NTM-910YLW - Sony Baby Call Nursery Monitor
by Sony
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List Price: Our Price: $29.99 You Save: $20.00 (40%) Availability: Usually ships in 6-10 business days Category: Baby Product See more product details |
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Baby Products Reviews of NTM-910YLW - Sony Baby Call Nursery Monitor
Customer Review: The best out there!
Summary: 5 Stars
I can't believe it has taken me so long to write this review, but now that I am back to buy a second one, I figure it's time! When my first child was on the way 3 years ago, I spent LOTS of time researching every product we purchased. This product was one for which I read extensive reviews and, after purchasing this monitor, can only add 100% positive. We have had this monitor in constant, daily use for the last 2 1/2 years, and it is fantastic. Here's why:
1) CRYSTAL CLEAR AND POWERFUL - It is so powerful you can hear those quiet, whisper breaths from your newborn sleeper. For a new mother, that was immensely reassuring. You could hear every sigh, every gurgle, every movement - with NO background static or interference. Honestly, even if not in voice activation mode, it was completely free from annoying buzzing and the only sound you'd hear is that sweet little breath or stirring. And to give you an idea, we did NOT have this right at her bedside! The monitor was placed about 5 feet away on a dresser and it still provided this fantastic quality. Amazing. Great volume adjustment as well. As baby grew older and we were more confident in her sleeping habits, we could change it to the sound activation setting where you don't hear every movement at every instance, but if baby verbalizes, the monitor is activated.
2) LOTS OF CHANNEL OPTIONS - Actually, we've been on the same channel for the last year. Occasionally in the first year, however, there'd be some interference every now and again with whatever signals were bouncing around in the stratosphere - but easily fixable!! We just needed to change a setting, which took all of a minute or two, and it was again perfect. (Do NOT PAY ATTENTION to the silly pictures from one unhappy reviewer, I think it's plain to see from all the other reviews that this is a stellar product!)
3) WATER RESISTANT - This was great in the earliest days when you need to grab that all important shower and still want to hear every sound. Just set it on the tub rim and you can still be worry free.
4) RECHARGEABLE - For us, we left the plug in our room at night and let it recharge. Then, we could remove the monitor and take it around with us all day any time baby was not sleeping in the immediate vicinity. It is only now, 2 1/2 years later, that the batteries don't hold a charge like they used to. But I figure after daily use for hours a day, that's a great record!
5) Sound AND lights - Another great feature is Voice Activation mode. Red lights alert you to a wakeful baby, and also the strength of their cries or babbles. The louder the sound, the more lights. This was a great feature if I had to do a business call (work from home).
6) ALARM - The unit will sound an alarm when you are out of range, when the monitor in the baby's room is somehow disconnected, or if the signal becomes obstructed (not often with the latter).
7) DURABLE - I can not tell you how many times it has been accidentally dropped or knocked off a counter. It was once even forgotten in an unexpected rainstorm while working outside. Not a scratch, no evidence of any wear and tear.
8) OUTSTANDING PEACE OF MIND - This has to be one of the single most important purchases we made for the arrival of our newborn, and well worth every single penny. I am so completely pleased with this, that I am here to buy another for my second child. Given the layout of our home and the fact that my first child is still of the age where we need one for her, we are here happily purchasing a second for our newest addition.
You will not be disappointed in this purchase. We have tried others when traveling and borrowing monitors from family members and they can not even begin to compare. Rest more easily and enjoy the reassurance that comes from being so connected to your baby's activities. It even helped me fall asleep better because I knew I could count on the monitor alerts. Look no further, you've found the monitor you need! Good luck!
Customer Review: Good monitor under the right conditions
Summary: 5 Stars
CAUTION/UPDATE: My receiving unit turns off if the unit is switched ON and the power chord is plugged into the unit, but not plugged into a power socket (or otherwise not receiving an electrical current). In theory, the unit should remain powered because it contains a rechargeable battery. I discovered this during a power outage when the receiver turned off instead of having its alarm begin sounding. As a result, I make sure the unit is fully charged and then unplug it for use at night. Do to this situation, I wish I could revise my 5-star review to 0-stars.
This review is for the BabyCall NTM-910 rechargeable 27-channel Sony baby monitor. (Double-check your product page specifications because Amazon sometimes lumps together reviews for multiple models from the same manufacturer.)
In considering a monitor, ask yourself whether you're more likely to want a mobile transmitter (the unit located next to your baby) or a parental mobile receiver (the unit located next to you). Be sure the correct end has self-recharging batteries (ones you don't have to swap out). Don't kid yourself thinking you'll use rechargeable AA batteries. The battery compartments are often accessed with a screwdriver and it's very annoying to swap out batteries. This doesn't apply to the Sony model because the receiving unit's battery recharges when you plug in the unit.
