Safety 1st High-Def Digital Video Monitor
by Dorel Juvenile Group
|
List Price: Category: Baby Product See more product details |
|---|
(Click here)
Baby Products Reviews of Safety 1st High-Def Digital Video Monitor
Customer Review: Best monitor currently available.
Summary: 5 Stars
I recently purchased this video monitor for use in our home, to replace the Summer Infant Handheld video monitor we were NOT happy with. I spent hours reading reviews of all the monitors I could find online. I am happy with my purchase. I believe this monitor was a good choice, although it's not perfect. Here's my review:
1. PICTURE. This monitor has by far the best picture of any baby video monitor I have seen. That being said, it is NOT "high-def" to the standards of a high-def television. It is high def compared to other monitors currently available. 5 STARS.
2. SOUND. The sound quality is very good. There is a soft "whoosh" of interference that is constantly in the background when the receiver is on. I have never seen a monitor that didn't have that interference, and this is better than most. The microphone appears to be very sensitive and picks up my child's smallest sounds. 4 STARS.
3. RECEPTION. The reception is unparalleled in my opinion. There is only an occasional blip of interference on one side of the picture that resolves quickly. We walked three houses away on either side of our house before we lost reception. Needless to say the reception inside our home and in our yard is flawless. Even several houses away the reception didn't degrade in quality - it was perfect until it was lost, displaying a lost connection symbol. A few steps back toward our house restored perfect reception again. Additionally, the monitor does not appear to conflict with our wireless internet in any way. 5 STARS.
4. PAN/TILT. This monitor advertises the ability to pan and tilt. If you are picturing being able to remotely control the camera to move in any direction, that's not what it does. From the remote parent unit, you can zoom in on the picture 2X to 4X. While in a zoomed view, you can move right, left, up or down within the picture, just as you would if you zoomed in on a picture from your digital camera. You're not actually seeing anything outside the original view, and the camera is not actually moving. The zoom feature does produce fairly clear images, however, and for us we like being able to see both our kids in their bunk beds in the zoomed out view, and then zoom in on each one individually. I find it slightly irritating that to move within the zoomed view you have to keep pushing the right, left, up or down buttons repeatedly, moving only slightly with each push. I wish you could hold down the button and have it move smoothly until you released the button or reached the edge of the picture. 4 STARS.
5. TIME OUT and OTHER FEATURES. This monitor has an on-screen menu that allows you to set your preferences for the Time Out feature, AUTO level, Night vision (infrared) and adding other cameras. TIME OUT allows you to set how long your want the screen to be on before it automatically shuts off to save battery life - 5 seconds, 15 secs, 25 secs, or OFF which leaves it on until you turn it off. I really like this feature because you can hit the view button to see the picture and then just set it down and it will turn itself off. The sound continues after the screen turns off unless you have set the AUTO LEVEL, which turns the sound off and then turns it on if there is a sound in the room. You can set this to OFF, which keeps the sound on until you turn the unit off, or to level 1, 2 or 3 which makes it more or less sensitive to sound, i.e., it will turn the sound on for smaller noises on level 1 or wait for bigger noises on level 2 or 3. I like this a lot because then you don't have to listen to the "whoosh" of background noise, but you know if your child starts to stir it will turn back on. I am satisfied with how sensitive it is with my 3 year old, I will wait and see how I feel with the baby coming soon, knowing I'll be more paranoid about every noise with him. But so far I like how this works. For NIGHT vision you can turn the infrared on, off, or to auto. I don't know why you would use anything other than auto but I guess it's nice to have the choice. I only have one camera so the part about adding other cameras is not something I can comment on. I will say the menu was only partially intuitive for me, but it didn't hurt me to read the instructions for once and all my questions were answered there. 5 STARS.
6. OTHER. In the area of nit-pickiness, there is a Safety 1st screen that comes on every time you turn the screen on, as if it shows while the unit is booting up. Whether this is necessary or not I don't know, and it does bug a little, but it's only on there for 1 second so it's not that big of a deal. The screen does return to the view you had before, like if you were zoomed in on a certain spot it returns to that, which is nice. You don't have to find the view you want all over again. The screen is pretty small, smaller than our old one, but the picture is so much better it makes up for it. I would rather have a smaller, but better picture than a bigger crappy one. I do like that the handheld receiver is small and portable, easy to carry in your pocket or use the clip provided. Finally, the power button on the camera blinks brightly when the camera is on, which can be annoying in the dark. I taped tin foil over it to cover it up.
