8 Best WiFi and Non-WiFi Baby Monitors, Tested by Moms

The Bump takeaway: The Babysense PRO is the Best of The Bump winner for overall best non-WiFi baby monitor, thanks to the no-fuss setup, high-quality cameras and reliable connection.

If you’ve ever felt like you needed an advanced degree to work today’s top-of-the-line baby monitors, you’ll appreciate the Babysense PRO. Yes, it comes with two high-resolution cameras, but I wouldn't hesitate to hand this off to my tech-averse boomer parents. Getting started was nearly instantaneous, and there’s no app or subscription to fuss with.

The Babysense PRO is also highly adaptable. It can support up to four cameras (add-ons are sold separately), which is an especially great option if you’ve got multiple kids in different rooms you want to keep an eye on, or if you want to have extra views of the nursery. You can also use it with only one camera if you’d like, or purchase a one-camera version for $50 less.

Ease of setup and everyday use
The parent unit is super intuitive. I’d love to walk you through all the steps it took for setup, but all I had to do was plug in the two cameras and the parent unit, and everything paired automatically.

I never had to check the manual to switch from split-screen to scan mode, or adjust things like volume or the temperature display. The temperature sensor felt reliable, and I like that you can set a temperature alarm if it's warmer or colder than a certain degree. Plus, a simple light-up border made it easy for me to tell which room any sounds were coming from.

Camera
As simple as this monitor is, the quality is top-notch. The cameras are high resolution for a non-WiFI monitor, offering 1080p HD compared to 960p or 720p that most other non-WiFis we tested had. Although the black-and-white night vision was (unsurprisingly) fuzzier, I could still easily tell whether his eyes were open or not.

The remote pan and tilt is quick and responsive—and quiet!—letting me easily switch from looking at my baby’s crib to my toddler in her bed across the room. Plus, the camera can zoom up to 4x to help me see tiny details like my son’s chest moving up and down as he breathes.

The split-screen view is super easy to use, and once I figured out the buttons, I liked that you can quickly and easily switch between split screen, one screen or scan between the two. One important note though: If you don’t want to use both cameras, you’ll have to manually unpair the second one that comes with it, or else—as I quickly learned—the parent unit will think there’s a connection issue and sound an error alarm.

Battery and connection:
When completely charged, the battery on the parent unit lasts for an impressive 20 hours. (Just make sure to charge it for the full eight hours required—all four charging bars lit up for me after just a couple hours of being plugged in, but the batteries then died after seven hours.)

As for connectivity, I found the 1,000-foot range to be solid—I had no connection problems anywhere in our home, even in the basement. I could also comfortably watch the feed from our yard, and only started to have issues once I crossed the street.

One important note: You may have heard there was a recall in late 2025 for the Babysense MaxView because of a fire risk. Don’t worry—there are no similar concerns about the PRO.

Monitor type: Video non-WiFi | Video display: 1080p HD | Mounting type: Wall | Max range: 1,000 ft. | Battery life: 20 hours

The Bump takeaway: Best-in-class sleep tracking paired with top-tier encryption earned the Nanit Smart Baby Video Monitor a Best of The Bump award for overall best WiFi baby monitor for the third year in a row.

Chances are you know someone who swears by the Nanit Smart Baby Video Monitor. When we surveyed parents in The Bump community, 20 percent called out this model (previously known as the Nanit Pro) as their go-to monitor, making it one of the most frequently recommended models in our lineup.

Millions of parents trust it to watch over their little ones, and get this: Nanit says they’ve tracked over 10 billion hours of sleep. Well, fellow tester Janelle and I both personally put the Nanit Smart Baby Video Monitor through in-depth testing. And after eight months of real-life, personal daily use with two different families, we both walked away understanding exactly why parents love it.

Ease of setup and everyday use
Nobody who knows me would accuse me of being particularly “handy” around the house, but Nanit made it easy for me to get this monitor up and running properly thanks to step-by-step video instructions in the app. Once I got going, accessing smart features or adding caregivers in the app was equally simple.

