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Customer Review
Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2012
This product generally reviews poorly on various sites - so much so that had I researched it prior to picking it up on impulse at the local Apple store (figuring I could return it if necessary), I probably wouldn't have bothered. That said, I'm not sure if there have been upgrades since some of the early terrible reviews, but it seems to work fine for me. Setup wasn't difficult at all - following the instructions in the iBaby app resulted in an easy setup in about five minutes. I will say that I suspect some of the dissatisfied customers didn't understand that it has to be set up the first time with a wired connection to your router (cable is included, which is slightly surprising, but nice), but then can simply be unplugged and moved wherever you want it. I've had no significant trouble (except see below) accessing the camera on my local WiFi, over the Internet from different WiFi networks, or via AT&T's 3G network, with the expected latency depending on access method. I'll say that I'm not particularly fluent with wireless networking or webcams, so I would have returned the thing long before messing around with port forwarding or any of the other 'advanced user settings' that people have described having to use for various iOs based video monitors.
Beyond the quick setup guide included with the iBaby app, though, the documentation was comically bad. The device came packaged with a CD containing a PDF users guide, which appears to have been translated from Chinese either by a human who's never spoken to a native English speaker or by a computerized translation program. This quality of manual would be embarrassing for a $20 clock/radio bought at CVS. For an almost $200 device aimed at new parents and sold in the Apple Store, it's absolutely appalling. Honestly, how hard can it really be, even for a company based in China, to find a high school or college student who is a fluent speaker of both English and Mandarin to translate the frickin manual? It would probably cost about $1000!
The quality of the image itself was more than adequate - even surprisingly good with the night vision. Audio was acceptable - not as good as the Angelcare audio monitor we have, but acceptable. The iBaby app is somewhat basic, but intuitive and works fine (although I haven't tried to add a second camera yet); allows easy panning and tilting with a finger swipe as well as capturing a snapshot to your iPhone or iPad. I'm less impressed by the audio and movement alerts - not so much because they don't work as because it plays poorly in the sandbox with the iOs device's desire to be locked and asleep - I suspect it would work fine if you plugged it in and left the screen on without using the device for anything else, but who really wants to do that? The app claims you can leave it on and it will continue to function with the screen asleep; the time I tried that it resulted in waking up in the morning to a screen full of multiple text alerts (the audible alert seems not to have sounded, and given how loud it is I'm pretty sure I would've woken up) followed ultimately by a warning that the connection to the camera had been lost.
Which leads me to my bottom line about the device, and probably the source of a lot of dissatisfaction. The iBaby, and probably iOs-based baby video monitors in general, are not quite ready for prime time if you want to depend on it as your *only* method of monitoring the baby, particularly if you have medical concerns or anything. We use it in conjunction with our Angelcare audio monitor, which has always worked perfectly without problems; basically, we use the iBaby video to *check on* the baby, not so much to *monitor* the baby. (I.e., once we've heard her cry or whatever, to answer the question of "What in the world is she *doing* in there?" without having to go in the room.) This is not the iBaby's fault so much as it is the fault of WiFi in general - I don't know how it is for other people, but our WiFi is a little unstable - it's not terribly uncommon for it to drop signal or kick a laptop or our BluRay player off the network. For most devices, this simply results in a freeze for a few seconds while the device signs back on to WiFi; for the iBaby, you pretty much have to do it manually by closing the app and opening it again. This is slightly frustrating but no big deal if you're using it like we are, but you can see how people would hate it if the iBaby were their only monitor.
I can compare the device to the Summer Infant BabyTouch, which reviews very well; we inadvertantly purchased both at the same time. The iBaby has slightly better video quality and slightly worse audio quality than the Summer Infant, although both were adequate. (It's not HD, but for a little webcam with night vision, what do you want?) The Summer Infant has a (digital) zoom that's not very useful, whereas the iBaby does not. Controlling the camera is much better with the iBaby. The Summer Infant has a built in speaker that you can use to talk back through it; somewhat deceptively, the iBaby doesn't (what it has is a *connection* for an external speaker that you have to buy separately), but we don't really feel like that's all that important. The iBaby has the above problems with unstable WiFi connections, whereas the Summer Infant worked perfectly out of the box, never losing connection even for a moment. They're similarly priced; some reviwers have described the iBaby as grossly overpriced, which it probably is if you have the networking skills to buy a Foscam for about $100, an iOs based app for $5-10 to drive it, and set it up on your wireless network. I don't, and I have better uses for the several hours (and probably having to purchase a book on wireless networking) that it would take me to figure it out; I'd rather just pay the extra money.
