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

As a sound monitor it is fine, maybe equal to a more expensive model, maybe not. It is more than adequate for my needs, especially at such a great price. Baby monitors in the ToysRUs were twice the cost and looked cheaper. Out of the gate, the rechargeable battery wouldnt recharge, the VTech replaced it overnight with a working model. Very impressive response! The nightlight on the handle of the baby unit does not stay on past about 15 minutes unless you set the auto-lock to yes. The instruction book is long, but important to read well or you will miss important settings info on the menu. I like that you can use the adapter on the parent unit for power if the battery gets low or dies. It only seems to be able to recharge fully when unit if off, not while in use, but with this newer one, the battery is doing fine. Multiple volume settings, vibration alert and sound beep alert when the baby unit has sound activity. What I like is that it picks up noises NEAR the unit and tends NOT to pick up noises farther away, distant, which is a good thing. We have lots of sirens where I live but I do not hear them loudly at all, since they are literally mostly in the distance. Note: I dont use this for baby monitor, but the quality is good for one. I use this for an outdoor kitty who I cannot hear when she is outside and crying to be let in, now I can hear her and get her in before she panics. Plus I can hear my neighbors, UPS deliveries, whatever is out there beyond my sight and indoor hearing. My favorite bonus on this is that I can be inside and listen to all the birdsong from outside. In the mid-fifties (yes, the 1950s!) we used to have an indoor/outdoor monitor to listen to the morning birds while having breakfast in the kitchen. Nice to be enjoying that again. Very clear. No ambient noise indoors, but outdoor has ambient noise from all the outdoor chaos, the wind and traffic.

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.

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 needed to be able to hear my mom from her room, which is on the other side of the house, if she needed help. Had a different monitor previously, but it had a lot of static. This V-Tech works so well. It has 5 volume settings and I able to hear her movement sounds so I know she’s up and about. She feels more relaxed and confident that I can hear her in the middle of the night now. We also like the talk feature on the base unit, because I can let her know I hear her and am on my way to assist her.

We originally registered for a video monitor for our nursery and got it, but once the baby came, we realized it was really inconvenient not to have a monitor in our bedroom since he was sleeping in there in his bassinet. We also found ourselves needing a monitor when we went to our families lake house and wanted to sit on the patio after putting him to bed in our bedroom. These monitors are fantastic. The baby monitor has to be plugged in, but the parent monitor does not. It has chargeable batteries. My mom had an older model from vtech and the parent monitor has to be plugged in too. We love that the parent monitor is able to be charged and portable. It creates so much more flexibility. I find myself putting my ear to the monitor to make sure it is still working even though it is linked, but every time Im linked and realize what a great feature it is, they dont make the background noice like a sleep machine loud on the parent monitor, it only reacts when a loud noice happens like the baby moves or cries out which makes trying to hold a conversation so much easier. I would highly recommend these monitors. IT has been key while our 4 month old continues to sleep in our room and any trip they are the first thing we pack into the diaper bag. Hope you enjoy them as much as we have!

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.

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 am hearing impaired and wear hearing aids so I really needed an audio monitor that I could hear. Once I take out my hearing aids I can still hear my granddaughter if she wakes up and cries during the night. This is a great monitor. I am very happy with my purchase

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!!!

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.