Overall, I would recommend this monitor to family and friends without hesitation. I am sure that future models with improve upon this one, and there are some things I would change if I could, but I am convinced this is among the best if not the best baby monitor available today. I love it. Shop around for the best price.
Customer Review: Excellent Monitor, Destroys the Graco iMonitor
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased the Safety 1st High-Def Digital Video Monitor 08280 a few months ago for use with my newborn. I already had the Graco Digital iMonitor and had been using it for 1 1/2 years with my son, and was desperate for something better.
Due to the layout of my home, without a monitor, I cannot hear a crying child unless that child is in full-blown, screaming hysteria (especially if I am alseep myself). For each of my kids, I wanted video and audio monitoring in order to give myself the greatest peace of mind possible. I prefer digital technology to 900 MHz for safety reasons (don't want someone else looking into my kids' rooms or listening to the happenings inside my home).
First, my complaints with the iMonitor. The parental unit shuts itself off with no warning of any kind and at any given time. At first I thought that perhaps the battery was dying, but as it turns out, the battery beeps loudly when it is running low, so that wasn't it. I wondered if it had to do with having the monitor open or folded closed, but that wasn't it. Graco's customer service was very unhelpful when I repeatedly called to ask for troubleshooting assistance. They essentially denied that I was having this problem. The monitor experiences frequent interference resulting in severe tiling of the image, so that you cannot see the child at all. The monitor also tends to show the child for a few seconds or minutes, then the screen goes blue and a message comes up that reads, "initializing video..." No video or audio monitoring is available during the initialization process. Since this process can take 10 seconds for every 1 second of actual imaging, the monitor can be completely useless for extended periods of time. It also loses its connection to the nursery unit and must paired-up again. This also happens for no apparent reason, and without warning. Knowing that the iMonitor has these problems has caused me to sleep very lightly, even after my son started sleeping through the night. I frequently jerk myself awake to check to see if the monitor is still on, and if so, to make sure that the monitor is working properly. I paid $200 including shipping/tax for the iMonitor.
Now the Safety 1st monitor. I paid $192 including shipping/tax for this monitor in July, a few months after my daughter's arrival. I love this unit and have only 2 minor complaints, so those complaints before the long list of pros. The unit interferes with my wi-fi. If I use my laptop within a few feet of the monitor, I lose my wireless connection. I have found that my laptop must be at least 10 feet away from the monitor to keep my wireless connection. This is somewhat annoying, but I can live with setting the monitor down 10 feet away from my computer workspace, confident that I can hear my child through the monitor at that distance, even if I can't see her. Also, the light on the nursery unit is a large light in comparison to the light on the iMonitor. The light flashes and is very bright. Once my child is old enough to be annoyed by the light, I'll have to do something about it, but right now she is oblivious to the light.
This monitor is amazing. The monitor has a crystal-clear image, and has never tiled on me. The monitor nevers shuts itself off (unless the batteries die), and has never yet lost its connection to the nursery unit. The monitor can be set so that the image is always on (even when using battery power, which the iMonitor does not offer), or to remain on for a set number of seconds, up to 25 seconds. When using this option, the monitor can be set to bring the image on if the child is making noise (parent sets the noise-level sensitivity). If the child is not making any sounds, but you want to look in anyway, a push of the Video button on the front of the monitor immediately brings up the video of the child. The Safety 1st is very sensitive to sounds, so I rate the audio component as superior also, even when using it on its lowest setting. The monitor displays a color image when there is adequate light in the room, and then displays a night vision image when the room is dark. Both types of imaging offer superior quality video.
I have been using the Safety 1st monitor and the Graco iMonitor side-by-side for a few months and have noticed that when the two monitors are near each other, the Graco iMonitor absolutely cannot get past the "initializing video" stage, which means that it does not work at all. Even in close proximity to the the iMonitor, the image on the Safety 1st monitor has never so much as flickered. The Safety 1st is rock solid.
I have just ordered a second Safety 1st to replace the Graco iMonitor in my son's room. This time, the best price I could find was $230 including shipping/tax.
Customer Review: just got this and it is FANTASTIC so far.....
Summary: 5 Stars
Just got the item delivered today. I did pay a whole lot less then the $349.99 price amazon has it for right now. (and don't buy it from wizard entertainment, they had it [...], and then cancelled my order stating that it was out of stock, and then they have it listed here again, scam artists)
First, the box is nicely configured and when you open it, everything is there to see (some may think this is crazy but i purchased/returned a swat system and the thing was a pain in the butt to get out and put back in)
2nd, hooked it up and there is NO interference.... thats right, NO interference, none.... NO popping sounds, NO dropping picture, NO neighbors kid.... NOTHING... just very, very clear picture and sound. since I just got the system and hooked it up, I have not used the night vision or the zoom in/out, pan features. It seems pretty straight forward to use from the handset. The screen on the handset is somewhat on the small size but the clarity and the quality is pretty good.
