VTech DM221 Audio Baby Monitor with up to 1,000 ft of Range, Vibrating Sound-Alert, Talk Back Intercom & Night Light Loop, White/Silver

I ordered this because I wanted a baby monitor. I didnt want anything wifi enabled (because my cable company isnt the best and weve been known to just lose internet service in the middle of the night). I wanted something slightly better than the baby monitors they had when I was growing up and I had a baby brother sleeping down the hall (I.e. No cordless phone interference). These days companies seem to have worked out that whole everything wireless is on the same frequency debacle so I figured this should be no sweat. This unit set up quickly and is pretty darn sensitive. When my daughter sucks her thumb, it gets picked up on the monitor. I was nearly scared off of this item by some of the negative reviews. Once I established that it worked, I decided to run a few experiments with the sensitivity using the bathroom fan. In a quiet room, the thing is awesome. When you turn down the sensitivity to accommodate say, a white noise machine/air purifier/fan/air conditioner, it begins to show some weakness. Why? Because the sensitivity is based upon volume. If the baby crying doesnt exceed the new threshold youve set, the monitor wont pick up the sound. If the room is heavy on white noise, then you have two choices: a constant flow of white noise on the monitors parent unit or turn down the sensitivity so that only the louder cries will be heard. This isnt a limitation on the unit. It isnt able to distinguish between air conditioner and baby noises. It picks up sound over a certain decibel level. That isnt a flaw. Thats that slight improvement over the units from 20 years ago I was hoping for. If you are running lots of white noise in the room, you may need to switch to video monitors. Or you may just have to deal with the monitor blasting white noise into your room in hopes of picking up every whine and whimper. But if thats your situation, it isnt really the monitors fault for not adapting to your environment (it would be like hanging up a flat screen TV crooked and then writing a negative review for the TV saying the picture is slanted). Its a good monitor. Clear sound and very responsive to baby noises. It may not completely change the way you parent, but they never made that claim.

Good

I wrote a very long and angry review about the loud BEEPING you might see others complain about on here, but I fixed it by using the manual- I had the sound mute feature on without realizing it; I could still hear my baby on the device so it’s not like it was actually muted. However, that feature was on so whenever it picked up noise from her room, it would loudly beep. I turned off that feature, and I’m back to loving this monitor. We already have a camera in her room, so I just wanted something to be able to constantly hear her room during the night, and this does the trick.

We have been very impressed with this monitor set. We replaced a hand me down Sony unit that was just triggering falsely too many times in the middle of the night. PROS - Small - Parent device has a battery - battery lasts for days (seriously...like 3 or 4 before we finally plugged it back in. it may have 5 or 6...just never pushed it) - good voice quality - two-way voice feature (can have a non-yelling discussion with spouse while upstairs in nursery) - belt clip on parent device - good range (I can walk around the outside of the entire house without losing connection) - visual noise/voice indicator - vibrate noise/voice indicator CONS - the volume just isnt quite loud enough on 5 (our old Sony was just as loud if not louder than the baby was when crying) - loses connectivity every once in a while for no reason The volume is loud enough to easily hear at night when the parent unit is in the same room as you. But if you walk out of the room and leave it behind, you may not hear it. Think about getting up in the morning to make breakfast...if the Microwave is on, you wont hear it. We ended up leaving our older Sony unit in the kitchen for that reason. We dont have to carry around a monitor constantly. Every once in a while, the parent unit will lose the connection to the child unit. Our master and nursery are on opposite ends of the house on different floors so we figured it may be just too much material for the signal to go through sometimes. However even when it drops link, I took the parent unit back into the nursery and it kept beeping at me for another 60 seconds. It doesnt appear to be a range issue, but more than likely just one of the units freaking out for a short-period. It doesnt do it enough to return the device, just enough to annoy me enough to note it in the review.

These work well. You can hear breathing most of the time turned up all the way. You can also clearly hear the person talking or calling out. You can talk to the person from the base station to the remote, the person on the remote end can not hear what is happening at the base station so they are not disturbed. The battery life could be a little longer, they will do 6-8 hours with a low battery signal long before the battery on the base station goes out. Overall they can be used to monitor elderly people without disturbing them. Would work for anyone who needed monitored.

Not overly happy

Just make sure you’re far enough away from baby when you turn on the parent unit or the very obnoxious and loud safety warning will wake them up. Other than that it’s a great product. Wish there was a way to disable the warning since I’ve heard it about 8,000x by now.

I really like the simplicity of this device. It’s easy to set up and use and does what it promises. The battery life is very poor. I get a few hours out of a newly purchased device.

I think this is a wonderful monitor. There are 2 things I would change if possible, but overall this is the best audio monitor Ive used - and Ive tried 6 different models. 1. This monitor is sound-activated. It only transmits when a sound louder than the ambient background noise is picked up. You can change the sensitivity level, and the highest sensitivity level is very sensitive, but I would still love the option to just have an open channel. Id like to be able to hear my little one breathing (the old monitor this Vtech replaced allowed that). 2. Every time you hit a button, the unit beeps. Even when changing the volume level. I would prefer the option to turn off the key beeps. I like to change the volume or sensitivity in the middle of the night to just check in on the baby, and the beeping of the buttons could wake your parter/spouse if they are a light sleeper. Other than these 2 minor wants, this is a great audio monitor. It is the only one of the 6 models I tried that did not have any interference/buzz/hum/static in our house. Our old monitor started losing its signal constantly and buzzing when we got a new wireless router. We got this Vtech to replace it. We just had a second child, and I was concerned that getting a second Vtech monitor would be a problem - the monitor links automatically and you cant change channels at will. I worried that the two units would cross-link or interfere with each other - no such problems. The two parent units connect to the correct baby units without any issues or interference. We just put name stickers on each of the parent units to tell them apart. And they worked this perfectly right out of the box. I also love the talkback feature. If I am busy with the baby and my toddler wakes up & calls for me, I can use the talkback feature to tell him Ill be there in a minute or to tell him he can come find me in the living room. That is great for slightly older kids.

This is a great, crystal clear, trusted monitor. We have a 3 bedroom apartment, my babys crib is in our room so I just needed one parent unit to leave in the living room when she needed rest by herself. I really wasnt looking for anything with all the bells and whistles, just something where I could hear my child when she cries. This product definitely did that and more. The child unit stays plugged into the wall, we leave it in the corner of the crib, out of her reach from the wire. The parent unit can be recharged and unplugged if needed but we always leave it plugged in, with the exception of going to the kitchen.. it has a belt clip as well. The parent unit has 5 adjustable sound levels, and you can also set it to vibrate or light up when noise is detected. This was an added plus as I wasnt looking for anything high-tech. The sensitivity of the child unit is great, it will light up when she stirs in her sleep or even grunts while looking for her pacifier. The lights on the parent unit light up as the sensitivity and noise of the child increases. The child unit was in the room with the air conditioner on, which is pretty loud but it was able to dull out the noise of the air conditioner and was still sensitive to my babys cries, which could be heard clearly. I have had the baby on the bed, as far as 10 feet away and the child unit was still sensitive enough to pick up her noises. Another good thing to note is that at night, the child unit is dark when not detecting any sounds, but once noise is detected it lights up with a soft orange glow. When my daughter wakes up in the middle of the night and cries the glow is not so intrusive where it keeps her awake, but she likes to look at it. Its also just enough light provided where I can change her without turning on the lamp or light. VTech really thought about the parents when making this product, and covered all the bases. I am more than satisfied with this product.