“The Nanit app is incredibly intuitive,” agrees fellow tester, Janelle. “Right when I open it, I see exactly what I care about most: The live video feed, room temperature and (my holy grail) a timestamp showing the last time baby was tended to.”

Sleep tracking features
The standout feature of the Nanit for me is the sleep tracking and insights; I was surprised by how accurate it was. Each morning, I could see exactly when my son went to sleep and woke up, how much time he spent in the land of nod and how often I’d visited him overnight. This majorly eased my mental load around his sleep—and Janelle’s too. “The sleep tracking genuinely helped us notice patterns in [my daughter’s] sleep and wake times, making it easier to plan her days, fine-tune her bedtime and figure out whether dream feeding was really working,” she shares.

You receive a three-month free trial when you purchase the Nanit, but in order to keep the full array of sleep tracking features, you’ll then need to subscribe to one of the membership plans, which cost between $9 to $25 per month. These plans unlock access to advanced sleep analytics like sleep position and sleep onset time, plus video clips, tracking of milestones (the app captured a recording of the first time my son put himself to sleep!) and smart alerts like cry detection or baby standing.

The Nanit is able to track your baby through its camera, without you having to strap anything to your little one. I found this makes things a heck of a lot easier when I’m putting my baby down, and also sidesteps my mother’s anxieties around wearable tech.

For families who are eager for vital sign tracking as well, the Nanit does include a cloth breathing band for newborns, which features a special pattern on the fabric that the camera uses to track baby’s breaths per minute. Note that Nanit is not cleared by the FDA as a medical device.

Camera and audio
The Nanit’s 1080p resolution camera allowed Janelle to clearly see details like her baby’s eyes and loose pacifiers in the crib. However, I found that it’s not quite as crisp as other high-end cameras. I had to zoom in to see details, and once I got closer in, the image would get pretty pixelated.

The camera also doesn’t tilt or pan, but it does have an adjustable arm to help you get the best angle. Janelle particularly appreciated that the Nanit app doesn’t need a full bird’s eye view for its features to work, which meant she could mount it at an angle to see the crib, rocking chair and other parts of the nursery.

As for the audio, we both appreciated the solid quality. “I can hear every little sigh, even when the app’s closed with the audio running in the background,” Janelle says. Personally, I also appreciate that I get distinct alerts whether the camera just picked up "sound" versus "cough" or "cries."

The speaker on the camera also had nice sound quality, so when I used the two-way audio to try to soothe my son back to sleep, it actually sounded like me without warping my voice—and it worked to get him back down.

Security
No matter how much data you choose to collect and store, you don’t need to worry about security. Nanit uses 256-bit AES encryption (the same encryption standard used by the US government), and two-factor authentication on the app is mandatory. These two features can significantly reduce security risks, according to Cliff Steinhauer, director of information security and engagement at the National Cybersecurity Alliance.

Monitor type: Video WiFi | Video display: 1080p HD | Mounting type: Wall or floor stand | Max. range: Your home’s WiFi signal range and anywhere you have cellular service | Battery life: N/A

Our community says:

The Bump takeaway: Able to quickly switch between WiFi or a local connection—while also offering the crispest picture quality we tested—the eufy Baby Monitor E21 is the Best of The Bump winner for overall best hybrid baby monitor.

As convenient as a WiFi connection can be for peeking in on your nursery when you’re away out of the house, it can be nice to also have a local connection to use at home so you don’t have to worry about any security risks.

The eufy Baby Monitor E21 gives you both options. I can simply toggle a physical switch on the camera to hop from one to the other, or when I take the parent unit out of the local range, a notification pops up and lets me switch over remotely.

Ease of setup and everyday use
If you want high-tech luxury without techy complexities, eufy’s E21 monitor is very straightforward. Even getting started was simple. You can mount the camera on the crib, wall or tabletop and the package includes a flexible gooseneck arm to help you get the exact angle you’re after. It’s convenient enough that I wouldn't hesitate to bring it with me while traveling, knowing I could set it up quickly without having to consult a manual and three YouTube tutorials.