I bought the Sony BabyCall NTM-910 monitor for its 27 channels. I speculated that I could find a frequency that would have no static. [UPDATE: After six months, I still get far less interferrence than from my previous non-Sony monitor. On several occassions I've heard someone talking in French, presumably on a wireless phone. The caller went away when I switched channels, but would come back weeks later.]
Second, the parental receiving unit uses its own internal rechargeable battery that boasts a long battery life. On both counts I have been very PLEASED. [UPDATE: After six month, this remains true. When the receiver battery gets low, it sounds an alarm. This is far better than my non-Sony monitor which merely flashed a light that I would not notice if I was sleeping.]
The Sony model also has a "voice activation" mode. I put my baby to sleep with a light ocean surf CD. In voice activation mode, I believe the parental unit broadcasts no sound unless it reaches a certain volume level or is random noise (e.g., it doesn't broadcast the ocean surf because of the regular pattern). My previous non-Sony model broadcasted all noise, so every night I had to listen to the CD, instead of just when the baby started to make noise.
I do have some quibbles. The parental unit alarm seems to sound immediately upon signal loss. A better design would be to sound the alarm after a few seconds of continued loss. Sometimes the alarm sounds simply because I walk in front of the unit. But, the alarm is not too loud (my first non-Sony unit shrieked), so this is a minor concern. [UPDATE: After six months, the receiver seems far more sensitive now. The out-of-range alarm frequently sounds. I have to "aim" the transmitter and receiver at each other to reduce chances of the alarm sounding, but it still fires off when people walk through certain portions of the house.]
Second, the parental unit doesn't have a docking station. To recharge the unit you simply plug it in. I would prefer a docking cradle instead of a loose wire sitting on my desktop.
Third, the ON/OFF activation on both units is a switch that you turn. Many other baby monitors have an easy button. The parental unit has three modes though, so this is probably why Sony chose a switch.
If I ever buy a baby monitor for a friend, it will be this Sony model. [UPDATE: After six months, the out-of-range alarm issue has become quite annoying. If I knew of a non-Sony baby monitor with the same feature set, but also with a stronger signal, I would opt for the non-Sony model.]
Customer Review: Highest volume setting of any monitor I've found
Summary: 4 Stars
We started out with this monitor, and I am definitely biased.
Now, this review is not a five star for two reasons. 1) It does occasionally get interference. Changing channel settings has helped this. 2) We only had it for about 10 months before the receiver fried.
Aside from those problems, it's awesome. Those are pretty big problems, too. I've tried three other monitors. An old Fisher Price two channel analog (model B9636)that I got at a consignment sale for $3. It does what I need it to do, and is basically okay. The volume setting on it is alright, but it is a bit staticey with white noise when I turn it up.
We also tried one of the more expensive Fisher-Price Sounds 'n Lights Dual Receiver Monitor models when we went out of town and forgot our baby monitor. It was pretty good. It didn't have the static issue. The only real problem I had with it is that I am so spoiled with the good sound from the Sony that it just seems too quiet to me.
When the receiver fried on the Sony it was too late to go to the babystore and pick from a wider variety, so I went to an all night big box and found the Graco imonitor Vibe 2 Parent. It's digital, and has a vibration feature for when you're in loud settings. That sounds great, but the reality is it was hard for us to hear anything. We probably wouldn't have cared if we had started out with that type of monitor. You can hear a baby cry, you can hear a door being opened. It just wasn't as sensitive to sound as I was used to, honestly. That might be a really great feature for some people. I certainly don't think most people want to hear as though the baby is in the room with them. I do, though.
So, we returned that one and purchased another Sony. We have twins who were born premature, with some of the problems that entails. Reflux, bad digestive systems, etc. I want to be able to hear them breathing in the night. With the Sony, I hear everything and can decide what was an important sound because I can totally discern the sounds as though the babies are in the room with us. The voice activation setting is okay. It takes a second for it to activate, I can't hear the tone of the beginning of the cry. Different white noise makers will make it switch on and off occasionally. Whenever it would get voice activated from a loud snore, or a white noise maker or from a cool mist humidifier I found myself startling and suddenly paying a lot more attention. So I usually just leave it on when using it, and it becomes background noise. Not everyone likes background noise like that. I have never had an issue with the rechargeable batteries, they last wonderfully, or at least 10 months.
It's hard to believe that I would repurchase an electronic product that fried after only 10 months. We do know that it was actually fried, though, and not simply a charging issue. It still had power, but when we opened the case, you could smell the unmistakable smell of fried electronics. So, here I am, buying a product that failed on me the first time. It just has better sound quality that any of the others we've tried. We'll see how long this one lasts.
