Summer Infant Deluxe Day and Night Handheld Color Video Monitor with 2.5" Screen, Blue
by Summer Infant, Inc.
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List Price: Category: Baby Product See more product details |
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Baby Products Reviews of Summer Infant Deluxe Day and Night Handheld Color Video Monitor with 2.5" Screen, Blue
Customer Review: Great product-Couldn't get by without video
Summary: 5 Stars
About a year ago when our twin sons were born we got a baby monitor as a gift. It was a sound only monitor and I didn't care for it because at low volumes, the sound would cut off. So you couldn't really tell if a baby was just waking up. I wanted to buy something that stayed on all the time and also had video capabilities (this way you could tell if the babies are just stirring or just waking up). At first I looked at models that had a large TV for monitoring, but knowing my wife being all over the house, I knew that wouldn't do. For about $50 more, I saw this model by Summer. I bought it and I must say it was one of the best things I bought in regards to baby products. First off, as you can see it is totally portable. It operates off of both the cord and battery. The battery operation has an auto shutoff feature for the video only that shuts the screen off after 5 mins of continuous operation. The audio remains on though. For AC operation, you can choose to have continuous video or just the audio. Next feature that stands out is the infrared camera. During the day, you have full color picture in the monitor, at night, you have a clear B&W picture. I personally was VERY amazed at the night capabilities of this unit. (As the kids got a bit older, it was necessary to set up two cribs and I now have the camera mounted on a wall and 'looking' down over the two cribs. The picture isn't as clear at night (because of the longer distances involved) but I am STILL able to see movement in both cribs. So Kudos to summer for a nice high output night vision system). Next we get to the audio. It is always on. There is no shut off (which as I stated above, I preferred). There is also an always active bar graph meter that shows the intensity of the audio signal, so even with the video screen off, you STILL get a visual of activity in the room. Other features I noticed is that you can connect the unit to a larger screen/monitor if you like via an AV jack on the side. The unit has a belt clip so you can wear it on you all day. The internal display screen is small, but given the portability of the unit, that is a good trade off. As I said above, the screen is color in the daytime and it is an LCD display. We have never dropped the unit and took especially good care of it. The case is made of a hard plastic and it looks like it can survive a fall, but I am not sure if the screen would still be intact. In short...I would take care not to drop it. The battery looks to be a standard rechargeable cordless phone battery. The monitor is almost on 24-7 so we figured we would go through 2 or 3 batteries a year, but NO! So far we are still on the original battery and it is almost a year now since I have the unit. Just only a couple nights ago my wife noticed that it isn't holding as long a charge anymore. Heck...for a year of trouble free use, I can live with that.
So all in all I can say nothing but good things about this baby monitor. It has everything I wanted in a monitor and more. As I said it clearly is one of the best items I bought for the care of our two boys.
Customer Review: wish we bought this earlier
Summary: 5 Stars
our son is almost 4 months old now, and i wish i had this monitor from the beginning! we didn't have a monitor because we have a small house and i'm a stay at home mom, but after running back and forth in and out of his room to check on him, we decided to get one. i researched basically every monitor out there and my main concerns were: 1) interference issues 2) quality of product 3) portability. there were several audio only monitors that got okay reviews, but the really good ones were close to or over $100, or even $200 (philips). we decided on this monitor because we kept running into the room, thinking he was awake, when in reality he was asleep and we ended up waking him up.
this monitor is fabulous. we have a 5.8ghz phone and sometimes there's static when we use channel A on the monitor, but our phone has a ton of static anyway so a slight increase didn't change our opinion of the monitor. we like that it's portable (compared to summer's regular monitor) and that you can hook it up to the tv. i like the energy saving feature that turns the video off after 3 minutes, but when washing the dishes, it's kind of annoying to dry my hands and press the button to turn the video back on every few minutes if i hear my baby making noises. i just plug it into the tv and it stays on, and i can just glance at the tv every few minutes to make sure he's still asleep and his feet aren't caught in the railings or anything. we plan to take this on vacation and it will be great when we have to put him to bed at 7 in an upstairs room at my parent's house. we can watch him from downstairs and not have to run up everytime we hear him.
it'll also be great when he's older, as kids get into trouble without making noise! that was definitely something that concerned us about an audio only monitor. just because they're not crying doesn't mean you don't need to go in there! and likewise...just because they ARE crying doesn't mean you have to run in there. we were doing both :) and now i can get more done and still feel secure knowing that he is okay. i can even see him breathing on the screen, and even better when it's hooked up to the tv! a great purchase. it's definitely not movie quality, but i found it to be better than a surveillance video (that you would see at a store) and it seemed like the quality got better as we used it more. the color is great and the night vision is FANTASTIC. our baby is still in our room because we are building our home and his room is not finished yet, and i sometimes keep the monitor next to the bed even though he is 8 feet away because i can check on him in the dark without turning on any lights and risking waking him up. i would definitely recommend this to anyone, especially for 1st time parents of newborns. i love that i can check on his breathing.
Customer Review: Mommy's New Favorite Channel
Summary: 5 Stars
I thought I would share an excerpt from my baby blog as my review...