One of my favorite things on the app was that, while working on my laptop in the living room during my baby’s naptime, I could keep the audio running on my phone in the background. I could hear everything without having to keep the app constantly open.

One thing I didn't love was that the app dashboard highlighted features you can only get if you buy the Eufy sock that’s sold separately. Similarly, I could only see playback if I bought a separate microSD card. For a monitor on the pricier side, it was a bit annoying to be constantly reminded that I could get more out of it if I made additional purchases—especially since this is still a really well-performing monitor without them.

Camera and audio
The most impressive part of this monitor is probably its 4000 UHD resolution camera. The image was so detailed I could see tiny drops of leftover yogurt on my baby’s cheeks. Even the night vision was the crispest of any monitor I tested. I left the parent unit a few feet away from my pillow and I could still clearly see my baby’s chest moving up and down with each breath. One cursory peek and I could quickly go back to sleep.

One unique perk is the focus feature that automatically adjusted to center on baby’s face, so I didn’t need to manually pan or tilt the camera myself. Although this feature isn’t strictly necessary, I have to say it was helpful when I was half asleep in the middle of the night—it created that much less work.

This monitor also had one of the most effective two-way audios I tried. There was barely any lag, and the quality was good enough that I could soothe my baby back to sleep with just my voice (a very exciting first for me!). Meanwhile, on the parent unit, the volume didn’t get too loud, but I liked that I could make it super quiet so it would only wake me up but not my husband when he had earplugs in after a late work shift.

Vox mode
The vox mode on this monitor—which turns off the screen and sounds when it’s quiet—went a long way in helping me sleep better. Unlike other monitors I tried with overly sensitive vox modes, eufy’s only starts up again after a few seconds of louder sounds like full-on cries, so I didn't even hear random little gurgles and grunts that would normally wake me up. This not only saved my sleep, but also kept me from overreacting in the middle of the night. I didn’t hear it, so I didn’t go in unnecessarily when my son was just babbling a little between sleep cycles.

Battery
The parent unit comes with a portable charging base—it needs to be plugged in itself to actually charge the parent unit, but I found it a nice stand to keep the unit on at night. Even without it, the parent unit lasted 14 hours for me, which was more than enough time to get us through the night.

What I found particularly useful, however, is that the camera can run on a built-in battery, while most require an outlet to work. This means it’s easy to take the whole kit on the road, and it wouldn’t conk out during a power outage. (The camera is good for nine hours, or five and a half with night vision.)

Monitor type: Video WiFi/Non-WiFi | Video display: 4000 UHD | Mounting type: Wall or crib | Max. range: 800 ft. or anywhere you have WiFi | Battery life: 12 hours (parent unit); 9 hours (camera); 5.5 hours (camera with night vision)

The Bump takeaway: The Momcozy 5" Dual Mode Smart Baby Monitor (BM04) is the Best of The Bump winner for best budget-friendly hybrid monitor. It’s a well-priced pick for families looking for reliable basics and customizable options without going all-in on smart features.

Not every parent wants to fiddle with a bunch of high-tech extras—or pay for them. Instead of upcharging for a bunch of bells and whistles that you may not even want to use, the BM04 monitor from Momcozy offers families the basics they really need, at the lowest price of all the WiFi and hybrid monitors on this list and with no additional subscription charges.

Ease of setup and everyday use
Once I got everything out the box, this monitor was ready to go in just 12 minutes—the parent unit and the app both paired with the camera seamlessly. All of the buttons on the parent unit were intuitive and easy to navigate. I only needed to refer back to the manual once to figure out how to set the vox mode sensitivity the way I wanted. Otherwise, the app was very straightforward and well laid out, and I quickly figured out how to share the livestream with family members and other caregivers.

Even if I didn’t want to give my family full-on access, it was a cinch to take video and pictures with one touch. These saved to an album, from where I could text, email or post them to Instagram. My parents ended up getting more clips while I was testing this monitor than any other since it was such a piece of cake to share them.

Camera and audio
The colors on this 1080p resolution camera were clear enough that during one nap time, I could see that my son’s cheeks were a little redder than usual, giving me the heads up I needed to go in and check on him.

