Then we used a Yi Dome camera for a while, but it craps out of a few seconds occasionally and when it does the app mutes the feed when it resumes, making it useless at being a baby monitor. Also, privacy concerns since you had to access it via the internet.
We ended up going with a generic IP camera - Amcrest's 1080p wifi camera, to be specific (would have to go look up the model number if people want to know EDIT: IP2M-841B). You can change just about anything about the settings you could want to (such as adding a timestamp so you can verify it hasn't crashed), including disabling access from the internet so you can only access the monitor from the LAN. It's been rock solid for ages - there is a setting that will reboot the camera once a week, but you can set the time, so I set mine to reboot about an hour after the kids normally get up so it never bothers us.
We just have the feed pulled up on an Amazon Fire HD8 tablet that we got for $60, lets us get a 1080p video stream with an ONVIF-capable camera. The Amcrest app isn't terrible either, only downside is that there's an option for 1, 4, 9, or 16 cameras - but I only have 2, so I have to waste half my screen (and the app will only play audio from one stream at a time). And if you don't want to use their app, once it is set up and connected to the network (which you probably don't even need the app for if you are hardwiring with ethernet) you can connect to it via IP address with any RTSP/ONVIF app or even via VLC, or once the firmware is upgraded you can view the stream in the browser.
It has motion sensor capabilities but I haven't experimented with them.
So the devices described in the article is great, it can show me that baby is crying, not only using sound, but also I can use it to ping me in a visual way - which I always missed from any baby monitor.
I mean this from a place of kindness and compassion. As a father of two, I can't imagine going through multiple baby monitors and eventually settling on a three-device redundant sensor array that sounds like it belongs more in a NICU rather than in a home.
Everyone's scenario is different. We have our (private & personal) reasons why this level of monitoring is something we need for our baby.
If it doesn't tell you (i.e. false negative) even once, then you can guarantee that it will never be trusted ever again, especially by the birth parent.
We've gone through a range of frankly awful monitors and cameras that simply were not reliable. E.g. cameras that would regularly go offline for maintenance between 3am & 4am (precisely when you need it...), or cameras that would freeze and show you a sweetly sleeping silent baby that turned out to be simply a frozen frame from 45 minutes previously etc and the live stream had failed, cameras that would lose wifi for no reason that required intricate sequences of button-holding-down-for-x-seconds-then-tapping-then-releasing-etc (not great when you've had about 30 minutes of sleep over the past 36 hours), app-connected things with awful apps that crash or don't quite work right unless you do things in the exact right order etc. We even ended up with a digital clock in-frame for a while so when we looked at the video we could tell if it was "live" or not... this is how unreliable a lot of baby monitors you find on amazon or high street retail.
Once these things fail you once, they cannot be trusted again. Ever.
Perhaps me and my wife are just ultra neurotic, but there you go.
We ended up with a fairly reliable set up for multiple redundancy that seems to work:
- a DECT-based monitor from BT that actually does detect cries (you can entirely mute the intercom but it will audibly-beep and flash a warning if it hears a cry - also does temperature read outs and alerts). 100% ultra bullet-proof reliability so far.
- a Google Nest camera (only camera we found that has been acceptable in terms of reliability & non-shonky app - it does mysteriously "go offline" from time to time, but it sends a notification & and email as well as the app being clear it is offline, and usually recovers on its own fairly quickly). Expensive compared to other options (and not specifically a "baby monitor") but worth it I think (we do not pay for the subscription though)
- an "Owlet" heart-rate and oxygen sensor (although this has poor hardware reliability - the charging port physically crumbles and the "sock" that the sensor goes into is easily moved to a bad position by the baby squirming around.... although the fail-safe there is that it will alert if this happens).