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

Todo bueno

This monitor replaced an older 49mhz analog baby monitor that we have had since our three year old was born. We still like to keep a monitor in his room just in case he wakes up before us or calls out in the night, which is rare. The old monitor was picking up interference quite a bit and was beginning to have problems, so it was time for an upgrade. This unit uses encrypted digital technology on the 1.9 GHz spectrum. Theoretically this should give increased range and eliminate any possibility of casual eavesdropping. Compared to the old monitor which had a single on/volume knob, this one is much more high tech. With that, however, comes a lot more settings that you have to (or get to) fiddle with. In addition to dedicated volume and power buttons, there are also menu and select buttons with which you can navigate an on screen menu of settings. This unit has a sensitivity setting, which is what Id call a digital squelch, a term from my old ham radio days. It lets you have complete silence until the signal breaks a certain threshold. Only then do you hear it over the speaker. This is disabled at its most sensitive setting. You can set a vibrating or audio alert to go off if the squelch is triggered. There is even a way to remotely trigger the nightlight LED on the base and a button to talk back to the child. This lets the unit function as a simple 2-way intercom, which is helpful for us in certain situations. There is no doubt that this is a full-featured baby monitor, or that it gives you a lot of value for your money. Each of these features works as advertised, and once you get it set up like you want it the menu and its settings arent that much of an issue. Even with the squelch on its second highest setting my bedside table has gotten a whole lot quieter thanks to its digital technology. However, I do wish that the transmitter unit had a battery backup that would allow for operation in a power outage or for easy placement during nap time. I also wish that the monitor had a back-lit screen or LED that let you know it was on. As it stands now, I have to turn on my bedside lamp to look for the word LINKED on the screen to make sure its on. My only caution here is that it may be a little bit much for a parent looking for a basic, reliable digital unit without all these literal bells and whistles. We have another digital unit made by Graco for our younger baby, and all it has is an on switch, volume buttons, and a physical vibrate switch. Theres no screen at all to fiddle with, and it has proven to be a reliable tool. If you are a technophile and want a value-priced device with intercom features, however, this unit hits the sweet spot. In my opinion, its silence and intercom more than overcome its minor shortcomings.

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.

So I’ve had this monitor for a few months now, it’s got great sound but that’s not to say you can leave it in another room and expect to hear it very well. You can adjust the sensitivity for how much sound you want it to pick up. I have mine set to the highest sensitivity so if I leave my fan running in the room my baby is in, I can hear the fan but I also can hear baby just as much. You can talk through the parent monitor and the sound comes out of the baby monitor so you can talk to your baby if they are into that. Baby monitor does need to be plugged in in order for it to turn on but the cord is long enough so it shouldn’t be a problem. I do recommend that as soon as you start setting it up, first thing you want to do is turn off the parent advisory speech it gives the parent monitor every time it gets powered on. I didn’t mind it during the day but when I’d go to work at 6am and turn it on for my mom, I would try lowering it down when it came to that part but it was quiet during that time which made the speech it gave still be loud. It took me a good few days to turn off the speech, the instructions are a little confusing on how to turn it off but I figured it out somehow. Overall it’s a good baby monitor for the price and it’s both have been dropped on the floor multiple times and they still work without problems. They are very durable.

If you read the negative reviews for this product, youll see that a lot of people said that it would beep during the night from not being linked. I had this same thing happen to me for a few nights (with it beeping more and more each night), and the people who wrote these reviews said they just returned the product. I was about to do this, until my husband suggested that our fireplace might be blocking the signal. I moved the baby unit to the other side of the baby room and put the parent unit up at a height of five feet in our bedroom (the baby unit is at about four feet). Now, for the past week, it has not beeped once. So, if youve been having this problem, see if anything is interfering with the signal and try moving the units around. Pros: 1. This product is pretty cheap compared to similar products and works very well. All of the other similar-priced products on Amazon have pretty bad reviews, while this one doesnt have as many. And, all of the products that are similar quality are at least twice the price. 2. I dont hear any static. I have it on the highest sensitivity level (5) and almost the lowest sound volume (2), and I only hear the baby. 3. There is a small nightlight on the baby unit, and you can change it so that the nightlight only comes on when there is noise in the room. It just keeps the light from being on all night, even though its not very bright anyway. Cons: 1. When the parent unit is plugged in, a red light shines constantly, whether the unit is on or off. For some reason, I turned the parent unit off one morning, and when I was going to bed that night, I was thinking the red light meant the unit was on. Fortunately, about five minutes later, I realized that I had turned it off earlier, so I turned it back on. I just need to cover it with tape or something, so I dont get confused like that. 2. The instructions say that you have to have three feet between the parent and baby units, so you dont get interference, but I have to have them at least ten feet apart for it to work. Its not a big deal, since the two units are at least forty feet apart most of the time. But, if you plan on carrying the parent unit around, make sure you set it down before you go check on the baby; otherwise, youll have to listen to that horrible interference noise beore you even reach the nursery door. Overall, this is a great product for the price, especially if you dont want to spend a lot, but want something that works.