I particularly appreciated that the app let me switch between SD and HD quality, so when I had a strong signal, I could get an even better picture. On the parent unit, I still found the picture quality to be excellent when I went outside to our yard, and I was easily able to adjust the brightness so I could see it clearly in bright sunlight.

Alerts and insights
As reliable as this monitor is, what I really liked is that it didn't feel obtrusive. When I wanted to focus on work, I could turn off the sound in the app and just get alerts when it detected sound and motion. Even though I missed the specificity of warnings like face cover notifications that some other monitors offer, having only sound and motion alerts kept things simpler and avoided false alarms.

Meanwhile, I used the vox mode to keep the parent unit’s screen off until it sensed noise. With five levels of sensitivity to choose from, I was able to adjust it to work just the way I wanted.

I was also able to set a safe zone, which would give me alerts if my son moved out of where I wanted him. Although my infant isn’t moving too far these days, this feature would have come in handy with my mischievous toddler when she started crawling out of her crib. I could also see using it when traveling if I were unsure of temporary sleep spaces.

Connection and battery
Personally I found the parent unit’s local connection more reliable than the app—it always took a few seconds to reconnect when I opened the app, and I sometimes had a hard time getting connected at all (though that was most likely just due to a poor signal, rather than the monitor’s fault).

But I never had any connectivity problems with the non-WiFi parent unit, whether I was in our basement or even a couple houses down the street. Plus, with the local connection there was no lag at all so the very second my son was crying, I knew it (and it didn’t sound like two separate screaming babies).

The battery was also top-notch. Even after running the parent unit for 36 hours straight (16 hours beyond the advertised 20-hour battery life!), it was still going strong. As someone who often falls behind on charging my devices promptly, I very much appreciated the extra juice to keep everything running smoothly.

Monitor type: Video WiFi/Non-WiFi | Video display: 1080p | Mounting type: Wall | Max. range: 960 ft. or anywhere you have WiFi | Battery life: 20 hours

The Bump takeaway: At less than $100, the HelloBaby HB6550 won a Best of The Bump award for best budget-friendly non-WiFi baby monitor thanks to its reliable, no-fuss performance and exceptional battery life.

Want a reasonably-priced monitor to take on the road or to Grandma’s house? This would be a great choice. It’s straightforward enough for anyone to pick up and use right away. I found the battery and local connection truly excellent. Plus, the price is low enough (by far the lowest of any monitor on this list, save for the audio-only monitor) that it can be a secondary monitor if you don’t want to travel with your main one.

Ease of setup and everyday use
I don't think it could be any easier to get started with this monitor. As soon as I plugged in both the parent unit and camera, they were already paired and working—without any setup on my part. I started playing with the buttons on the parent unit before reading the manual, and found pretty much all the features in just a few minutes simply by poking around. The icons all make sense and the navigation is easy to follow. My husband picked it up later and didn’t need any help using it, either. Even my toddler figured out how to tilt or pan the camera remotely.

Camera and audio
One reason this monitor is so reasonably priced is that the picture quality isn’t top-of the line. I could always see the essentials, like if my baby’s eyes were open or not, but I found the 720p resolution meant the image on screen wasn't super sharp. The camera can only zoom in 2x, while other monitors go up to 4x or even 8x, but I was able to zoom in close enough to see my child’s chest moving up and down, even if the picture was a bit grainy.

The camera does tilt and pan, though moving it around remotely was a bit jerky and slow. That said, this monitor still got the job done just fine.

One thing to note: The HB6550 has a two-way audio feature so you can talk to baby from another room, but I found it wasn’t super effective. The sound quality was so tinny, it wasn’t exactly a soothing noise, and I don’t think my son actually realized it was us talking to him. The included lullabies also had the same problem, so when I played them, they woke him up more and he started crying even harder.

Features
The thoughtful features on the parent unit helped us get better sleep. I personally loved the energy-saving "eco" mode (aka vox mode). Because the vox mode isn’t overly sensitive, I knew the monitor would turn on when my son was crying enough to need me—otherwise I didn't have to listen to it or have a bright screen shining next to me, keeping our bedroom quieter and darker at night.