So why did we keep the iBaby and send the Summer Infant back? Because the Summer Infant reliably - although not instantaneously, which is interesting - fried our WiFi network and made all sorts of devices, from networked printers to our BluRay player, to my wife's laptop, completely useless because of poor connection. Now, it's been suggested that this problem can be solved by changing the channel on your router (we use a Cisco Linksys E3000), but again, I really don't want to be spending my time playing sysadmin for my wireless network when it's clearly the fault of a specific device with a noisy signal. We'll keep our reliable Angelcare sudio monitor for workhorse use and our iBaby for visual checking in, thanks.
Beyond the quick setup guide included with the iBaby app, though, the documentation was comically bad. The device came packaged with a CD containing a PDF users guide, which appears to have been translated from Chinese either by a human who's never spoken to a native English speaker or by a computerized translation program. This quality of manual would be embarrassing for a $20 clock/radio bought at CVS. For an almost $200 device aimed at new parents and sold in the Apple Store, it's absolutely appalling. Honestly, how hard can it really be, even for a company based in China, to find a high school or college student who is a fluent speaker of both English and Mandarin to translate the frickin manual? It would probably cost about $1000!
The quality of the image itself was more than adequate - even surprisingly good with the night vision. Audio was acceptable - not as good as the Angelcare audio monitor we have, but acceptable. The iBaby app is somewhat basic, but intuitive and works fine (although I haven't tried to add a second camera yet); allows easy panning and tilting with a finger swipe as well as capturing a snapshot to your iPhone or iPad. I'm less impressed by the audio and movement alerts - not so much because they don't work as because it plays poorly in the sandbox with the iOs device's desire to be locked and asleep - I suspect it would work fine if you plugged it in and left the screen on without using the device for anything else, but who really wants to do that? The app claims you can leave it on and it will continue to function with the screen asleep; the time I tried that it resulted in waking up in the morning to a screen full of multiple text alerts (the audible alert seems not to have sounded, and given how loud it is I'm pretty sure I would've woken up) followed ultimately by a warning that the connection to the camera had been lost.
Which leads me to my bottom line about the device, and probably the source of a lot of dissatisfaction. The iBaby, and probably iOs-based baby video monitors in general, are not quite ready for prime time if you want to depend on it as your *only* method of monitoring the baby, particularly if you have medical concerns or anything. We use it in conjunction with our Angelcare audio monitor, which has always worked perfectly without problems; basically, we use the iBaby video to *check on* the baby, not so much to *monitor* the baby. (I.e., once we've heard her cry or whatever, to answer the question of "What in the world is she *doing* in there?" without having to go in the room.) This is not the iBaby's fault so much as it is the fault of WiFi in general - I don't know how it is for other people, but our WiFi is a little unstable - it's not terribly uncommon for it to drop signal or kick a laptop or our BluRay player off the network. For most devices, this simply results in a freeze for a few seconds while the device signs back on to WiFi; for the iBaby, you pretty much have to do it manually by closing the app and opening it again. This is slightly frustrating but no big deal if you're using it like we are, but you can see how people would hate it if the iBaby were their only monitor.
I can compare the device to the Summer Infant BabyTouch, which reviews very well; we inadvertantly purchased both at the same time. The iBaby has slightly better video quality and slightly worse audio quality than the Summer Infant, although both were adequate. (It's not HD, but for a little webcam with night vision, what do you want?) The Summer Infant has a (digital) zoom that's not very useful, whereas the iBaby does not. Controlling the camera is much better with the iBaby. The Summer Infant has a built in speaker that you can use to talk back through it; somewhat deceptively, the iBaby doesn't (what it has is a *connection* for an external speaker that you have to buy separately), but we don't really feel like that's all that important. The iBaby has the above problems with unstable WiFi connections, whereas the Summer Infant worked perfectly out of the box, never losing connection even for a moment. They're similarly priced; some reviwers have described the iBaby as grossly overpriced, which it probably is if you have the networking skills to buy a Foscam for about $100, an iOs based app for $5-10 to drive it, and set it up on your wireless network. I don't, and I have better uses for the several hours (and probably having to purchase a book on wireless networking) that it would take me to figure it out; I'd rather just pay the extra money.
So why did we keep the iBaby and send the Summer Infant back? Because the Summer Infant reliably - although not instantaneously, which is interesting - fried our WiFi network and made all sorts of devices, from networked printers to our BluRay player, to my wife's laptop, completely useless because of poor connection. Now, it's been suggested that this problem can be solved by changing the channel on your router (we use a Cisco Linksys E3000), but again, I really don't want to be spending my time playing sysadmin for my wireless network when it's clearly the fault of a specific device with a noisy signal. We'll keep our reliable Angelcare sudio monitor for workhorse use and our iBaby for visual checking in, thanks.
