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

***Update!! After 20 months of use. This monitor still works! Im impressed for the price. However, we recently moved and now have issues daily with the parent unit becoming unlinked from the baby unit.. even when we are in the next room! If we move it closer, it will link back up. Sometimes it will link again on its own. So thats a bit disappointing. The other issue we have, is the battery of the parent unit does not last. We now plug it in every time our son is awake, and unplug when hes sleeping to use. Doing this keeps it charged enough not to die. However its always at 1 or 2 battery level. Also, we have to keep it on ALL the time. Even if it has a full battery, when we turn it off itll turn back on and display low battery and need to be plugged in. While these issues arent deal breakers, they are annoying. But again, for the price Im impressed with how well its held up. Our toddler loves to play with it, the handle on top of the parent unit is cracked, but the screen works still! Still recommended if youre looking for a quality baby monitor for daily use that wont get too much abuse. *original review: Weve had our monitor for a few weeks now and Im pretty happy with our purchase. For the money, its worth it. We bought it as a supplement to our video monitor (we bought a WiFi one so our long distance family could see our little boy) and only needed something for use while hes napping. It works when the baby unit is upstairs and our parent unit is downstairs and on the patio with us, so the range is perfect. We havent had any issues with the screen dying or it breaking at all. The volume is loud enough for us to hear him when were spending time with loud company. And the sensitivity settings make it so we can hear him when he cries but not listen to his rock and play rocking in the background. My only complaint is the battery dies relatively fast, after using it for a few hours it displays low battery and needs to be charged.

Works well once you figure out the settings that you like. Could be a little sturdier. I feel like one drop and this could break easily and be inoperable. Also wish it was battery operated instead of rechargeable. I have too many corded baby items that need regular charging!!!

This works fine, and does the job for which I procured it. I should point out that I am not using it in the traditional way - i.e., to monitor a baby. Rather I am using it to monitor a dog that has a pronounced fear of thunderstorms (not unusual for dogs). I crate my dogs at night in another part of the house. If a thunderstorm arises during the night, my dog will panic and try desperately to escape her (wire) crate. The baby monitor allows me to keep tabs on her during the night, if thunderstorms are likely (I dont use it every night) and I will be awakened by her attempts to escape and can come to her rescue. The baby monitor sender and receiver link with no problems (theyre about 30 feet apart through interior walls). Sound quality is very good, and there is no background noise. So the only time you hear anything from the receiver is when there is actually sound being picked up by the sending unit. The sensitivity can be adjusted to pick up very small sounds or to only pick up louder sounds. My only complaint is that turning the receiver ON and OFF isnt easy. The directions say to Press and hold the power button to turn the unit ON, and Press and hold the power button to turn the unit OFF. However, there is no visual indication of power ON or OFF, and no feedback letting you know which state the unit is in. So it can be a bit tricky to turn it ON, but especially to turn it OFF. A minor annoyance, to be sure, but it points out a design flaw - it should be easier to turn the unit ON/OFF, and there should be a more definitive feedback indicating what state the unit is in.

UPDATED below Original post: If you dont feel the need for all the bells-and-whistles associated with a video camera monitor (and NO judgment there, we have a paranoid parent breathing mat monitor as well!), I highly HIGHLY recommend this monitor. Specifically, we purchased it for our toddler when our second child came around. This thing is crystal clear, has a fantastic range of options, and is relatively low maintenance. Pros: - the vibrate function - so cool! Lets you know someone is making noise by vibrating. (Might have turned that feature on a few nights while I was up with the newborn, just so my husband could have a slightly more visceral understanding of being awakened, but I digress). - the night light - its really a nice mellow yellow glow and turns off automatically after a few minutes PLUS you can turn the kid unit night light on remotely, which is amazing if theyve lost their water cup somewhere in the bed and need to find it. - the walkie-talkie function is great. Our toddler responds really well if we tell him we have to brush our teeth quickly before getting him up in the morning. Sometimes at night if he wakes up, all he needs to know is that someone loves him and hell go right back to bed with minimal intervention. Cons: - the mute feature does not automatically shut off, meaning that when we mute for a minute late at night, we have to remember in our sleep-deprived fog to un-mute or else we miss some of his noises (is that a con? jury still out...) - battery life - it charges great, but definitely cant run for more than a day without a charge. Not terrible, but not the best on the market. Seriously, if you want an audio monitor, hands down this is my favorite! UPDATE: After using this for a year with our toddler, we purchased another for our infant. I cant tell you how much we love this monitor. I also got one for my parents and in-laws homes. Theyre still holding up great! We recently discovered that the nightlight features is helpful for our toddler too.