I thought the camera and the handset would be a whole lot heavier but they seem to be pretty well made. When you put in the rechargable batteries in the handset make sure you unscrew the little screw at the bottom (or read the directions). So the handset comes with rechargable batteries and a power plug. The camera does not come with the batteries (even though you can run it on batteries) I am not sure about placing rechargable batteries in it.
I will update my review with more info, but so far, comparing it to other monitors, this seems to work flawlessly. I am amazed that no one had come up with this technology before. So my first impression of the item is very good and I would definitely recommend it.
**update 1** 4/25/08 ** tried the item with night vision and it is pretty good. during regular day mode, one thing i realized about the picture quality is that if you have a fast moving object like my dog running across the screen, the picture quality does get a bit choppy. it doesn't drop out but kind of looks like an older cartoon where the motion is not smooth. now this said, it really doesn't matter with an infant, just the fact that you would be using to see if they are awake if moving etc. if your baby is doing gymnastics then it may not be that impressive. the zoom also works pretty well. you get up to 4x digital zoom, when you do zoom in the picture quality suffer somewhat but it is still a great feature. the whole system is pretty easy to navigate. i am still very happy with the item.
**update 2** 9/7/08 ** Still using the monitor like crazy. Couple of things people pointed out. #1) battery life sucks... just awful but for my use which is mostly at night we have it hooked up to the power outlet and we rarely carry it around with us during the day #2) it is pretty annoying to hear that beep and see the logo everytime you want to see the video, its loud especially at night when everything is so quite. Other then those 2 things, the item is still solid. I will take those 2 negatives just for the fact that no one else can see my kid (you can't say the same about the 900 mhz or the 2.4 gig units) At night we have the auto volume limit at 2 and the sound only comes on when the baby makes sounds which is great. The video is always clear with the night vision and you can see every detail. Actually one other really annoying thing #3) is that the actual video unit in the baby's room, has a blinking annoying green light. I am sure you can't turn it off, so I had to put a piece of folded paper and tape it so it wasn't a beacon for the baby. I have had no wireless issues with FIOS actiontek router either. so overall still pretty happy with the unit and its well worth it for the security and privacy perks.
**update 3** 3/30/09 ** OK, so almost 1 year of use, I still highly recommend this to any parent. I don't know how people do without a video baby monitor... do yourself a favor and get a video one and not just an audio.
2 negatives -
1) The batteries do not hold a charge... period, no juice at all.
2) The view button, does not really work, you really have to push hard for it to work
NOW THE POSITIVE -
I called safety1st about those 2 problems, they will be sending me a brand new unit. This is what I call customer service!!! They will send me a brand new unit and I just have to send my old one back to them. I have been a very happy customer with the unit. After a full year of use, I would recommend it hands down over any other unit out there.
This is a must for all new parents.
Customer Review: Thoughtful design
Summary: 5 Stars
I won't repeat the detailed run-downs that previous reviewers have given, but this monitor really delivers. I've been using it for a little over a month and it's wonderful.
-Excellent reception. Sound always comes through clearly. Video typically comes through clearly, but when I get 2 floors away and the signal is going through interference of 4 routers and several wireless phones of various frequencies, the video gets a little choppy. No big deal, I can still see my little girl quite clearly. It's not DVD quality, but when I want to see her, I have no problems. **edit** After 6 months of use, I've found that the monitor does interfere with G band wireless routers. The monitor doesn't get interrupted, but it definitely slows down transfer rates between my computers and routers. As long as you don't get the monitor in a direct line between the laptop and router (and you aren't running VPN, because it may cause enough interruptions to require you to reestablish your VPN connection), the interference is acceptable.
-The monitor is paired with a camera when the 2 devices are within a few feet of each other. There's apparently some encoding too. Since I live in a town home, I didn't want my neighbors to be able to get video or audio of my house, this is a definite plus.
-No fancy useless features to clutter up the unit's operation. This is a video monitor and it does the job well. Period.