One other feature I appreciated was the five levels of screen brightness, which meant I could adjust it to be able to see clearly outside in sunlight. The temperature monitoring was also great and felt very reliable; I looked at the reported temp nearly every time I checked the screen.

Connection and battery
The range of the local livestream was totally solid. I didn’t have any problems getting a connection anywhere in our home, including the basement. I even walked down the block a couple of houses and was still connected.

Even more impressive, though, was the battery life on the parent unit. I had the screen set to always-on, with the brightness at a 4 out of 5, and it was still going strong after 24 hours. This actually outperformed HelloBaby's claims of 16 hours in always-on mode. (It promises 30 hours in eco mode.) Also helpful: The battery charges in less than an hour.

Monitor type: Video non-WiFi | Video display: 720p | Mounting type: Wall or tabletop | Max. range: 1,000 ft | Battery life: Up to 30 hours

The Bump takeaway: With its strong sound quality and impressive range, the low-maintenance VTech DM221 Audio Baby Monitor is the Best of The Bump winner for best audio baby monitor.

If you want something simple and budget-friendly and don’t need a video feed, the classic VTech DM221 Audio Baby Monitor is the way to go. “It’s seriously one of the easiest, most low-maintenance monitors out there,” our tester Korin says. “I gave it a full 10 out of 10 for setup, battery life and overall value.”

Korin isn’t the only one at The Bump singing this monitor’s praises—it’s also the top pick of Daniel Carroll, dad of one and associate director of e-commerce content at The Bump. “My daughter was not patient after a nap,” he tells us. “She never liked going to sleep, and when she woke up, she wanted an adult nearby immediately to get her out of her crib, or she’d quickly be in tears. We were in a small house and didn’t need video monitoring, just to know when nap time was over. VTech’s audio monitor was a workhorse for us—it lasted from birth into preschool, delivering clear sound through thick walls for years on end.”

Ease of setup and everyday use
Literally all you have to do is situate the audio monitor in baby’s room, plug it in, turn on the receiver and take it with you—it’s really that easy. Korin found it super intuitive to use, with clear sound and an impressive range that let her move freely without losing connection.

Audio
What Korin appreciated most about this monitor was how clearly she could hear every little sound and shuffle her daughter made. “The audio quality is great,” Korin shares. “I could hear this all around my house.” Whether she was folding laundry or doing the dishes, she could easily adjust the volume so she didn’t miss a thing. “Plus, the five-level visual sound indicator let me know if my baby was just rustling around or having a full-on meltdown,” she says.

Features
Despite the low price point, this audio monitor has some real perks. In particular, the parent unit is hands-free: The receiver clips right onto your pocket or waistband, so you’re not constantly juggling it while working through your to-do list.

Plus, when Korin was in the middle of something, she could use the two-way talk to soothe her baby or chat with her older kids without rushing into the room. There’s even a built-in nightlight in the handle of the baby’s unit.

Connection and battery
With a battery that lasts up to 16 hours, Korin could go nearly all day without plugging it in. This straightforward audio baby monitor stayed a reliable second set of ears throughout her home for the full charge time.

Monitor type: Audio | Video display: N/A | Mounting type: Tabletop | Max. range: 1,000 ft. | Battery life: 16 hours

Our community says:

The Bump takeaway: The Owlet Dream Duo 3 is the Best of The Bump winner for best baby monitor for tracking vitals due to its combination of FDA-cleared Dream Sock, which tracks pulse rate and oxygen levels, and high-spec video camera, Dream Sight. Together, they provide reliable health data and visual confirmation, giving peace of mind for parents looking for this level of medical reassurance.

If you’ve ever woken up in a panic worrying whether baby was breathing safely (and really, what new parent hasn’t!), the Owlet Dream Sock, part of the brand’s Dream Duo 3 bundle, may offer some valuable peace of mind.

The Dream Sock is the only baby monitor currently on the market that is cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This means it’s been authorized as a Class II medical device after a review of Owlet’s clinical data on safety and accuracy.

