moamele

Let’s get this out of the way first: This smart monitor is an investment ($299, to be exact). And I get it—why dish out all that money for yet another baby item you don’t technically need? But this thing is designed to make your life as a new parent so much easier, with clever features like the ability to check the temperature and humidity of the baby’s room at a glance, track stats and data on the Nanit app (“Wait, what time did she wake up from her first nap again?”) and get remote alerts to see how your baby is sleeping with her sitter. I also love the always-on audio feed, which means that I can hear the audio from my kid’s room even if I leave the app to read the news (or you know, scroll Instagram). There’s even a feature that lets you talk to your baby anywhere, so you could technically sing her a lullaby from your desk at work.

The video and sound quality are excellent—I can zoom in and actually see if my baby’s eyes are open or not (which is a little creepy, but helpful when trying to decide if you really need to get up at 5 a.m.).

I can also share my app with a nanny or sitter, so that they can keep an eye on my baby from their own phone in another room. This is incredibly useful, although I wish there was an option to set the app permissions on a timer so that you don’t forget to disable your sitter’s status (we love our sitter, but she doesn’t need to hear our 5:30 a.m. morning routine). We currently have five users set up as “viewers” in the app (this means they have certain restrictions, like not having the ability to save videos, edit night metrics, change camera settings, etc.), so you can definitely add all your sitters and caretakers on there.