hop had pieces of the mounting break off or bend and give way.

Installation

In the installation category we looked at how long it took to install each mirror, quality of the instructions, tightness of the straps, ease of adjustability and the usability of the clips and straps.

Here are the overall scores for installation:

Most mirrors have a vertical and a horizontal strap. The vertical strap gets threaded beneath the headrest and over the top. The horizontal strap goes around the middle and they both clip in the back.

We found the mirrors with smoother, silkier straps were easier to tighten than those with straps made with a coarser weave. As examples, the Lusso, Brica 360 and Shynerk SH-M-01 had smooth straps, and the Onco, Skip Hop and DARVIQ had coarse straps, while Britax was somewhere in between.

Strap Tightness

We had no problem getting most of the mirrors tightly strapped to the headrest. This was true both in the vehicle and on our testing stand.

Installation Time

All the regular mirrors could be installed in less than 5 minutes and most took under 3 minutes. The video cameras ranged from 11 to 21 minutes.

Stability

It is a hassle to have to adjust the angle of your baby mirror frequently. In this category we looked at how prone mirrors were to move during bumping and vibration.

All the mirrors move if you pull on them or bump into them with too much force. This is difficult to avoid when you are taking your baby in and out of a rear-facing car seat, and when you have older children climbing in the car.

However, car mirror manufacturers know this, and most mirrors are built with very tight ball joints to keep the mirrors in place.

We mounted the mirrors on a vibration platform with much more substantial movement than a normal vehicle. None of the mirrors experienced much position change even in this exaggerated vibration environment.

Visibility

Our final assessment category is visibility. This is about how much of the baby and car seat we could see and how clearly we could see them.

Size

The smallest mirror is the Diono Easy View which is round and 7.5 inches wide. The widest are the “look-alike” mirrors including the Itomoro, HOCANY, DARVIQ, Shynerks, Smart eLf, and Zacro at 11.5″ x 7.5″.

Size is mostly a matter of preference. However, here are a few considerations:

• Smaller mirrors need to be aimed more accurately
• Smaller mirrors are less likely to block the view of the rear of the vehicle
• Larger mirrors may get bumped more often
• Some larger mirrors (like the look-alike list above) have more distortion around the edges

Digital camera mirrors are of course tiny but have a wide-angle picture.

Clarity

Obviously, you buy a baby car mirror to be able to see baby. All the mirrors we purchased did that job pretty well.

The look-alike mirrors (Itomoro, HOCANY, DARVIQ, Shynerks, Smart eLf, and Zacro) have a convex shape, meaning they bulge out in the front and recede at the edges. This provides a wider viewing area that extends to both sides of the car seat. These mirrors have some distortion in the image near the edge of the mirrors.

The Britax and several others don’t have that distortion even though they are somewhat convex as well.

We didn’t see much difference in the quality of reflection across different mirrors aside from the distortion mentioned above. As we mentioned in the Quality section, some mirrors cracked and scratched more easily.

Bright Sunlight

Many people complain about not being able to see through their mirrors with bright sunlight shining through the windows. Although we tested with sunlight, it didn’t have any effect for us.

Both of our vehicles have tinted windows to some degree which probably solved the problem. We will be testing sunshades soon, which are a good solution for sun protection and mirror quality.

Mirrors for Forward-Facing Children

Baby car mirrors are most often purchased in order to see babies in their rear-facing car seats. You can’t see a child in a rear-facing seat from your vehicle’s rearview mirror.

In order to have a better view of what is going on in the back seats, Diono’s See Me Too mirror attaches to the rear-view mirror. This mirror can show you kids in forward-facing seats.

This mirror is high-quality and easy to use and install. It does block the view through the windshield.