Make no mistake, this doesn’t mean it can prevent SIDS or replace safe infant sleeping practices (no monitor can). But it can be reassuring for parents who want to track their little one’s health stats while they sleep.

Ease of everyday use
The wealth of unique data you can get with the Dream Duo doesn’t come easily. It took me nearly an hour and a half to get both halves of the bundle set up the first time, and I still needed to go back to the tutorial on how to use the sock a couple more times. Fortunately, there were guides right on the app, which was easy to navigate once I got set up.

Health insights
The main reason to invest in the Dream Duo is to get reliable health insights, including baby’s heart rate and oxygen levels. The FDA-cleared Dream Sock is a Velcro wearable that wraps around baby’s foot and ankle while they sleep and transmits data to you via Bluetooth in real time.

These insights were extremely helpful for my overall peace of mind—as long as I wasn’t getting alerts, I knew I could safely ignore the numbers and rest easy. I only wish I’d had this in the early newborn days where I was constantly paranoid and checking in on my baby to make sure he was still breathing. And I’m not the only person who feels that way: One of The Bump’s survey respondents whose baby had a medical condition told us that getting access to this data relieved her stress.

An optional subscription ($10/month, $99.99/year) gives you additional data, including AI-driven general reports that highlight trends. But you still get the raw data on measurements like heart rate, oxygen or deep vs. light sleep without this. “These features can offer reassurance and provide helpful information, especially for parents who are looking for additional peace of mind,” says Chrissy Lawler, MS, LMFT, a certified pediatric sleep consultant and founder of The Peaceful Sleeper. “However, they can also increase anxiety if every fluctuation is interpreted as a concern. My advice is to always look at the big picture.”

Sleep insights
Although Owlet doesn’t keep a detailed care log the way that Nanit’s Smart Baby Monitor does, the Dream Sock does track certain sleep stats. My favorites were seeing my baby’s light vs. deep sleep in real time and the addictive-to-watch wiggle meter. These helped me plan my activities during nap times strategically. For instance, I could wait until my baby was in deep sleep before hopping in the noisy shower that sits next to his bedroom.

As far as the sock itself goes, it was sometimes a struggle to actually get the sock on my very squirmy baby, but it never seemed to bother him once it was on (although it did make it tricky to fit him into footed pajamas).

Camera and audio
Alongside collecting health data and insights, the Dream Duo bundle provides video monitoring with the Dream Sight camera. At the superior 2000 HD resolution, the camera offers a pretty crisp image during the daytime—enough for me to see details like my baby’s chest moving. As with all WiFi-enabled monitors, the picture quality on the app is affected by poor WiFi connection. What I like is that you can set the Dream Sight’s camera to “auto-adjust” so it would change from low to high definition depending on the WiFi strength.

The camera zooms up to 4x, though the picture can get pretty pixelated that close up. It does, however, automatically take video clips when it detects cries, sound or motion. The audio on the Owlet was also fantastic, reducing the sounds of our white noise machine while still letting me hear my baby quietly babble to himself.

Connection and battery
One of the challenges with this monitor is that the Dream Sock needs to be within 30 feet of the base station for the Bluetooth connection to work—and that distance decreases if you’re living with thick walls. It’s advised to keep the base station close to baby, and fortunately, the alarm is loud enough that I was still confident it’d wake me if anything was awry.

On the brighter side, our wonky WiFi wasn’t an issue. One night, our signal was pretty poor and I lost video for a while, but the audio never dropped, which I consider a huge win.

Security
Like the Nanit, the WiFi security features government-level 256-bit AES encryption. “This kind of encryption makes it extremely difficult for hackers to intercept your feed mid-stream,” explains cybersecurity expert Steinhauer. Plus Owlet is the first baby monitor to hold the SGS Cybersecurity Mark.

Monitor type: Wearable + video WiFi (bundle) | Video display: 2000p HD | Mounting type: Wall or tabletop | Max. range: Up to 30 ft | Battery life: Up to 16 hours

Our community says:

The Bump takeaway: The Hubble Connected GoBaby AI Portable Pro’s slim, detachable battery pack and flexible mount earned it a Best of The Bump award for best baby monitor for travel.

