Smart Baby Monitor Review: Monbaby. Monbaby describes their $100 smart baby monitor as a baby breathing and rollover “monitor in a smart button.” The button snaps on clothing and tracks body position (whether baby is sleeping on her back or stomach) as well as breathing moments.
The Monbaby button connects via Bluetooth and streams info to a smartphone device (apps for iOs and Android). The app displays real-time stats, tracks sleep and can be configured to sound alerts if baby rolls over, etc.
If you are a techie, you probably can spot one of Monbaby’s biggest flaws: Bluetooth is a short range technology. Even though Monbaby has a video showing a mom in the kitchen while monitoring her baby via the Monbaby button, real world reviews suggest the range is much shorter than that. Monbaby even has this disclaimer on their site: “the Monbaby works optimally when placed in the same room with your smartphone.”
Which begs the question, why bother? If you are in the same room with your napping newborn, couldn’t you just glance over to see how things are going? Parent reviews suggest Monbaby’s range is a mere ten feet.
In the past year, it appears Monbaby has come out with a “new and optimized” version of its monitor that it says addresses the range issue. Based on feedback from our readers, however, we remain skeptical.
Bottom line: until engineers figure out how to make Bluetooth reach more than a few feet, we’d say pass on Monbaby. Rating: Not Recommended.
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A lot of people have their babies sleep in a bassinet next to their bed though so the Bluetooth wouldn’t be a problem. When you’re sleeping you can’t just look over and see if baby is ok, and that makes a lot of new mom’s scared to go to sleep. My daughter can’t roll independently but has managed to get onto her stomach in her sleep twice now and got stuck there, I was awake and moved her back to her back but if I had been sleeping it would’ve been nice to have something like this!
Thanks for those thoughts Lauren! You’re right—in theory, these monitors should help. But in the reality, many smart monitors don’t live up to the hype and give off false alarms . . . which cause MORE anxiety instead of less!