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

My mom had cancer surgery and was in bed for several days. I stayed over at my folks house to help with her recovery. I decided to purchase these as the unit for the baby is wireless, which means she could keep it next to her in bed instead of the nightstand, which she could not reach due to surgery pain. It also has a nice nighlight on the baby unit made her feel comfortable after waking up in the middle of the night, a bit disoriented. The unit allowed us to keep her bedroom door closed so that she would not be woken and could rest and recover. If she needed anything, she would just have to speak and we could hear her over the parent unit.

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.

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.

I feel like a lot of the new baby monitors they’ve come out with now days are amazing…. but also enabling all your new parental fears. Don’t you want to watch your baby to know they’re safe? Don’t you want to know their O2 levels so you can ensure they’re breathing? Don’t you want thermal detection to see if it’s the right temp in their crib? Don’t you want the ability to check on them while you’re at work? Etc etc etc. I understand the fear. And the desire to feel comforted and that your baby is safe. But I also don’t want to obsess and perpetually freak myself out based on readings from the monitors. It’s always tough! Keeping track of another app is too much for me. I needed a simple but reliable monitor to use and this is it. It’s speaker/hearing sensitivity levels are variant enough to give options. The talk button is quiet and super nice when I need to communicate with my hubby. The shape and size are great. My only 2 complaints are that 1) the baby unit needs to be plugged in to work, while the parent unit can be unplugged—it would’ve been nice if they were both wireless. And 2) it would’ve been nice to have a talk button on the baby unit as well as the parent unit. Still, I’d highly recommend.

Just make sure you’re far enough away from baby when you turn on the parent unit or the very obnoxious and loud safety warning will wake them up. Other than that it’s a great product. Wish there was a way to disable the warning since I’ve heard it about 8,000x by now.

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.

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.

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.

We use this to monitor ailing adult who is housed slight distance away and separated by thick walls. Set up was effortless: the units connected as soon as powered on. Sound quality is very good. Volume and sensitivity is adjustable: I can hear them breathing or set it so louder noise required. While my cell phone will disconnect from the Bluetooth headset at this distance and given the thickness of the walls, these stay connected. This product does everything promised and is perfect for our purposes. If you dont need a visual, its probably perfect for yours as well. Impressed - more so at the very reasonable price.

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.