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

I use this to listen for my son, it is even better now that he has started to talk. He speaks to us through the monitor and will continue talking for a while until we get him or he gives up and falls asleep.

**Update 1/5/2016** Since my below review we have used this many more times and Im happy to report that this is still a very solid performer. The range is great, baby noise comes through clear, and my previous complaint about the talk button being easy to press hasnt been a big deal. Four stars remain well deserved. **Original Review 4/18/2015** We have a nice Angelcare monitor that we use at home but wanted something simple we could take with us when traveling to our parents and friends houses. The VTech fit the bill budget wise and after one 5 day trip we have been really happy. Other reviews have done a great job saying what this unit does well so I wont waste time here reiterating those opinions as I agree with them. Couple of cons that I wanted to mention just to keep in mind before you buy, but note I would still buy this product again knowing this so I do like the product a lot. - Battery life on the wireless unit is not great. You will have to charge during awake time at least once during the day if not more. - No battery on the unit that is in the nursery. Minor concern for me since we are used to power outages which would render this useless. How many times is that going to happen though? Not a huge deal. - Biggest complaint is the talk button on the side of the parent unit is extremely easy to press when grabbing the unit. If you wear this on your belt or pocket then when you grab it you will almost certainly press the talk button which will send whatever noise is going on around you straight to the unit by your sleeping baby. Not ideal. Again, Im rating this as 4 stars so obviously I am happy with the unit. For the price, I think youd be hard pressed to find a better option and considering our needs it is near perfect. It is really compact and fits in a pair of shoes easily for simple packing.

This product imagery/wording is purposely misleading to make you believe its 2 wireless units. There isnt a single cord in any of the images but the baby unit requires one to operate.

Ive had them now for 10 years! My son and I use it as a one-way walkie talkie now lol so I dont have to yell for him to come up for dinner. I know Ill have to get rid of them soon, but man have they come in handy all this time. I just realized I never posted a review and should have.

used nights for my paraplegic husband if needing assistance, works great

These work well. You can hear breathing most of the time turned up all the way. You can also clearly hear the person talking or calling out. You can talk to the person from the base station to the remote, the person on the remote end can not hear what is happening at the base station so they are not disturbed. The battery life could be a little longer, they will do 6-8 hours with a low battery signal long before the battery on the base station goes out. Overall they can be used to monitor elderly people without disturbing them. Would work for anyone who needed monitored.

We love this baby monitor! It works great. The sound is clear. The battery life is excellent, and we love the intercom feature. We do think that the warning that (loudly) comes on when turning the parent unit on is annoying, however, we finally found a way around that. This would make a great baby shower gift, too.

I ordered this because I wanted a baby monitor. I didnt want anything wifi enabled (because my cable company isnt the best and weve been known to just lose internet service in the middle of the night). I wanted something slightly better than the baby monitors they had when I was growing up and I had a baby brother sleeping down the hall (I.e. No cordless phone interference). These days companies seem to have worked out that whole everything wireless is on the same frequency debacle so I figured this should be no sweat. This unit set up quickly and is pretty darn sensitive. When my daughter sucks her thumb, it gets picked up on the monitor. I was nearly scared off of this item by some of the negative reviews. Once I established that it worked, I decided to run a few experiments with the sensitivity using the bathroom fan. In a quiet room, the thing is awesome. When you turn down the sensitivity to accommodate say, a white noise machine/air purifier/fan/air conditioner, it begins to show some weakness. Why? Because the sensitivity is based upon volume. If the baby crying doesnt exceed the new threshold youve set, the monitor wont pick up the sound. If the room is heavy on white noise, then you have two choices: a constant flow of white noise on the monitors parent unit or turn down the sensitivity so that only the louder cries will be heard. This isnt a limitation on the unit. It isnt able to distinguish between air conditioner and baby noises. It picks up sound over a certain decibel level. That isnt a flaw. Thats that slight improvement over the units from 20 years ago I was hoping for. If you are running lots of white noise in the room, you may need to switch to video monitors. Or you may just have to deal with the monitor blasting white noise into your room in hopes of picking up every whine and whimper. But if thats your situation, it isnt really the monitors fault for not adapting to your environment (it would be like hanging up a flat screen TV crooked and then writing a negative review for the TV saying the picture is slanted). Its a good monitor. Clear sound and very responsive to baby noises. It may not completely change the way you parent, but they never made that claim.

I must say that I have been extremely pleased with this baby monitor. I purchased this when I had a second child and needed to be able to hear the noises coming from both rooms (the children are on the second floor while we are on the first so a monitor is an absolute must). I originally ordered a Sony monitor which was identical to the one we had for our oldest. When I set it up the whole thing didnt work, so I went back to the drawing board to hunt up a new one. Here are my pros and cons for this monitor: Pros: I love that this is digital. My other monitor was not and its quite a bit noisier, not what I want in the middle of the night. The VTech monitor is very quiet so all I hear are the noises the baby makes and a light white noise sound in the background. The range of the monitor is better than our old one, so I can have it right on my night stand instead of just outside my bedroom door like the old one was. Its really quite easy to use, fairly self explanatory. The walkie talkie feature is handy to have, as a couple times I needed to communicate with my husband to bring something up for me in the middle of the night. As the baby gets older I anticipate using this to communicate with him. I loved the price. These ended up being cheaper than the Sony that I originally bought and I like them so much more. Cons: The only thing I can really think of as a con is the fact that sometimes the signal is randomly disrupted and the parent receiver will start beeping. Sometimes it keeps on beeping until I turn it off and turn it back on. Not so bad in the middle of the day, not so fun in the middle of the night. But Im sure this happens with all of the monitors. If you are looking for a monitor that wont break the bank and works quietly and efficiently, this is the one for you.

When we moved our baby girl to her crib in her room, we, of course, needed some sort of monitor. Since we didnt receive the fancy, expensive video monitor at our baby shower that we had registered for, we had to come out-of-pocket for one and had to settle for a more basic, less expensive monitor. Im so glad that someone didnt waste $200 on a monitor with all the bells and whistles! This monitor does everything we need it to. It has good range - in my one-story house Ive never been too far away for it to get signal. The volume is nice and loud at the highest setting and wakes us up when she cries. Theres also a setting for a vibration alert, and it works, but I have yet to use it practically. The nightlight casts a soft amber glow. I love the feature where you can communicate with the Baby unit. There have been many times when my spouse or I have talked back and forth when one of us needed something. We like this monitor so much that, when my mother needed one at her house for when shes caring for our daughter, I recommended this one to her. The only cons I can think of with this unit are minor. 1) I wish the battery on the Parent unit lasted longer. When we have someone babysitting at our house, the Parent unit is always off of the charger (which is in our bedroom) so the sitter can use it in the living room. The charge on it wont last a full day. 2) When you turn off the Baby unit (like when Im at my mothers and feeding my daughter or sleeping in the bedroom and dont wish to have the Parent unit listening in) the Parent unit emits a loud beep every 30 seconds or so. I can understand the practicality of this feature (in case the Baby unit accidentally comes unplugged), but it still bugs me. Overall, I think this is a very good monitor and I would recommend it to anyone!