There's no shortage of monitors out there that you can throw into a suitcase with relative ease. But even in a field of products that tend to be portable and easy to pack, the hybrid Hubble Connected GoBaby AI Portable Pro stands out for travel use.

Designed as a modular system, the GoBaby can be installed on a dedicated wall mount in baby's nursery, wrapped around a crib rail or positioned on a flat surface. Then, when it's time for a family trip or a visit to grandma's, you can detach the camera from the mount and attach the slim and lightweight all-day battery for a smaller setup that you can take on the go—no outlet required.

This was a really standout feature for me. The flexible mount on the portable mode makes it easy to set up for naps in temporary spaces—even in a campsite tent. And that little travel battery lasts a surprisingly long time, a solid 15 and a half hours in my testing.

The GoBaby is a hybrid monitor, which means you can turn off the Wi-Fi function when traveling, preventing the camera from broadcasting or searching for unsecured hotel and public WiFI. Instead, you bypass any unsecured networks and use the non-wifi set-up with the parent unit. The GoBaby’s parent unit also has its own internal battery, enabling a safe, fully wire-free set up. All in all, it adds up to a design that fills a need we didn't see addressed by other products.

Ease of setup and everyday home use
For home use, this isn't the simplest device to get going. I knew I was in for a long setup when I first opened the “quick start” guide—it was 20 pages long. This is in large part because of the mount setup; to get the AI insights, I needed to mount the camera on the wall in just the right position to get a birds-eye view.

Once I was set up, however, the app made it easy to navigate to the basics, and also offered a search function to find special features. One thing I especially loved was the picture-in-picture mode on the app, so you can keep an eye on baby while still using your phone.

Switching between using the app via WiFi and using the parent unit in non-WiFi mode was as simple as flipping a switch on the camera, and the buttons on the parent unit were also intuitive. If you need help deciphering the icons, the manual lists them all clearly, but I found them very straightforward.

Features
This is a high spec baby monitor and offers a lot more than just its travel features. With AI in the name, it shouldn’t be surprising that this monitor offers a host of AI-enabled features, like face covering and rollover alerts, a sleep quality score and smart soothing that automatically plays calming sounds in response to cries. It’s worth noting, you receive one year’s free premium subscription to HubbleClub, which gives you access to these AI features. After 12 months, it will cost $79.99/year or $7.99/month to continue using them.

I loved the face covering detection. I never got an alert, but that's something I'm paranoid about, so knowing there's something that's supposed to help catch it is a pretty major peace-of-mind win. And I got a lot of use out of the events log that kept track of exactly when I put him down and when he woke back up.

For a monitor that costs under $200, I was surprised by the number of features it offers, even without a subscription. Some of them struck me as a bit more useful than others, but I'd bet that as AI technology improves it'll get even better. And one lower-tech feature I loved? I could easily create pictures and video clips in the app, and quickly share them with my parents or husband—an especially nice detail for a monitor you'll want to bring on vacation.

Camera and audio
The camera offers an impressive 2000 HD resolution, so in WiFi mode, it's pretty much only going to be limited by the strength of your connection—my slightly shaky home WiFi had some trouble, but a stronger connection would see things crystal clear. And I had notably less problem with lag than I have with other monitors on my rough connection. There's no pan or tilt, but the zoom goes up to 6x.

Connection
I never had any problems with connectivity dropping while home or if I had a good WiFi signal when I was out and about. Even when I took the parent unit down to our basement, the connection stayed solid. At one point during testing I purposefully took it outside of the camera's range until it disconnected, then walked back into range, and it reconnected automatically within seconds. In WiFi mode, the 256-bit encryption is top of the line to protect against security threats.

Monitor type: Video WiFi/Non-WiFi | Video display: 2000p HD | Mounting type: Wall, wraparound or tabletop | Max. range: 1,000 ft., or anywhere with a WiFi connection | Battery life: Up to 30 hours