Reviews for Smart Baby Monitor by Withings

Just bought this product and installed wifi connections on all our iphones ( two 4GS and one 3GS) and one ipad without any issue. The main pros and cons are well covered by other users. I found one useful experience we have and would like to share this with you. My in-laws are living at a location 8 hours ahead of our time zone. When our baby is sleeping at night, their grand parents can wake up in the morning and watch their first grand child sleeping peacefully. If required, my mother in law can speak when the little one and play music. She is so happy with the product and has more fun than us I think. I also know there is a reliable remote baby sitter who can alert me if needed.

12 of 14 people found this useful

Other reviews state problems with customer support or WiFi. Just remember these are people that are frustrated with connection problems that likely have nothing to do with the function of the monitor. I've had to deal with customer support twice and they were fantastic.

Pros:
1. Push notifications - you can set a threshold of movement, noise, temperature, or humidity and the app notifies you when those are met. You can then open the monitor and see what's going on

2. Is optimized now for the iPhone 5 giving you full access to the 4 inch screen

3. It has two modes, one is video and the other is audio monitoring in the background. The fantastic thing is you can just listen and use it as a traditional baby monitor while the app runs in the background.

4. Overall video quality is good especially over cellular or Wi-Fi networks

CONS/LIMITATIONS:

These are all the things that people are failing to mention. These are not issues with Wi-Fi or cellular networks which could just be the fact that they don't know how to properly set up a wireless network. These are true CONS and limitations of the device and the software.

1. Although you can pinch zoom and scroll you cannot actually physically pan the camera back and forth. This means that you really must be very intentional on where you place the camera so that way you have a wide viewing angle

2. The supplied mounting hardware is very limited. Unfortunately it only gives you approximately 1 inch gap to place the device on a crib or railing. Unfortunately there are no better mounting solutions.

3. There's no ability to purchase an additional charging cable. This is problematic if you set up a system where you try to hide the wire in your home for a semipermanent solution and wish to use the device elsewhere. Unfortunately I have had to purchase an additional Mophie battery so that I can use the device on the go

4. Just like number three above the internal battery last maybe an hour at best so must be plugged in at all times

5. Like others have mentioned, the night-vision isn't amazing, but I have found it's because I have to keep the camera far from the crib to get the widest viewing angle.

6. Cost - it's a bit expensive to have the limitations above. All in all I'd pay $200 for this unit again, not $300.

7. No mac app. In the iPhone era, it's super simple to turn an iPhone app into a desktop app... which they have not done yet. For $300 a unit, they should have this already.

All in all it's a good monitor. All the bells and whistles are nice, it has an integrated thermometer and humidity sensor (which is improperly placed it should be on the front of the unit, not the side) which will save you a good $40 from buying a separate one. There is obviously a 1 second delay from real time to your device, but do you really expect this to be a live feed? 1 Second isn't going to make a difference if your baby just started to whimper.


Since there have been some cheaper units released I don't know if I'd definitely buy it again, but I'm certainly satisfied with it.

68 of 72 people found this useful

We LOVE our Withings baby monitor. It has traveled with us to three different houses on a family trip and worked each time, both on Wifi and Bluetooth. We were having some issues with the iPhone 5 but our iPads never stopped working. The iPhone 5 issues may have been solved server-side as two days ago they seemed to go away. It does occasionally disconnect but always reconnects. People having disconnection issues should make sure the Wifi signal is strong enough in the monitored area or run an ethernet cable. We had problems when I moved the base station and I solved them by doing some optimization of the network.

15 of 17 people found this useful

This is a great product. Granted it's not the cheapest baby monitor but you'll struggle to find a cheaper one that does as much. On top of that it's beautifully designed including the monitor, app, included accessories and even the packaging.

It does everything it claims to do and does them very well.

7 of 10 people found this useful

I was leery of this product due to the many negative reviews, but gave it a try anyway. In short, it was returned for the following reasons:

1) It could not hold a constant wifi connection
2) Mounting "clip" was too skinny to fit on crib rail
3) Magnetic mounting base was not secure enough from protecting the monitor from falling into crib

14 of 17 people found this useful

I felt compelled to write a review after reading several reviews about this and other products and really wanting this product to be all that it says it is! I was nervous to purchase it for our newborn baby - reading some of the negative reviews about the product. So, I'm here to tell you - some of it is correct - AND - the pros of this product outweigh the cons!
Let me explain:

1. Yes, there is a slight delay when the baby cries or makes noise to when I hear it on my iphone or ipad. It's literally a second or two and it's not bad. Luckily, I can hear the baby cry in her bed nearly anywhere in my house (I have a very open two-story floorplan - almost 4000 square feet) - but it's nice to see her cry on any mac device I'm with. The delay is almost unnoticeable after awhile and doesn't bother us.

