We are traveling to my in-laws who live on a lake over the weekend. I've taken our regular baby monitor to their home before and it gets terrible static and interference as soon as I step outside. It would be so nice to be able to go out to the patio area during our daughter's 3-hour naptime in the afternoon. Does anyone have experience with a monitor that works well in long ranges?
We have the summer infant video monitor for home and the static is terrible outside. I'm just looking for an audio monitor for travel use. I'm thinking of trying the Safety 1st High-Def Digital Monitor but the reviews online say that the volume is very low. I'm also thinking about Graco imonitor but the reviews aren't great for that one either. Actually, I haven't found any monitor that gets consistently good reviews, especially for long ranges.
Of course I'd like it to be as inexpensive as possible but at this point I'm just trying to find one that works well regardless of the price tag! If anyone has had a good experience with one please let me know!
I've literally tried all monitors and Sony Babycall is the best under a hundred dollars, and it's only about $50. They last forever as well and can take a beating!
Hi R.,
I also had a big problem with my old monitor when going outside. The static was terrible! I purchased the Sony BabyCall Rechargeable monitor and it works great both indoors and outdoors. It has a pretty good distance, but I cannot remember how long...check the Babies R Us website. It also has a voice activation feature which I just love! It was about $50.00 at Babies R Us and is worth every penny! Good luck!
We run into this same problem in the yard, the digital monitors just don't work too far from the base. My husband (the IT guy) explained that the digital monitors are great for clarity, but for distance the older analog monitors work best. They will have more static but the range is much further. I'm planning on checking Craig's list to look for one so I can get some gardening done at some point this summer!
I have a Graco one that is great! It goes clearly all the way at least 200 ft from the house, haven't had to go farther then that.
http://www.amazon.com/Graco-iMonitor-Multi-Child-Monitor/... is what I have, but I didn't spend that much at Babies R us. They also have a single room version, I needed two rooms though.
My husband and I ran in to the same problem a couple if weeks ago when we were staying at a hotel for his cousin's wedding. We wanted to be able to sit by the pool whilst our daughter napped. This is what we came up with:
We are on a family plan with our cell phones, so one of us called the other (without it costing us any minutes). We put both phones on speaker, then we left one phone in the room near the crib. We muted the phone we took with us so she wouldn't hear anything from our end. It worked like a charm and had all the range we could possibly ever want! Of course, I don't know that your phones will definitely get reception given that you'll be in a remote area, but maybe you know that they do from previous visits. Hope this helps!
One of my children has epilepsy with night time seizures. The baby monitors were horrible with static at night. After some research I went to Radio Shack and purchased a portable intercom system (It can be plugged in anywhere around the house and I have plugged it in outside in the backyard as well). It can be set to just listen in or with a push of a button to talk... We've been using it for over four years - no static.
If you have a phone system with speaker phone and at least two phones that you can use the intercom is the fast, cheap and easy. We use it to talk, but it has a good range and then you could go a distance away.
Why dont you do what i do at my house all the time....We also have the Summertime Video Monitor, but we spend lots of time outside and in our basement....
so we have the regular Video moniter set up, then bought a cheap Graco monitor receiver and set it up in the room with the video monitor, then you can take the other outside with you and still hear what you would normally hear from the video monitor, just relayed through another set!
it works great doing this for us, and hopefully it wasnt too confusing and you could do this too!
