We have used several different baby monitors, both the camera ones and the simple ones with just the voice features. The camera ones are in principle really neat, but a lot of them are hard to set up and are not very user-friendly. 90% of the times you just need the monitor to tell you if your baby is crying. For all such situations camera is an overkill.

This Philips baby monitor is probably as sophisticated as you’ll ever get from a sound-only baby monitor. It is well designed, sturdily built (a very important consideration for a baby monitor), and easy to set up and use.

The setup was very straightforward. One of the advantages of using a self-contained unit like this one (as opposed to the ones that rely on smartphones and other third-party devices) is that the setup and operation are really robust and easy.

I’ve used this monitor to check up on my toddler, as well as to interact with him on an occasion. The two-way communications is a lot of fun, but I am not really sure how useful it really is. When your baby is crying, he/she wants you to come over. Almost nothing else will be good enough.

One of the features I like the best about this monitor is the ability to set your own level of noise that activates it. Babies vary, and one baby’s anguished screams are another’s business as usual.

The stated range of this monitor is 330 meters outdoor. I have not directly tested this, but the range seemed more than adequate for my one family home.

Overall, we have been really satisfied with this baby monitor. It meets almost all of our needs for such a device, and it’s really well made. Highly recommended.