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51 of 53 found the following review helpful:
 Works well overallApr 08, 2010
By Jeremy Birn
"jeremy"
The camera mounting options could be better. The camera has a flat base like a webcam, so if you have a table or shelf above the baby you can set it there, and aim it down over the edge. It also comes with a little wood-screw you could screw into a wall or furniture if you wanted to perminantly hang it someplace. It does NOT come with any kind of clamp for attaching temporarily to the edge of a crib. (Most mobiles or other crib accessories seem better designed for clamping and positioning around a crib than this camera.) It also does NOT accept a standard tripod mounting screw, the way most camcorders do. It has space for one in the middle of the base, but I guess they wanted to save a few cents on this.
We didn't want to put a perminant screw into the edge of the crib, so I have the base of the camera attached to the end of the crib with clear tape, which works well enough for now I guess. I didn't take away a star for the limited mounting options, because I don't know if other baby monitors are better on this issue. But seriously, if Summer Infant thinks we use a baby monitor like a desktop webcam or fixed position security camera, they should visit their customers more and see how often our baby gets moved around! I won't pay 80 bucks for an additional camera if there's no clamp or tripod mounting hole added to the design.
The picture quality is pretty good. There's no interference anywhere in the house. The resolution is good enough for the small screen in the monitor. The framerate is a little slow, so some motions appear a bit jerky compared to broadcast TV, but this isn't a big problem. If the room is dark, it automatically goes into a night mode. The night mode is black-and-white (near infrared) and flickers and pulses a little brighter and darker over time, but is still viewable and lets you see the kid.
I like the fact that the picture is vertically-oriented (taller instead of wider), it frames the sleeping baby very nicely and fills more the monitor this way.
The first night we used it, we watched the baby asleep, then later saw her start to move around a bit, then start kicking off her blanket. My wife started heating milk for her when she saw this, and sure enough a few minutes later the baby started crying, but we were ready ahead of time. I thought "Bingo!" this is exactly why you need video in a baby monitor.
The sound is clear both ways (you can hear everything in the room around the camera, and if you press talk on the monitor your voice comes out of the camera as well.) As a funny aside, when I first tested the camera I thought the sound was too soft, even with the volume turned all the way up, but it turned out that there's a little clear piece of tape covering the microphone hole, and when that was removed the sound got a lot better.
Battery life is pretty good on the monitor. If you leave it on a lot you need to recharge every night. If you turned it off between checking it, it can last several days on a charge. They earn points for the charger being standard mini-USB, and it can run without battery power when plugged in. The manual warns to use-up the battery before recharging it, though, as if the batteries suffer from memory problems. This note worried me, although our actual battery has been working fine so far.
The layout of the buttons on the monitor unit seem designed more for advertising than usability. For example, one of the four big buttons on the front is for pairing a new camera with the monitor, so it's a button you might never need to press (except if you bought an extra camera.) This seems strange when buttons you have to press all the time, like the one that toggles the monitor on and off, and the talk button to speak back to the camera, are smaller buttons on the side. I guess they felt like putting big buttons on the front so you don't notice that the display screen doesn't fill the front of the unit.
I have only used this monitor with one camera so far, even though the features for using it with multiple cameras look promising. I'm glad we chose this model.
10 of 10 found the following review helpful:
Solid video monitorJul 05, 2010
By Drew
This is our first video monitor, which we got for use with our second child after using a Graco Vibe audio-only monitor with our first child. Having a video monitor is really handy, it does an excellent job of keeping us out of the baby's room. As a concerned parent, it's really easy to want to go in and make sure a young baby is OK, which very often ends up disturbing the baby. Instead, I can grab this monitor and see that my little girl is ok.
Having not used other video monitors, it's hard to make a comparative review, but I did do a fair bit of research comparing other models with this one, there's a few things that made this model an easy choice:
- Small, pocket-size monitor
- Support for up-to four cameras
- Secure audio/video feed
As another reviewer noted, the mounting options are a bit limited, you can either mount it on the wall with a screw w/ wall anchor or sit it on a shelf or another level surface. I chose to mount my two cameras on the wall. Although I chose not to use the cheapy wall anchor included and used a nicer one from the local hardware store. If you turn the volume all the way down on the monitor, you can hold the monitor in one hand and figure out camera placement with the other hand. Like was suggested in the manual, I put a teddy-bear where baby will sleep in the crib. It helps make it easy to figure out placement of the camera. One thing I liked about the cameras and monitor is that they come with pretty long cables. Too many electronics come with shorty cables, not this one.
