8 Baby Monitors That Give You Sleep (Yawn) and Peace of Mind

If you’re looking for a baby monitor that pulls out all the stops, the Nanit will not disappoint. It’s about as high-tech as it gets. In addition to its bird’s eye view of baby with hidden-cord set up, it tracks everything—we’re talking sleep patterns and progress, parents visits, room conditions such as temperature and humidity and more. As if that wasn’t enough, it also provides personalized, scientifically-backed sleep guidance to help your baby (and, inevitably, you) sleep better. Via wi-fi, parents can see and hear their baby in HD live streaming, and even when the app isn’t pulled up they get a simple push notification whenever there’s sounds or movement coming from baby’s crib.

Whether you want to go old-school with the monitor on a table top or new-school with it mounted to the wall, Angelcare let’s you do both—and transmits a super-crisp image of your baby day or night. It has a unique color-coded room temperature display that lets you know if it’s too hot or too cold in your little one’s nursery. Another cool feature parents love is its Breathing Sensor Pad monitor that clues you into your baby’s slightest wriggles on the mattress and sounds an alarm if breathing movement isn’t detected after 20 seconds—if you’re into knowing those slightly obsessive details.

If you depend on your monitor to work from relatively far distances, this is the ideal monitor for you. Its coverage spans an impressive 1,000 feet! Plus, it has all the basic features modern-day parents are looking for: wireless technology, room temperature display, tilt and zoom capabilities, infrared night vision and more. You can also connect up to four cameras to this monitor, making it a great choice for multi-kid families.

You won’t find any super high-tech bells and whistles with this monitor, but you will score peace of mind—the more than 31,000+ customer reviews giving it 4.5 stars prove that. It’s not of the wall-mounted variety, but it does have an impressive zoom-in lens that lets you see your baby up close and personal. It’s lightweight and portable, ideal for moving it around the house—or for packing on a road trip. 

Most moms and dads of preemies are looking for a little extra reassurance that their baby is sleeping soundly and safely. And the Owlet can give them that additional peace of mind with its ability to track heart rate and oxygen levels from anywhere via live-streaming HD video and audio to the Smartphone Owlet App. All you have to do is slip the Smart Sock to your baby’s foot to connect the app to his or her vitals. If levels become too high or too low, parents get a push notification. 

If you’re looking for a baby monitor with the ability to detect almost everything about your child on a second-to-second basis, Miku might be the one. Like most modern-day monitors, it connects with your smartphone and tracks breathing, sleep patterns and even the conditions of your nursery (so the temp is just right). And for all those security-scared moms and dads out there, you’ll be comforted to know that Miku offers a 256 bit encryption and houses a tamper-resistant Crypto Chip.

This monitor gives you infrared images at night so you can detect every toss and turn. With LED noise indicators, you’ll know when your little one’s having a bad dream and with the external thermostat, you can make sure his room’s not an arctic tundra. It doesn’t connect to your phone, but it has up to 24 hours of battery life so you only have to charge it once a day.

For hands-off parents who recognize that baby’s survived the ice age and lived to tell the tale, this simple, but efficient, baby monitor will do the trick for less than $20. It detects sound with crystal clear transmission up to 1,000 feet away. It has 5 levels of sound indication so you can control how loud you hear your baby cry—or mute her, so you won’t hear a thing. Ignorance is bliss, as they say.