First time parents: No matter what is written you will likely be like us and never trust a baby monitor those first few hours of sleep at a time, but once you get comfortable with knowing you will be woke up, this monitor will be your best friend. WE all know what these do, so here is the best way to describe our experience (Kiddo is now 18 months old) Pros: 1) The feature that it is silent all the time unless triggered to send sound to the parent unit is a little worrisome at first (notice I put this as a pro), but once you are more comfortable with your babys lungs ability to trigger this, it is awesome, because you dont get all the little grunts and sniffs that they make. Our biggest problem was any sound we heard when we shared a room (never bed!) with our kiddo was we were waking up and holding our breath waiting for the cry. So this feature once you are sleeping in different rooms is awesome so you only get woke if there is any real sound. We keep they mic within about 15 feet of the crib and it ALWAYS gets every sounds. All cries, all babbles, and a loud sneeze maybe, but besides that we sleep peacefully as long as she is. 2) Range: Good not great. We didnt have high hopes, this is not a 5-mile 2-way radio, but we do live in the country and doing lawn chores during a nap keeps us within about 100 feet of the house. But that leads to next pro: 3) Sound- level 5 has great volume. If you can sleep through a baby crying at that level you probably have taken too many sleeping pills or need to get checked for sleep apnea! 4) Light bar that shows sound intensity when volume is muted. Once we got to the let er cry it out bedtimes, we could do other things rather than listen to a baby scream but still keep an eye on her. This is great especially if you have a partner who is trying to sleep while you worry. WORRY AWAY IN SILENCE! 5) It has lasted 18 months as still works as a receiver well, but that is the one biggest con now--- CONS: 1) This may have been our fault from being on a road trip vacation in the summer, but after being in the car for a couple days, when we got to our destination and plugged it back in (this is after having it about 6 months), the display was burnt out for all but a couple bars. We already had the set up all done and with the different tones when you are at max/min volumes we can still set the volume, but we are doing this by ear, not display. 2) Battery life is questionable on the parent unit. It worked great at first and one thing that makes it last longer is the PRO #1 where it doesnt always pick up background static unless there is sound from baby. But we did have a fan on in her room for the nights, and we noticed this white noise did cause the monitor to pick up sound more often, which would make sense that it would use the battery more. We keep the monitor plugged in 24/7 unless we are taking it our of our bedroom during nap time or on vacation, so I guess 18 months of use and battery that lasts a few hours is probably pretty decent. Overall good product and while some bells and whistles havent maintained, its true purpose, which is to lower your worry and increase your sleep, has been flawless the last 18 months!

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.

This is a great, crystal clear, trusted monitor. We have a 3 bedroom apartment, my babys crib is in our room so I just needed one parent unit to leave in the living room when she needed rest by herself. I really wasnt looking for anything with all the bells and whistles, just something where I could hear my child when she cries. This product definitely did that and more. The child unit stays plugged into the wall, we leave it in the corner of the crib, out of her reach from the wire. The parent unit can be recharged and unplugged if needed but we always leave it plugged in, with the exception of going to the kitchen.. it has a belt clip as well. The parent unit has 5 adjustable sound levels, and you can also set it to vibrate or light up when noise is detected. This was an added plus as I wasnt looking for anything high-tech. The sensitivity of the child unit is great, it will light up when she stirs in her sleep or even grunts while looking for her pacifier. The lights on the parent unit light up as the sensitivity and noise of the child increases. The child unit was in the room with the air conditioner on, which is pretty loud but it was able to dull out the noise of the air conditioner and was still sensitive to my babys cries, which could be heard clearly. I have had the baby on the bed, as far as 10 feet away and the child unit was still sensitive enough to pick up her noises. Another good thing to note is that at night, the child unit is dark when not detecting any sounds, but once noise is detected it lights up with a soft orange glow. When my daughter wakes up in the middle of the night and cries the glow is not so intrusive where it keeps her awake, but she likes to look at it. Its also just enough light provided where I can change her without turning on the lamp or light. VTech really thought about the parents when making this product, and covered all the bases. I am more than satisfied with this product.

Works very well, just as described.

This product works great for us! We use it to monitor our labrador at night. She lightly barks when she needs to go outside for the restroom. We bought this because we all know dogs eat stuff that can upset their stomach and we had a couple of accidents on the floor and so we decided to purchase this product. Last night at 1:30 AM I heard her on the monitor and immediately ran downstairs to let her out. She ran for her potty spot outside immediately and had an awful bowel experience that thankfully was not on the floor in the house. This product paid for itself right there and I know had we not had the monitor there would’ve been poop all over the floor. We also use it for when we take care of our grand children who are sleeping. This was an excellent purchase for us and worth $39 easily.!