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

Its a great monitor with no frills, which you dont want anyway. It picks up baby noise even if the monitor is across the room from baby. Two story house has no problems with connection to the parent unit anywhere in the house as well as back yard. MAJOR FLAWS: The safety warming which is as dB level over 9000 comes on every time you turn on the parent unit. You have to smother it with pillows on the other side of the house in order to not wake up the dead. The warning also goes on and on with an annoying female robot voice, and there is no way to disable it. Same with volume level buttons. They come with beeps at obscene degree of audio level. For these reasons I have a love-hate relationship with this product. I dont know why this has to be so hard.

Obviously since I bought an audio-only baby monitor, Im not looking for anything too fancy. This monitor definitely works for what we need. Ive actually been impressed at how well it modulates the sound so that if we have white noise running it fades to the background, but we can still clearly hear when baby makes noise. The battery life on the parent unit isnt fantastic, so we do have to charge it a lot even though we dont use it a whole ton. My other big complaint is that if you move the baby unit (in our case, baby sometimes sleeps in a nursery and sometimes in our room), the next time you turn on the parent unit it makes a LOUD safety announcement. Not great if you forget and turn it on within 15 feet of the baby you just spent a long time rocking to sleep.

I dont need to be in the area to here what happening. I use the monitor as a security device in my garage, its about 300 feet away.

We have had this monitor for three years. Three years of continuous use. We leave the parent unit plugged in all day by our bed, unplugging for a few hours every night to take to the living room so we can listen if the kiddos need us. We ran conduit up the wall to cover the cord, and have the room unit hanging up out of the way. The kids can hear us well when we talk to them through the monitor, and know they can call for us if they need to. Saves a lot of trips back and forth at bedtime. It’s been a solid little monitor, never an issue, and would definitely buy it again if needed (knocking on wood right now, just in case I jinxed myself). Highly recommend!

I did a lot of research before buying a monitor, and am glad I purchased this one. There is very very minimal white noise. Both the monitors I had used with previous children had a lot of static and would sometimes keep me awake at night. I have heard white noise once from this monitor. It was during a storm and not loud enough to be bothersome. The part that goes in the childs room has a night light on the top that you can turn on and off from the parent unit. Its a great feature, I do however, wish that the light could be turned on/off using the baby unit. Or that it would go off on its own after a set time. But it is a nice feature. The parent unit has a light system to guage how loud the noise is, I havent really found this useful yet, but I guess its a way to have the volume on low and be able to tell if the baby is crying or just talking. I know my so hums himself to sleep sometimes, so it might help in a situation like that. Another feature I havent found useful with the baby is the two-way talk. That isnt to say I havent used it though. I use it quite frequently to call my other son to me without having to yell across the house. I just havent found a way to use it for the baby. But I still love that it has the capability. All in all, this product does exactly what is it is intended for and does it well. I love it and have recommended it to all my friends having babies and even bought one as a baby shower gift. I also want to note that I live in an 1110 square foot apartment. I have reception from everywhere in the apartment. I dont know if there are any other monitors in the building, but there are other babies and small children, and I have never had any interferance.

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.

Only the receiver unit, not the baby unit is battery powered. They should have made both battery powered. Finding a plug every time is a hassle.

Just buy it, you know you will use it. We also have a camera but this helps with sound since the camera isnt the best running all the time.

Bought this based on Consumer Reports ratings. This was the best of the non-video baby monitors. Highly recommend if you don’t need the more-expensive video monitoring.

We’ve been using these monitors since our child was born four years ago… we only just now needed to buy a replacement bc the parent unit sound would go in and out (regardless of being plugged in or not, or fully charged). Great monitors! Works well and has longevity.