2. The app sometimes disconnects. Yes, this happens. It's happened a couple times - and with one click it reconnects. After having it a week it's happened twice - and I more blame this on the network than I do the device. They are constantly updating the app, too, so this will hopefully improve.

PROS:
1. There are so many amazing things about this product. I can watch baby girl while doing dishes, while shopping at the mall, and while working out at the gym. Anywhere, any time, I can see her crying. My husband (who might be watching her while I'm away), can call me and ask me what she needs based on her cry and wiggle in the crib (that I can watch in an instant from afar). That is just purely amazing - much more- while I'm traveling for work - I can pop in and see my baby.

2. This is one of the biggest (at least for me as a mom in the middle of the night who can lose sleep over this one...) - the monitor is so precise it picks up her breath. Yes, I can sleep in my bed listening to my 5 week old's breath. Knowing she is breathing among the blankets and binks - gives me great peace of mind AND makes the $300 I spent on this monitor a drop in the bucket -- right?!

3. There are several alerts you can program on your devices to go off - one in particular is for motion. I just love this. I set it up so there has to be a lot of motion for the alert to show up on my phone or iPad - i.e. a person walking in the room. AGAIN, I just love this for the peace of mind when my husband is traveling and I start freaking myself out that someone might break in and take my baby (LOL). With it, I will be alerted before anyone's hands can touch the baby. haha! In all seriousness, this is so great when baby starts rolling over, or when/if my 3-year-old decides to go into her bedroom and touch, sit, climb into, or play with her baby sister at night or naps. Huge, right?!

4. We love that there are all sorts of info given on the screen including temp, humidity, sound, etc. With the several features this monitor has, these are some of those things you may take for granted until you can actually use them. Temp is something I'm always looking at - especially for a newborn, and has helped me adjust what she's wearing, what blankets to add/subtract, and/or why she was crying.

Hope this helps. I would 100% recommend this product! I gave it 4 stars because of the first two cons. But they are DEFINITELY NOT deal breakers. This product is supreme over the others (which we've used for our first born). Oh! It clips onto the crib beautifully too - so easy to set up as well! My husband did it in five minutes.

Enjoy!

34 of 36 people found this useful

Having just got a newborn I was in the market for an iPhone friendly baby monitor. I came across this product and I have to be honest, I was dubious how it would perform. I have bought many iPhone accessories that use Wifi before and sometimes they over promise and under deliver. Not so with the Withings WithBaby product. This thing is awesome. It was extremely easy to setup, recognised my home network immediately and configuration was done in under 30 secs. It works completely as advertised and not only that it had a few surprises for me.

I was sceptical it work across the Internet and 3G. Tried it…no problem! Of course, performance is a little degraded as you are running it across mobile data but still it performed acceptably. I was also surprised that Withings had taken the time to make native iPad apps and also that more than 1 person can connect at a time. Let me say that again. MORE THAN ONE PERSON CAN CONNECT AT A TIME. That was pretty awesome. Both my wife and I can monitor my little guy simultaneously.

All in all….awesome product. I can't speak highly enough of it. Oh…and nicely designed as well!

31 of 33 people found this useful

Before I share the bad I would like to say the other Withings product we have has been great. I had hoped for the same but did NOT get it.

First, they are expensive and I would have never written a review if we could have at least felt comfortable enough by using this product to get some sleep. This is NOT the case. The product will freeze and go 'off-line' periodically and it is VERY easy to be asleep and not notice this! So for potentially several hours you may not be getting the monitor you expect. We have two and it is the same for both units. The modem (Apple) is directly beneath the two baby monitors, signal strong but still constant disconnections. The design of the IR light to provide night vision is very odd. They cause a white almost 'halo' effect on the nigh pictures of the cribs. I think it is because the IR is 'bouncing' off the extreme whiteness of the baby monitors plastic housing. I can not see my twins very clearly but at least I can occasionally hear them when it works. There is also a VERY unusual 'ghosting' effect that occurs. What I mean is at times in almost total darkness I will first get picture of a brightly lit room. The problem is this picture is from hours ago and seems to fight whether it will be shown or the actual one. Finally the dark (and accurate) picture appears but again it is back and forth between the ghost of the old picture and the new one. In the day time the pictures are quite good. Perhaps in this one area a traditional wired if possible or wireless (radio type) of audio/video would work more efficiently.

33 of 35 people found this useful

The best baby monitor ever!!!

8 of 22 people found this useful

Otherwise this was a pretty cool monitor - great signal all over my house, yard, and at work. My wife even checked in from Target. It worked well with an ipad and 2 iphones all viewing simultaneously. The only other drawback was the 4-5s delay. I would be willing to try again after these things are fixed. I would have given it a 4 or 5 if not for these 2 flaws.

9 of 14 people found this useful