ex machina
the eric update - day 232: on a cheaper and better baby monitor.
like me, you might think in this day and age that the technology embedded in baby monitors would be fairly commoditized. much like a toaster, you might expect to pay a little more for a particular brand or advanced toasting features, but the basic components should all work just about the same, right?
wrong.
for our baby shower we registered for safety 1st 900 MHz home connection monitors. much to our dismay we discovered ( after we had thrown away the receipt ) that they are $129 pieces of static spewing junk with microphones that are so insentisitive that you nearly have to have the transmitter sitting on top of your child to pick up anything over the static.
so we went back and purchased the much more affordable sony baby call nursery monitor which is priced at about $40 and puts the safety 1st product to shame. there's virtually no static and it's microphone is so sensitive that we can have it sitting across the room from odin and still hear him shifting around quietly in his bed ( which may or may not be a good thing, depending on how neurotic we're feeling ).
the only downside is that we very occasionally pick up our neighbor's cordless phone calls!
2/21/2005 08:45:00 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Sony needs to pay you for that endorsement! Our cheap monitor outlived our expensive one too, which seemed to pick up transmissions from airline pilots from the sounds of it.
Have you seen or heard about the video baby monitors? I'm wondering if they're just hype or actually work well enough to let you know if something is a good cry or a bad one.
By 
Matt Haughey, at
4:54 PM
There was a great story on 'This American Life' (PRI-NPR) about a woman who became 'addicted' to her teenaged neighbors' drug deals that she picked up over her baby monitor. What a hoot. Seeing as Eric IV is doing so well (what an absolute cutey), I feel inclined to ask how Mauja is? I loved the most recent pic with the two of them; perhaps Mauja likes orange krinkly thinks too?
Kathy in Krazo, AR
By 
, at
5:30 PM
Have you seen or heard about the video baby monitors? I'm wondering if they're just hype or actually work well enough to let you know if something is a good cry or a bad one. |
i haven't heard any first hand reviews of the video monitors. one can get neurotic with the non-video monitors ( "why haven't i heard him making any noise for 3 whole minutes?!" ) and i can only imagine it would get worse if their was a grainy video feed accompanying the sound ( "is his chest moving?! is he breathing!?" ), but maybe that's my own obsessiveness.
relatedly, there was an informal poll on a preemie list recently about whether or not parents in the nicu would like to be able to see streaming live video of their infants and the response seemed to be a resounding "no!" because people feared they'd never be able to leave their computers without feeling guilty.
There was a great story on 'This American Life' (PRI-NPR) about a woman who became 'addicted' to her teenaged neighbors' drug deals that she picked up over her baby monitor. |
ha! i heard that show and thought it was amusing for obvious reasons. alas, we've heard nothing exciting over our monitors.
Seeing as Eric IV is doing so well (what an absolute cutey), I feel inclined to ask how Mauja is? |
thanks for asking. as best as we can tell he hasn't had any more seizures ! your guess is as good as mine as to what might have caused them. perhaps we'll get lucky and we won't see anymore for a long, long time.
since many people who visit here don't necessarily visit flickr - there was an intersting comment made about how easy it is to eavesdrop on most baby monitors with a scanner.
if anyone has a experience with the few baby monitors that encrypt the transmission, feel free to leave a comment.
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this site chronicles the continuing adventures of my son, odin, who was unexpectedly born on the fourth of july at 25 weeks gestation, weighing 1 pound 7 ounces.
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