Customer Review: Has its pluses and minuses
Summary: 3 Stars
About a year ago I read a lot of reviews of baby monitors, then bought a Sony BabyCall monitor. It has some good features, but also some that I think are big drawbacks. This is about my fifth baby monitor, so I have some experience to compare it to.
Things I like:
* When I'm in range of the baby and all is working well, the monitor is very quiet.
* The rechargeable battery works great! Even when I occasionally forget to plug it in overnight, the receiver doesn't run out of juice.
* It's nice to have 27 channels to choose from. Our monitor gets so little interference that we've only ever used the default channel. But it's good to know that we have options if we ever do need to switch.
* It hooks nicely into my pocket or belt, so I can wear it on my hip as I do other things around the house.
Things I don't like:
* It's easy to be out of range in my (average-sized) house. The baby's room is at a top corner of the house. When I'm in the dining room or living room, the monitor makes a lot of badly noisy static, and its out-of-range signal makes endless beepitty-beep noises.
* When the receiver is plugged in but there's no power being supplied to its plug, instead of getting power from its battery -- it just stops working!!! This is a problem if (1) you plug in the receiver incorrectly (I've done that a few times), or (2) during a power outage. If there is a power outage, then the receiver is completely silent. A nighttime power outage is the one time when I *do* want it to make beepity-beep noises, and static, and all kinds of other racket, because I want it to wake me up so that I can go sleep someplace where I can hear the baby.
* I wish it was harder to turn the volume control. I frequently find that it has dialed itself down to the quietest setting, where the only indicator that the baby is making noise is the lights on the display -- you can't hear the baby at all when the monitor is on that setting. I'm pretty sure I've failed to hear the baby when he cried when this happened. I've become fanatical about checking and re-checking the volume setting. But I wish I didn't have to do that. I wish it was harder to turn the dial so that the volume setting would stay the way I set it. Also I would be happy if it were a little harder to turn on and off, because sometimes I find it turned off and I'm sure I left it turned on, so I guess something must have bumped the power switch and turned it off.
Overall:
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Of the five baby monitors I've had over the years, this is probably the best, because of its quietness and good rechargeable battery life. But the too-easily-changed volume control knob, the beepitty-beep stuff, and the silence during power outages all drive me crazy. I wish someone would design a better baby monitor than this.
Customer Review: So Far, Not So Good
Summary: 2 Stars
We bought this monitor brand new based on the huge quantity of rave reviews it has received in many different places on the internet. But so far, overall, we can't be impressed here. We received it only a couple days ago.
From the moment we first turned on the base unit and receiver, we've been getting what I can only assume is the annoying beep that some folks mention in their reviews.
Now, to be clear, what we're hearing is not the "out of range" beep that the unit emits. This is a different and altogether more annoying sound than the "out of range" alert. This sound is a periodic grating screech that sounds more like electronic nails on a chalkboard, if there were such a thing. It sounds off every 10 seconds, consistently, and lasts about a second. To call this sound annoying would be a big understatement. To make it at all tolerable, we have to turn the volume way down on the receiver because the screech is so incredibly loud.
But, then, that begins to defeat the purpose of a baby monitor, now doesn't it? It's almost to the point that we need to turn the sound off and just use the monitor lights, which do work very well, by the way.
As a matter of fact, if it weren't for the screech, we would probably be in love with this monitor. Without the screeching, it is clearly better than our old cheap monitor, which has driven us nuts for a very long time with its static and popping.
We have the opportunity to get another one of these units (actually the NTM-900) used relatively inexpensively, so we're going to get that one and see if it has the same problem here. If so, and the former owner has had no problems with it, then I have to assume that there's some signal in the air here that the receiver picks up on all its channels (we've tried all of them, both at close and the farthest possible distance within our house) that we won't be able to do anything about while we live here. Though, it's interesting that our old cheap one doesn't pick up such interference on the same frequency (900 MHz)or create such noise.
If the used unit we are about to buy does NOT have such noise issues, then clearly, this unit is faulty, and based on what I'm seeing from other reviewers, the problem must be an epidemic. As long as we have one working one, we'll make due with a replacement 910 for the one we just bought, but having to wait that long because a company can't make a quality product is ridiculous. (We're eventually going to need 2 units of some kind.) I think Sony should refund our money in that case so that we can go buy another one immediately.
We'll see how it goes. I'm giving this unit 2 stars in the hopes that this unit is faulty, and it's not a systemic design flaw affecting all of them. If I were more sure that all of them had such an issue, I would give this thing a 1.
Too bad, really. It could really have been a great monitor.