Tried and Tested: VTech Clear Sounds Digital Baby Monitor Deluxe
Every new parent will worry about leaving their precious newborn baby sleeping alone in another room. For parents to gain some peace of mind, baby monitors have become one of the must-have pieces of equipment for anyone living in a house larger than the size of a studio flat.
This month, Chopsy Baby tests out the new VTech Clear Sounds Digital Baby Monitor Deluxe. To achieve the crystal clear, no interference sound the company is so proud of, it uses Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunication (DECT) and High-Definition sound.
The Clear Sounds Monitor consists of two units, one for the mother and one for the baby. The parent’s monitor picks up sounds from the baby’s monitor and also has light settings to further alert parents.
Helpfully, the monitor features a temperature sensor, a pulsing night-light and fifty sung-songs, melodies or nature sounds for the baby to be soothed to sleep by. This effectively reduces any potential clutter in the baby’s room by up three items.
Brilliantly, the music and light can be controlled by the parent’s monitor so they don’t even have to enter the baby’s room to change settings. A line in means that you can even plug your MP3 player in and fill your baby’s room with their favourite tunes.
A parent talk back feature allows a parent to communicate clearly to the monitor in the baby’s room. A personalised voice recording feature also allows for parents to record their own voice talking or singing to their baby.
The monitor’s transmission range is up to 300m outdoors and 50m indoors. It features rechargeable batteries for the parent’s unit as well as mains power.
Our tester for Chopsy Baby was Eleanor-Rose Leighton, the mother of eight-week old baby girl Madison.
Eleanor-Rose had not purchased a baby monitor before Madison was born, but had been strongly considering it before we approached her. “Because I thought the baby would be sleeping in my room with me, I didn’t think I would need one”, she says. “But as Madison is a pretty good sleeper, I tend to put her in her Moses basket in my bedroom for naps during the day. As this is upstairs, I have to keep going back up the creaky stairs constantly as I worry if she is OK or not.
“The VTech monitor is a really nice clean white design. It is lightweight and unobtrusive. All I knew about baby monitors before using this one is that there used to be problems in the past where they could pick up other neighbouring baby monitors. This was a long time ago but was one of the reasons I decided not to bother.
“This is not the case with this monitor. I have not had a problem with any kind of interference or weak reception anywhere about the house or garden. The sound has been very clear and enhanced by flashing lights warning me when there is movement and noise in Madison’s room.
“The other features though not essential are pretty good. I’m not a big fan of instructions, so I plugged and played without reading too much about how to use features and what not. For the generations who are pretty much able to flip from one mobile phone interface to another, ipods, MP3 player menus, this monitor is pretty self-explanatory with ten minutes of play learning.
“I loved that I can control the music and sound from downstairs and there is so many different sounds and songs so that it never gets boring. Madison’s room also gets really warm. This is something that concerns me given her age and the worries of cot death, but her monitor has a thermometer in it which I think is amazingly clever.
“I have found the baby monitor to be great for me whilst doing things downstairs and having my baby sleeping out of sight, something I really hate. Having been unsure how useful a baby monitor could be to me, I have now realised how great it is to take the pressure off my knees creeping up and down the stairs all the time.”
The VTech Clear Sounds Digital Baby Monitor Deluxe is one of three new DECT, High-Definition sound monitors from VTech.
This model is priced at £69.99 and is available online at: http://www.vtechuk.com/monitors