Safety 1st High-Def Digital Video MonitorProduct Description
The Safety 1st High-Def Digital Monitor provides a 100% clear connection anytime, anywhere. The state of the art wideband audio clarity ensures no static, no interference, and guaranteed privacy while monitoring. It has a remote digital zoom and pan. The DataLock technology means no dropped picture or sound. The baby unit is battery operated or can be plugged in. It has secure sound lights.
Customer Reviews
just got this and it is FANTASTIC so far.....
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 -
- The batteries do not hold a charge... period, no juice at all.
- The view button, does not really work, you really have to push hard for it to work
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.
Best monitor currently available.
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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Best Quality Video Monitor on the Market
This video monitor was our 3rd purchase. We first bought Summer's Video Monitor which was returned even before we had the baby. The first reason was because we would pick up or neighbors baby room, second the monitor screen broke very easily.
Next Monitor we purchased was Graco's, we actually used this monitor for the first 9 months, the video clarity was poor, and the parent unit of the monitor would turn off unexpectedly. At first I thought the rechargeable battery was just bad so I purchased a second plug in cord for the unit only to realize that was not actually the issue. After 2 months of dealing with their customer service they gave me a full refund for the return of my unit.
Moving on to the Safety 1st monitor when I first received the monitor the parent screen I though was really small compared to my other two previously owned. However once I turned on the camera and observed the clarity of the unit I was impressed! I would Highly recommended this unit above all other video monitors.
There are some negatives about the unit when hanging the video camera the power cord seems to be located in the wrong spot. It is located on the bottom part of the unit so there is no way to hide the cord. Second is I am still a little confused on how to switch between options.
But even with these two negative factors the video picture by far is the best quality out on the market. Hope this helps. Good Luck!
