Keeping An Eye On Baby With Philips AVENT Digital Video Monitor

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When I was pregnant with my first baby 7 years ago I had the usual wishlist of every new mother.  One of the items I bought was a baby monitor.  I soon learned that for me, it wasn’t that necessary as the walls of our old house were paper thin and I could generally hear everything that was going on in the baby’s room anyway.  Now we have moved and our walls are definitely thicker and my bedroom is not as close to the baby’s room, so a monitor is a must have.  Philips AVENT sent me their Digital Video Monitor SCD600 and I am in love.

I have often thought how nice it would be to be a fly on the wall in the baby’s room.  Able to see what is really going on.  This monitor lets me do just that.  Not only can I hear Delaney in her crib, but I can see what she is doing.  I love to watch her stand and dance to her musical mobile in her crib.  There was also a night recently where she woke up screaming in the middle of the night.  I immediately went to the monitor to see if I could see anything obvious.  I couldn’t and I still ended up going in there, but it was nice to first look before going in and disturbing her.

Features:

• Automatic channel selection for a private connection. Maintain a secure and reassuring connection to your baby at all times with easy to use digital video technology
• Infra-red night vision for round the clock monitoring.  Infra-red night vision enabling you to see your baby round the clock
• Cordless and portable parent unit.  Rechargeable parent unit allows you move around your home whilst still staying close to your baby.
• Automatic screen activation with brightness & volume control.  Automatic screen activation when a noise is detected in your baby`s room. Volume and brightness control enable easy viewing of your child.
• Digital link confirmation and sound level lights.  Digital link confirmation for extra reassurance you are connected to your baby with sound level lights.
• High resolution 2.4″ / 61mm colour screen.  Easy monitoring of you baby with the high resolution digital quality colour screen
• Soothing lullabies & nightlight.  Three soothing lullabies and nightlight to help sooth your baby to sleep
• Easy to position camera.  This Philips AVENT baby monitor has an easy to position camera to make sure you get the best view of your child

Immediately upon opening the monitor box I was impressed with the round ball baby unit which fits easily on the stand.  Because of the round shape, you can pivot it around freely and easily to reach the desired camera position for your needs.  I placed our unit on a shelf across the room from the crib because it was one of my only options in the room which allowed me to view the whole crib.  It is somewhat hard to see what is going on inside the crib at night from this position, but usually if Delaney is awake she is standing up anyway.  If she was still an infant I would probably want to find a way to position the camera more above the crib looking down.  The camera unit also has a spot on the bottom where you could screw it onto a tripod if you wanted for any reason.

The monitor comes with Baby Unit, Stand, Parent Unit, Instruction Book and 2 power cords. I was slightly confused when looking at the picture on the box which shows a stand on the parent unit until I realized the belt clip flips over to make a stand for the parent unit.  How clever, right?

Another very nice feature about this baby unit is that it does have a battery option.  It does not take rechargeable batteries as it is not a charging unit, but can run on 4 AAA batteries.  This makes it nice and easy for when I want to grab it and place it in another room where the baby may be sleeping or playing.  The parent unit does have rechargeable batteries.

I have tested the range of the unit a few times.  I was easily able to go to the basement or even out to our detached garage and around the yard and still have a connection to the camera.  This is definitely more powerful than my old monitor.  The range is supposed to be up to 492 feet.  I have not actually tested that as I wouldn’t know where 492 feet from the camera would be, but it certainly seemed to have a good range to me.

Another feature I really like about this monitor is the ability to turn on lullaby’s on the camera unit with a push of a button on the parent unit.  There are definitely times when Delaney is whimpering at night and I think I would just like to turn on her mobile or a radio, but I know if I go into her room she will cry and want to be held.  Now I can turn on the music without even entering the room.

The screen resolution is excellent and during the day I can see what baby is doing crystal clear.  I did find the night vision was a little harder to see.  It definitely wasn’t as clear as the images shown on the website.  I think if the camera was closer to the crib maybe I could see a little better, but the directions do say it needs to be at least 3 feet away.  I am still definitely able to see if Delaney is standing in her crib, but it is hard to tell exactly what is going on besides that.  For example: the other night she actually vomited a little in her crib and I definitely could not tell that from the camera.

I can see this monitor being extremely useful with my older children too.  I could put it in the playroom while they are playing if I have to go outside for something, or if I am trying to cook dinner.  I can never trust the 3 year old with the baby, so I could keep a close eye on him.  Sometimes I probably don’t want to know what is going on though.  Haha.

I absolutely love this video baby monitor and I wish I would have had it for my first baby.  Even in my old house where I could hear everything, it would have been nice to hear and see everything going on in baby’s room, like when they start climbing out of the crib and playing with toys.

BUY IT!

The Philips AVENT SCD600 Digital Video Baby Monitor has a MSRP of $219.99 and is available at a variety of retailers in store and online including Toys R Us, Walmart and Amazon.

Disclosure:  I received a sample for purpose of this post but all thoughts remain my own.