-4 settings for activation based on noise level. First, you can have all sounds come through. Even when I'm getting choppy video because I've gone too far away from the camera, audio is crystal clear with no static. There are 3 other settings that make the monitor only produce sound when the sounds are loud enough. My wife is a light sleeper, so we use it on the setting that filters out the most noise. Soft to medium cries still come through, so this is perfect. At other times the monitor is silent.
-Rechargeable batteries come standard. Someone was thinking here. The monitors use AAA batteries (might be AA, I forget) and come with rechargeable batteries. Here's the best part, when you plug the monitor into the wall, it charges the batteries. So I never ever have to change the batteries and in about a year when the batteries start to wear out and battery life suffers, I'll just swap in some new rechargeable batteries for under $2. Brilliant. I can't report how long the battery life is, since it's never run out on me, but I can say that I've had it running unplugged for about 8 hours. (It does have an annoying beeping sound when the batteries die. I found this out after accidentally leaving it on all day and happened to come back to the bedroom to find it beeping.) **edit** After 6 months of heavy use on battery power only, the monitor last for about 4 hours with video on the entire time. We found that battery life was so good that we just started leaving the video on all the time rather than using the 5, 10, or 25 second shutoff.
-There is a flashing green light on the front of the cameras. It's quite bright, so I picked up some scotch tape and double layered some colored paper to cover it up. It's a silly design issue, but easily resolved.
-Each monitor can take about 4 cameras. The only downside is they aren't widely available, so you'll need to buy them directly from Safety 1st. They give instructions in the manual on how to order. The cameras are a little pricey, but sometimes they'll negotiate to a very reasonable price. **edit** There's no way to monitor the sound from multiple cameras at the same time, instead you need to press a button to cycle through them. I wish I could see 1 of the cameras and hear sounds from all cameras, then maybe have an indicator that said which cameras were currently transmitting sound.
Customer Review: Overpriced Junk
Summary: 1 Stars
I just printed the RMA for this item and will be sending it back tomorrow after trying it out for two days.
The main reason this was selected over other units was because
1) The other two reviews I read were favorable
2) I liked the idea of a secure digital signal for AV monitoring that the next runner-up unit did not have.
Pros:
- The video picture was fairly clear, and did not seem subject to any interference that we could see. Interference in general did not appear to be an issue with this unit, nor did it appear to interfere with our wi-fi system at home.
Cons:
- The user interface is horrid. There seems to be little logic or consistency with the way most small electronic devices work today.
- It is an energy hog. The batteries, after fully charging them, only last about six or seven hours, then the unit starts beeping, lots, loudly, until the batteries are truly dead. OK, I get it, if the batteries are needed to listen to baby, then it is good to be warned of the lack of monitoring. Too bad that three 850 milliamp hour batteries can only power it for a few hours, when it is only on 'monitor' mode without being viewed or becoming active in any way. How much power does it take to be a passive receiver from a powered transmitter? A smart device would use very little power (like a small radio) and then only 'power up' the rest of its electronics when it receives a valid signal from its dedicated transmitter.
- Very poor VOX operation. We have a three year old Sony audio only unit that had no 'trigger level' adjustment. It comes on at the slightest noise in baby's room (small child now). Unfortunately, it also frequently made noises from who-knows-what interference. This new Safety 1st unit, purchased for our about to be born #2, was tested from our older child's room. The new unit has three 'level' settings so that you can set when it comes on. This sounds great. Unfortunately, the most sensitive setting would not pick up on a normal conversation in our son's room and stay on! We even thought that maybe the level settings were backwards from the manual and tried 'less sensitive' level three. I think level three requires a lawnmower or a shriek to turn on the unit.
On level one, the 'sensitive' setting, a normal conversation in close proximity would intermittently turn the unit on and off.
This was the last straw, what good is a monitor that does not have a decent VOX capability? Maybe we got a bad unit? Possible, but the rest of the unit's quality was such that we won't bother to find out.
- Annoying logo every time you look at the screen. When you want to see what is going on, and press the 'view' button to do so, you are first subjected to a 'safety 1st' flash screen for a couple of seconds or so! Good grief! My baby might be making a horrible noise and 'Safety 1st' prefers to stick an add in my face and remind me that they made the product rather then allow the product to do the job it was purchased for as quickly and efficiently as possible!
- It seems to take very bright light to get a color image, even in fairly decent to moderate light (sunny mid day; medium weight drapes closed in the room, but door still open in a well lit home), the unit switches to B&W images.
I could go on, but you get the drift, bottom line, we won't buy another 'Safety 1st' product. This was their high end item and in our opinion, they failed to satisfy.
Signed: Back in the market for a good video monitor