There’s no stronger feeling than the need to protect and care for your children. However, that needn’t mean having to check on them every few minutes to make sure they’re sleeping soundly. A baby monitor means you can enjoy your evening with friends or turn up the TV while still keeping an ear out for cries. With a video baby monitor, you can keep an eye on them too. Some models go further, with motion sensors, temperature sensors, music and light shows.
But there’s no point in fancy features if battery life or wireless range is poor. That’s why we subject each baby monitor to thorough testing, and below you’ll find our four favourite models.
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1. Tommee Tippee Closer to Nature Video Sensor Monitor: The best baby monitor you can buy
Price when reviewed: £118
If you want a baby monitor that simply helps you monitor your baby, this is the one to get. Wireless range is excellent, battery life is up to scratch and, unusually, the camera unit can run off batteries too. That’s particularly handy when visiting friends and relatives where it may be tricky to position the camera near both a power socket and the cot. You can’t easily wall-mount the camera, though — there’s a tripod thread but no screw mounts.
The screen on the parent unit switches on automatically when sound is detected, so you’ll be alerted to cries when you’re making a fair bit of noise yourself. This model also comes with a motion sensor mat, which is installed under the cot mattress and sounds an alarm if no breathing is detected for 20 seconds.
Some of the controls are a little cryptic, but once you’re set up, this baby monitor’s elegant design and practical functions mean it does its job well.
Read our full Tommee Tippee Closer to Nature Video Sensor Monitor review for details
Key specs– 3in screen; 8hrs 10mins battery life (tested); includes talkback microphone, nightlight, motion mat sensor, temperature sensor and tripod thread.
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2. BT 7500 Lightshow: The most fully featured baby monitor
Price when reviewed: £153
BT has clearly put a lot of thought into the 7500 Lightshow. It looks friendly and stylish; it’s easy to use; video quality is excellent; it has impressive battery life (more than seven hours for video, 15 hours for audio); and it's packed with genuinely useful features. There’s a temperature sensor and cosy orange nightlight built in. It can play soothing music and project stars onto the ceiling to help your child get off to sleep. As he or she gets older, you’ll appreciate the ability to pan and tilt the camera to see the havoc they’re wreaking when all goes suspiciously quiet in the playroom.
This is an expensive baby monitor but our young testers really appreciated music and light-show functions. If it helps children who struggle to settle for the night, then it’s worth every penny.
Read our full BT 7500 Lightshow review for details
Key specs – 3.5in screen; 15hrs 2mibs battery life (tested); includes pan/tilt camera, talkback microphone, nightlight, music playback, light show, temperature sensor, tripod thread and screw mounts.
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3. Motorola MBP18: The best budget video baby monitor
Price when reviewed: £58
Motorola’s entry-level video baby monitor is just the thing for people who want to keep an eye on their baby but don’t want to make a song and dance about it. Picture quality on the 1.8in screen is basic, but it’s perfectly adequate to see what your baby is up to.
The camera unit has a swivel base and can be wall-mounted for a commanding view of the cot. Infrared lights are built in for night vision — and that’s about it for features at that end. Over on the parent unit, there’s a strip of LEDs to alert you when the internal speaker is being drowned out by conversation, music or the TV.
Cheap products often let themselves down for hidden features such as wireless range of battery life, but the MBP18 is up to scratch on both counts. If you want to keep the cost down, this is a solid choice.
Read our full Motorola MBP18 review for details
Key specs – 1.8in screen; 8hr 14m battery life (tested); includes screw mounts.
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4. Tomy TFV600: The best-value baby monitor
Price: £74
This video baby monitor comes with a useful set of features and a competitive price. The camera base doubles as a nightlight, and there’s a temperature sensor with a readout shown on the screen. A bank of LEDs alerts you when you’re making too much noise to hear your baby’s cries, and there’s a microphone to impart soothing words of comfort from your sofa. This feature comes in more useful when babies turn into toddlers and you need to remind them not to clout their baby brother or sister while you’re cooking dinner.
Battery life is below average at 4hrs 21mins, and the 1.8m mains cables are on the short side. If you can live with these drawbacks, though, the TFV600 is a solid choice at a great price.
Read our full Tomy TFV600 review for details
Key specs – 2.4in screen; 4hrs 21mins battery life (tested); includes talkback microphone, music playback, nightlight, temperature sensor and screw mounts