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Your baby needs constant attention, but you can't be in their room every hour of every day. The best baby monitors can offer peace of mind that your little one is safe and sound. We've been testing and reviewing baby monitoring systems for more than a decade, so you've come to the right place to start your search. Many baby monitors we test function as smart home devices that stream video and audio to your phone, while others work independently without Wi-Fi. Our top pick, the Nanit Pro Complete Monitoring System, lets you see and hear your baby from your phone and tracks their breathing, growth, and sleeping. In testing, we found the system's sleep insights particularly useful when trying to determine an optimal bedtime for our little cherub. If you want something more affordable or private, our list of the best baby monitors has options for you, too.
Our Top Tested Picks
Nanit Pro Complete Monitoring System
Miku Pro Smart Baby Monitor
Bonoch Long Range Baby Monitor
Cubo AI Plus Smart Baby Monitor
Infant Optics DXR-8 Pro Baby Monitor
The Best Baby Monitor Deals This Week*
- Kasa Pan and Tilt 1080p Smart Home Camera — $22.99 (List Price $29.99)
- VTech VM819 Video Baby Monitor With 2.8" Display — $48.71 (List Price $64.95)
- Kasa Smart EC60 1080p Security Camera — $17.99 (List Price $29.99)
- HelloBaby Baby Monitor with Remote Pan-Tilt-Zoom Camera — $49.99 (List Price $89.99)
- HelloBaby 5" 2 Way Talk Baby Monitor — $59.98 (List Price $99.99)
*Deals are selected by our commerce team
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Best for Sleep Training
Nanit Pro Complete Monitoring System
- Sharp camera quality (up to 1080p) and night vision
- Tracks breathing and growth
- Excellent app
- Built-in night-light
- Expensive accessories
- Sleep data requires paid subscription after one year
- Weak speaker
The Nanit Pro Complete Monitoring System is the best smart baby monitor and service we've tested, especially for first-time and/or nervous parents, but it requires deep pockets.
Best for Tracking Breathing
Miku Pro Smart Baby Monitor
- No subscription costs for cloud storage
- Contactless breath tracking on kids up to age 12
- App supports up to eight cameras
- Good speakers
- Lacks Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant integration
- No night-light
- No web view
The Miku Pro Smart Baby Monitor lets you track your child's sleep and monitor their breathing without the need for special wearables.
Best Non-Internet-Connected Baby Monitor
Bonoch Long Range Baby Monitor
- No Wi-Fi or account required
- 1080p screen resolution
- High-quality night vision mode
- Regular and zoom lenses
- Good battery life
- USB-C ports for charging
- Heavy, bulky monitor with no handle
- Lacks physical brightness controls
- No noise reduction
- Inaccurate temperature sensor
The Bonoch Long Range Baby Monitor lives up to its name, offering good coverage as well as long battery life and an extremely simple setup experience, but its unwieldy display is tough to carry around the house.
Sends the Most Alerts
Cubo AI Plus Smart Baby Monitor
- Sharp image quality
- Clean two-way audio
- Crying and rollover alerts
- Sleep analytics
- Temperature and humidity sensors
- Pricey
- Some features require a subscription
- Doesn't support IFTTT
- Humidity readings were slightly off in testing
The Cubo AI Plus is a feature-filled smart baby monitor that gives you a sharp bird’s eye view of your infant’s crib and offers crying and rollover alerts, environmental sensors, and sleep analytics.
Best Handheld Monitor for Detecting Crying
Infant Optics DXR-8 Pro Baby Monitor
- Easy setup
- Doesn't require Wi-Fi or internet
- Useful noise reduction only focuses on important sounds like crying
- Monitor supports multiple cameras
- Can't be viewed on phone, tablet, or TV
- No remote monitoring, screenshots, or video capture
- Wide-angle lens not included
The Infant Optics DXR-8 Pro Baby Monitor is a low-tech video monitor for parents and caregivers who want to keep things simple.
Do You Need a Dedicated Baby Monitor?
Most smart baby monitors are effectively just home security cameras—devices that let you watch another location with color video, night vision, and sound, so you can tell if anything is amiss. Because baby monitors are for keeping an eye on your little one rather than on your home and property, they prioritize different features than security cameras.
From a pure imaging standpoint, night vision is vital for watching your baby sleep from another room and is standard for most baby monitors. Motorized pan-and-tilt controls (which lets you swivel the camera from afar) aren't quite as common but are very welcome if you have a toddler and want to scan an entire room. The ability to record in HD is a nice plus, but you don't need the highest-resolution sensor to keep tabs on your baby—most of the monitors we test use 1080p cameras in any case.
What to Look for When Buying a Smart Baby Monitor
Watching your child from moment to moment is far more important than going over footage from previous nights, so baby monitors don't usually make a big deal about saving video for later, whether using built-in storage or through a cloud service. They can take snapshots and short clips when they detect movement, but they don't offer time-lapse videos of entire nights or let you page through hours' or days' worth of footage. Those features are useful for identifying burglars, but they don't really help you watch your child unless you're in a Paranormal Activity sequel.
Instead, baby monitors offer more options for letting you know when something might be wrong at that moment. Temperature and humidity measurements are common among high-end monitors, along with alerts and notifications for when the monitors detect movement or a lack of movement.
All of the monitors here connect to the internet and let you watch your infant via your phone or tablet through an app just as if you were checking a home security camera. Because of this, you might not actually get a standalone display to go along with the camera. They aren't out of the question, however; some camera-only baby monitors offer viewers as an add-on or in a bundle. And if there aren't any available, you can simply get an inexpensive tablet to use as a dedicated viewer.
Are Baby Monitors Safe?
As with any internet-connected device that watches or listens to your home, it's not out of the ordinary to be somewhat wary of a smart baby monitor. All Internet of Things (IoT) devices (and broadly anything on your network) are potential soft spots for hackers to monitor you. Although you shouldn't be afraid of an epidemic of camera breaches, you should always weigh the convenience of these devices against the risk of someone getting control of the feed.
If you want a connected baby monitor or home security camera in your home, at the very least you should diligently update the firmware of both it and your router.
Other Ways to Track Your Baby
Baby monitors are just one way to keep track of your little one. For newborns, for instance, the Snoo Smart Sleeper is a bed that gently rocks your baby for better sleep and connects to an app on your phone that lets you receive alerts when your little one needs attention.
If you're interested in keeping an eye on your whole home and not just your child's room, check out our roundup of the best home security systems for more flexible surveillance options.