One thing I was only moderately impressed with was the video quality, the video is a little grainy, washed-out and has an almost slow-mo feel since it's not a high frame-rate, maybe 5 frames per second. That said, the most important feature for a baby video monitor, I think the night-vision works fairly well. I'm able to see that my baby is sleeping, moving or not moving. I mounted the camera 3-4 feet from the baby and if I look closely, I can usually see if her eyes are open or closed, even with the night vision.
We mounted the other camera in my older daughter's room, allowing us to visually check on either child with a push of a button, which is nothing short of awesome. It was easy to add too, press a few buttons, turn on the second camera and voila! You can even use the scan feature which swaps between the monitors every 8 seconds. We have white noise going in each child's room, so when the camera swaps between room, the audio swaps too. The one thing to be aware of is that the audio swap can be distracting if you're trying to sleep. For that reason, we still use the Graco audio monitor in one room and the video monitor with audio in the other.
I've only had this monitor a couple weeks, so I can't comment on the battery lifetime, but the battery seems to last throughout the day of normal use, charging overnight.
I'd probably have given this 4.5 stars if it was possible, but chose to go with 5 to offset some of the other reviews which seem too low due to abnormal breakage or something that doesn't necessarily directly relate to the product features/quality.
8 of 8 found the following review helpful:
not worth the priceDec 03, 2010
By M. Deisher
"mdeish"
We started with the lower priced Summer Infant monitor and loved it. Then when we finally moved the baby to his own room, we had a 900MHz interference issue we could not resolve. So we sold that one and bought this 2.4GHz one to replace it. This one looks good in the ad, but has several issues. The construction feels really cheap. The video quality is pretty bad. The design seems to be more geared toward cost reduction and thinness than functionality and usability. We ended up returning it and getting the Best View model.
9 of 10 found the following review helpful:
Just bought..so far we love it!Apr 04, 2010
By Mama-to-be
This is our first baby monitor.
We bought this monitor after reading extensive reviews. The Summer Infant handheld day and night monitor was highly rated, but people complained that others who owned the same monitor could actually see your baby which freaked me out a little. So we bought this newer "secure" version even though we couldn't find any reviews on it. So far, so good. Sound and picture quality are good enough if not great and sound quality is amazing (my husband and I could hear each other whispering clearly when the volume was only on level 2). The design is awesome (the monitor is the size of a cell phone which fits perfectly on our nightstand). Bonus: you can add up to 3 additional cameras and there is a "talk" button so you can talk to your child without entering the room.
I'm not sure about the battery life or how long this unit will last (I'm hoping years and years), so I can't rate it based on that, but I love everything else.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
 Very Dissatisfied Wasted MoneyApr 09, 2011
By MichelaKatie
I had very high hopes for this product. It has mostly great reviews, why I have no idea. It had a terrible lag time, it felt like my house was one big echo. The screen is grainy, which is fine for a monitor but not at all what they advertise. They advertise that you can have up to 350 foot range, although most household uses are 17-25 feet, way big difference, but it barely handled that. I couldn't even get a signal at the bottom of my driveway to bring up a garbage can, nor could I do yard work out back while my child is napping.
It also has a talk back feature, I saw on some reviews where the child was mostly scared of this feature, now I know why. It was terrible, everytime i used it my child would scream and cry. It doesn't sound like you at all, sounds like you are blowing a cazoo at your kid instead, so what is the point of that??
All in all I feel that this is a terrible product, poorly constructed, felt like it was hallow inside. The talk back did not work properly, the range was very poor and the lag time in video and in sound was way too irritating. Don't waste your money on it, go to Babie's R Us and buy the Slim and Secure, by the same company! I returned the Sleek for the Slim, I have amazing range, crystal clear even at my neighbors (I was so excited that i could bring up the garbage and do yard work that I had to test my limits!) The microphone picks up much better with sound and when your child cries it drowns out the background noise so that you can hear your child and not everything else. No lag time on video or sound. Just an all around better product. Most people don't realize you can have up to four cameras with the Slim and Secure, but you can. So don't waste your money on the Sleek. It belongs on a shelf in the store all alone.
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