"In an attempt to alleviate at least some of my sleep deprivation (those parts I can control anyways -- aka mommy's `now that my boy prefers to sleep on his belly, is he breathing?' worries), we purchased a video monitor. We had originally refrained from broadcasting our kiddo as I had heard such mixed reviews about the quality of the video, but after a week in, I HAVE A NEW FAVORITE CHANNEL! And the first night of surveillance was certainly a memorable one -- let me first preface this story by saying it had been three nights in a row (three very, very long nights in a row) that our bambino had an all-night rollover party in his crib, and of course mommy was the roll-back-over chaperon (he just loves to turn over and try to pick up the anchor and life preserver shaped designs on his sheets). That being said, after his 1:00 AM feeding on the launching of our new baby gadget, I transferred the booger butt to his crib, turned on the 2.5" LCD video monitor at our bedside, and was immediately taken back by the quality of the sound as, no joke, I literally heard him fart a few times. As I lay in bed giggling like a fifth grader at the remote sounds of the passing of gas, I then watched as he rolled over onto his stomach. Talk about immediate return on investment -- without having to ever leave the confines of our bed, my smothering apprehensions were pacified as I could see perfectly clear (keep in mind the lights are out in his room) that his head was turned to the side and could actually hear him breathing. Bedside comfort at last!...how wrong were all those Amazon reviews on poor video quality???...shoot, the video quality was...was...TOO GOOD! No really,...it was TOO GOOD...because right as I begin to dose off to the condolences of my new favorite channel, all of a sudden a brown spot on the back of our lil' dudes PJs caught my eye...and as the smudge begin to spread, it was then I realized that those tooting tunes were more than just gas! My first reaction of course was to get up and change the lad...and had he even been fussing in the slightest, I certainly would have dashed to diaper duty in a heartbeat...but for the first time in three nights our lil' dude was FINALLY sleeping. And so to wrap up my deliberations, let's just say I had some diaper damaged PJs and sheets to clean up in the morning. ;) (now if only I could figure out a way to "clean up" the rationale behind my "wonderful video quality" evaluation in order to post the Amazon review this gadget deserves!).
Customer Review: Better than I expected (I'm a gagdet geek)
Summary: 5 Stars
As a gadget geek, I'm not easily impressed by gadgets, but I'm impressed by this one. We have a new baby infant. And at first, I was not entirely convinced that we needed a video monitor (we already have an audio monitor a friend gave us). Having had this video monitor now for 3 weeks, my wife finds it indispensable while I find it surprisingly useful. In our 2000sq-ft single-story wood-frame home, the reception is great everywhere, and the picture is clear. We have a 802.11g wireless network in the house (2.4GHz) and a set of 5.8GHz cordless phones, and there is no interference with this 900MHz video monitor. But be warned: although the product is advertised as "color," the video is virtually black-and-white almost all the time, not color. Even during the day when baby's room is filled with sunlight (which are the best conditions to see color, according to the user manual), the picture is black-and-white with just a shade of color. In other words, don't expect actually seeing much color from this monitor. So why did I give it 5 stars? ...because I don't care much about the color, and the product works so well. It's self-explanatory with no real setup needed (a rarity in the world of electronics). The monitor provides excellent night vision (black and white, of course). The video camera and mount (which needs to be plugged in, of course) is quite flexible in its possible mounting configurations. The video handset, though slightly bulky, can be clipped to your belt to allow you to wander. There is a large soft button on top of the handset that toggles the video on and off to save batteries, or it can be plugged in so that you can leave the video on all the time. It works also as a regular audio monitor, but you can turn the audio off and rely on the green-orange-red LEDs to visually indicate how much noise the baby is making (this feature is brilliant and is more useful than you might think). You can even plug in a headset to the handset to listen to your baby privately if you wish. The only other drawback besides the always-black-and-white picture is that the rechargeable battery pack is a proprietary unit that can't be replaced with standard rechargeable AA batteries. As with all rechargeable batteries, it has a finite life, and when it dies, I'll be forced to buy their expensive replacement. But that's in the future, so I'll forgive it for now. One final recommendation: buy the model with the bigger 2.5" screen rather than the smaller screen (it's only slightly more expensive). It's much easier on the eyes and provides better detail.Customer Review: This thing is GREAT! Worth every penny
Summary: 5 Stars
We just had a baby girl and with the regular sound monitor every time we would hear something we would jump and go look to make sure our baby was OK. Now, with this video/sound monitor we are at ease.
Picture:
The picture is quite nice with no distortion or static. The color is off a bit (hardly any color) but you can clearly see what the camera is aimed at and that is most important. At night you can see black and white what is in view - I mean total darkness and it is clear. Also, the 2.5" screen on the handheld is wonderful.
Sound:
Crystal clear - I did the penny test and is was amazing. Drop a penny in the room farthest from the camera and the handheld picks it up and you hear it clearly. If you turn up the volume really high there is a hiss noise but it doesn't need to be up that high. This thing picks up every sound at a low volume on the handheld.
Notes:
It is nice to have the picture auto turn off to save battery life on the handheld. Also you can use just the sound feature which is nice. The camera tilts and pans so no matter where you put it you can see what you want. We have ours mounted on the wall above the crib. The range on this thing is amazing - to test I went in the yard and could still see clearly - not that we intend to walk away that far but to prove it's range I was impressed. Belt clip is a must and the kick stand is so nice! I have not yet tested how long the battery will last but that really isn't an issue as we use it plugged into A/C and never need it unplugged for very long - 10 hours is the time stated but that is a long time unplugged - I don't know why anyone would be away that long.
UPDATE: (02/04/2008)
Some how the color just came alive on this thing! See the pictures I have posted and you can see the first non-color one and the now improved color - weird! Maybe it needed to warm up! LOL
UPDATE: (01/17/2009)
The battery is DEAD! I mean it doesn't hold a charge any more AT ALL! The only use is by plugging the handheld in via AC. It still is wonderful to have - my daughter is one now and we still use it.
UPDATE: (10/02/2009)
Well baby #2 on the way - I bought a new battery for this unit which was about $17 with shipping and it works great - holds a charge again like it used to - hope it lasts as we are due in Feb. IT'S A BOY! Anyway, the picture isn't as great as it used to be but it still works. I would still recommend this product. Good luck!