Baby monitors can be both a lifesaver for parents of young children, and the bane of their existence. Sure, you can see that your baby is asleep, but you can also hear when they're wide awake deep in the middle of the night, usually in glorious full colour and sound.
Regardless of how much sleep you're actually getting, a baby monitor can be useful for new parents, particularly if you live in a two-storey house or if you're in another room while they're sleeping – or not sleeping, as the case may be. (Just remember that safe sleep guidelines recommend having your baby in your bedroom for the first six to 12 months.)
If you're going to buy one, though, don't just go out and pick up any old thing: our testing shows they're not all created equal. CHOICE expert testers have put 54 baby monitors through their paces to help exhausted new parents and parents-to-be make the right choice.
Here are the three monitors that rated lowest in our tests.
Uniden Baby Monitor with Pan & Tilt Camera BW4151: poor picture performance.
Uniden Baby Monitor with Pan & Tilt Camera BW4151
- CHOICE Expert Rating: 50%
- Price: $140
Our testers found this unit had plenty of teething problems across the board. And with an overall picture performance score of just 43%, even the fancy 'pan and tilt' camera won't make up for the poor picture quality.
Our expert testers found that the image was stretched and the field of view too tight, which means you might have to move the camera back more than one metre to get a full view. And while it does display an image when the camera is in dim lighting, it's far from a high-quality image – is that blurry shape your toddler or a teddy bear?
It lost connection when a microwave was used between the camera and monitor
While it's easy to set up and use, our experts say it's poor on a number of fronts: sound range, video range, detecting and reproducing soft sounds, and maximum sound level at the carer end.
It did manage to operate through two walls, but broke up quite a lot when used through three walls. And it lost connection when a microwave was used between the camera and monitor.
All in all, it's quite a disappointment and not worth the $250 it sells for.
Read our full Uniden Baby Monitor with Pan & Tilt Camera BW4151 review.
Angelcare Movement Monitor with Video AC327: overpriced at $459.
Angelcare Movement Monitor with Video AC327
- CHOICE Expert Rating: 57%
- Price: $459
It's hard to say what's worse about Angelcare's AC327 baby monitor: is it the fact that it has the second-lowest CHOICE Expert Rating in our test or that it's the third most expensive model we've looked at? The combination of the two certainly isn't good.
There's absolutely nothing here to justify the asking price, with borderline to poor scores for both picture quality and sound sensitivity, and a broadcast range that we rated only OK. The only thing in its favour is the high volume transmitted to the carer, though that's largely offset by the underwhelming sound sensitivity results. After all, loud volumes on the carer unit won't do much good when the baby unit often misses sounds in the first place.
There's absolutely nothing here to justify the asking price, with borderline to poor picture quality and sound sensitivity
And yet that's not the worst of it. The first unit we tested had a faulty screen out of the box. That wouldn't have been a big deal had the replacement unit worked properly – but it was faulty too. We had to test the monitor with a band of dead pixels across the top of the screen.
Read our full Angelcare Movement Monitor with Video AC327 review.
Uniden Digital wireless baby video monitor (BW3102): average performance across the board.
Uniden Digital wireless baby video monitor (BW3102)
- CHOICE Expert Rating: 64%
- Price: $180
The BW3102 is a feature-laden bit of kit with a lot of options that look good on paper. For example, it has a night light, temperature tracking and the ability to monitor up to four cameras from a single home unit.
But all the bells and whistles in the world can't make up for average performance. Despite having one job - to monitor babies - picture and sound quality are borderline to poor. You're not going to be monitoring much with performance results like these.
All the bells and whistles in the world can't make up for average performance
Walls between rooms really cut down on the broadcast range as well – which is a shame, as most of us tend to have quite a few walls in our house. If you're standing in your baby's room, you'll get great broadcast quality, but in that case it's probably easier to just look directly at your baby rather than viewing them through a monitor.
Read our full Uniden Digital wireless baby video monitor (BW3102) review.
Nannio Comfy X000QLW4HO: poor range and picture quality in a dark room
Nannio Comfy X000QLW4HP
- CHOICE Expert Rating: 64%
- Price: $150
This baby monitor is almost entirely OK. Though it's relatively easy to use and has good sound quality, most of the remaining performance results sit in the 60% range. Except for picture quality in a dark room and range between the camera and monitor – they're quite poor.
Though it has some useful features, such as a temperature monitor and two-way audio communication, it's lacking in others. There's no motion monitor, for example, which means you won't be alerted if your baby is restless until they make a noise
Picture quality in a dark room and range between the camera and monitor [are] quite poor.
You can find much better options for the same price.
Read our full Nannio Comfy X000QLW4HP review.
Stock images: Getty, unless otherwise stated.