I ordered this because I lost the parent unit to my old Vtech baby monitor. The one I had before only had one-way audio, and I ordered this one as a replacement for the talk-back feature because my kids are a little older (2&4), and I can tell them its time to go to sleep when theyre being rambunctious after going to bed. This one also has the rechargeable parent unit, so Im not having to replace the batteries all the time. That is a major plus! The sound quality is great in my opinion, its not fuzzy or anything. My old one did have a bit of a static noise to it, so thats a plus as well. The range is good, reaches all the way across the house with no issues. There are other features on it that I havent really messed around with - the vibration on the parent unit and the night light on the kids unit. I just dont find them necessary for my needs. Its about double the price of the one-way monitor, if I remember correctly, but its completely worth it!

I purchased this monitor a few months ago as a second monitor for my 2 year old. Our other monitor (Sony Babycall) is used for our 11 month old. The Sony is awful but lets stick to the current review. I bought the Vtech based on the reviews and price point. I honestly couldnt be happier with this monitor. Its quiet, like really quiet! The audio quality is very clean with no cracks, pops, or hisses. The range is good. Ive walked all around and outside my house with no issues. I havent had some of the issues others have like the connection issues. Every time I power on the device it links within 5 seconds and never breaks the link. Its durable enough. My two year old likes to play with it at every chance she can and it holds up just fine. I really like the unit for its clarity, no annoying pops, cracks, or hisses. The night light feature on the base is a very nice touch. You can set the device to only activate on noise in the room although this feature seems odd as the devices has no feedback at all when this setting isnt chosen. I dont have a lot of white noise in her bedroom. If you do maybe thats the reason for this feature? If I had to nitpick I would say; 1. Volume is a bit on the low side(even at max volume). Its never prevented me from hearing my little girl so take this with a grain of salt unless you have an extremely loud house or hearing issues. 2. The two way talk feature is a bit wonky. You use this feature like the old style walkie talkies. You press the button then speak so your child can hear you on the other end. Sometimes the button has a mind of its own. It always works but you have to press it with a certain amount of pressure. Again, not really an issue for me because it does work, it just has a bit of an attitude just like my two year old. I didnt purchase this unit for the two way talk so I consider this a freebie feature. These are the only reasons I gave it 4 stars. I cant imagine spending $100+ on another unit would get you that much better a product.

We bought this when we moved into a place with two levels. We only need to use it for a couple of hours a day/night when baby is asleep and were awake and upstairs. The battery life is good, weve only needed to charge it a few times, despite having it over a month now. Everything works as expected. The distance it stays connected has been impressive (Ive walked outside with the parent monitor without an issue). The baby unit does need to stay plugged in in order for it to work.

Sound is awesome. Volume gets pretty loud. And I like that I can talk to my kiddo, even though we don’t currently really use that feature.

Weve had 2 sets the Sony Baby Call (NTM-910) analog monitor (not this monitor) for the life of all of our children (7 years). The analog monitors could be turned up to be crazy loud, where even a low voice comes through to the parent monitor as a very loud voice. We bought this VTech digital monitor for the range, as our analog monitors would loose connection and beep often when we were in our back yard. This monitor holds the link great - weve never seen it lost, but ... the volume pales in comparison to the analog monitors. A crying baby would be picked up, no problem, but a 2 year old that is potty training and calls for us with her normal voice comes through, even at the highest sensitivity and volume, comes through to the parent unit as a tiny 2 year old voice. If we are watching a loud movie, or in a deep sleep, we are not going to hear our daughter call for us, and that is a problem. Im going to try to carve out the plastic around the mic hole to increase sensitivity - I will update this review to let you know how it goes. Until then, its back to the Sony analog monitors, which I recommend if you have a small to medium sized house and dont mind re-positioning the monitor occasionally to get back the link. For what its worth, we also purchased the Philips Avent (SCD510) digital monitor and it has the same volume problem. I gave a 4-star rating because it is a great monitor, aside from not able to increase to mega volume level. Perhaps there is a technical reason that digital monitors cannot increase the volume that loud, I dont know, but these dont work for us. *** Update: As mentioned above, I tried to carve out the plastic around the mic hole to increase sensitivity. No luck. Still not loud enough for us.

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.