Baby Monitor HD app for iPhone and iPad
The next generation Baby Monitor - Watch & Listen to your babies from anywhere in the world!
***** engadget - "We quickly settled on Baby Monitor HD as our preferred app" *****
Simple setup. Watch & Listen to 4 Cameras at the same time! Audio Alerts, Background Audio & IR Night Mode.
Video:
* Digital Video - static free
* Up to 4 Live Video Feeds at once
* Retina, Pinch Zoom, Landscape
* Infrared Night Vision - no need for night lights
* PiP Picture-in-Picture for 2 cam setups
* Video Record to Album
Audio:
* Listen to 4 cameras at the same time!
* Digital Audio - avoid static
* Squelch / Auto-Mute - hides background noise
* Background Audio - use others Apps!
* Audio only option - save battery
* Audio History Graphs, 5min, 10min and longer
* Optional Alarm for audio dropout
* Experimental Foscam Push-To-Talk PTT
* Experimental Sleep Mute timer
Alerts:
* Audio Alert - extra alarm when baby cries
* 3 different alerts, work even if app is muted
* Adjustable Audio Alert level
* Local Notifications for background Audio Alerts
Away Mode:
* Use your monitor from the other side of the planet!
* Home/Away Auto setting - walk out the house, and the app keeps running!
* Easy config for 2nd IP Address/port for 3G/remote access
* Switch all cameras between Home & Away
General:
* CamScan™ - for quick & simple camera setup
* Experimental support for AppleTV
* Experimental temperature reading
* Experimental Foscam Movement notification
* Share camera with relatives via email
* Optional clock display
* Long Press video for Advanced Camera Controls
* Smart Dimmer - darker nighttime screen
* Customizable Themes
* The first company to produce such an App!
* App recently celebrated 3 years on the AppStore
* Well tested & mature product
* URL app shortcut: BabyMonitorHD://
* Includes shortcut to access camera in Safari
* No extra fees for remote viewing
* Active Support Group
Experimental:
* NEW: BabyPing - needs password
* NEW: YCam 1080HD video only
* NEW: Foscam FI9821W video only
* NEW: Foscam FI9801W video only
* NEW: Foscam FI9802W video only
* NEW: Axis 207
* NEW: Axis 207W
Compatible with:
* Foscam FI8904W
* Foscam FI8905W
* Foscam FI8909W
* Foscam FI8910W
* Foscam FI8918W
* Y-Cam Black S (YCB004)
* Y-Cam Black SD (YCB003)
* Y-Cam Knight S (YCK004)
* Y-Cam Knight SD (YCK003)
* Y-Cam Bullet Black (YCBLB3)
* Y-Cam Bullet White (YCBL03)
* YCam Cube
* WiFi Baby 3G
* Sharx SCNC2606
* Sharx SCNC2607
* Sharx SCNC2700
* MyCam2Go App - use 2nd iOS device as camera! (no IR)
Compatible but no IR:
* Y-Cam White S (YCW004)
* Y-Cam White SD (YCW003)
smallprint
engadget quote - Thomas Ricker, Senior Editor, Engadget, article 24th June 2011
Some features require admin account access. Requires a 2nd generation Y-Cam running firmware 2.35 or higher. New features should be considered experimental for a couple of versions. Alerts may pause the app. Not all features will be available for all cameras. Changes to camera firmware may disable some features. Quality when away from home may degrade, and audio buffer delay may increase. We cant read all reviews in all countries, therefore if you need to raise an issue, please contact our support group directly. If you have a positive experience with this App, then please take a moment to add a rating/review, after all, you probably bought this App based on such a review. Our business survival depends on accumulating as many good reviews as possible. To help improve the app, anonymous page view analytics may be collected in accordance with Apple guidelines. Refer to company website for attribution listings & licensed materials. This product is developed independently from Y-Cam, Sharx & Foscam. NOTE: Not to be used as a life saving device. Please continue to use a traditional baby monitor alongside this app. E&OE.
Pros and cons of Baby Monitor HD app for iPhone and iPad
Baby Monitor HD app good for
My wife and I are using our iPhone As baby monitor n we love it
Its a great app, been using it since our 6month old was born. New Video settings need work though, all it does is crop the video so all you see is a little corner of the image.
For the most part, this app is great. The only complaint I have is that the Background Mode is unintuitive and difficult to access. It seems that unless I want the app to run permanently, I have to drill a few levels into the app to turn the setting on and off. Also, it would be great if there was an overlay that was always visible reminding me that the app is running in the background (as Ive seen other apps do).
Ive purchased the Y-Cam app, a few others, and this one does everything better than them all. For some reason, none of the others would work with sound, but this app will allow youre configure the audio for those odd cameras that dont work with the defaults.
I honestly dont know what I would do without this app. My wife and I use it 100% of the time our son is in his crib.
This app has been great and the developers have solved any issues as they come up. My wife and I are very pleased.
The app does what it is supposed to do, so right there I cant really complain much. However, sleek and stylish, it is not. Boxy, cumbersome, and primitive, it is.
Heres a disclaimer no be gave me: you had better have some idea what the hell you are doing with a computer or setting up an ip camera outside of your LAN is going to be a very difficult concept to grasp. Took me about a week and a few different sessions and swear words to get it right. Baby Monitor HD online support is not going to help you. Head to google and start searching your cameras model, usually the manufacturer will have some direction for you.
App developers, here are some things to fix:
- when watching full screen you only have the ability to look at the screen in one orientation. This is house league.
- we dont need to see the diagnostics step by step hook up on every viewing screen, replace this with a sharp graphic animation or something.
- rough around the edges does not begin to describe this apps look and feel. Major overhaul needed, spend some money and start by redesigning the creepy app icon. Im actually embarrassed to show it to my friends.
- dont harass people with reminders to rate the app. I finally got so ticked and annoyed that you strong armed me into writing this harsh critique.
Here are some things you did well:
- the app shows video as promised. You can move your camera around using the app. The connection to the camera is surprisingly quick even on 3G outside the LAN.
If you need a baby monitor spending $10 on this app plus $100 on a good camera (I got a foscam, works very well) is a steal compared to the low rent dual camera setups they are selling for $300+ in places like babies r us. So Dad (or Mom) if you have a little bit of computer ingenuity go after this and set it up. The ability to add multiple cameras, something Ill be doing once our little one is born, is a nice touch and increases the apps long term usefulness.
Some bad moments
I bought this app to monitor my little ones. Picture is good. To get the audio I have to set my cameras audio to AMR which means, I get no audio anymore on my MacMini !!! Very frustrating. To have audio on my mac I have to turn it to AAC !!! Not to mention the apps audio is very bad, it sounds like "main street".
So, I think the app has to be improved. It is not enough for the money yet.
I just have purchased this app with the idea to monitor my child using a iPhone 6s and a IPod touch 6G.
Like the app it self was not enough expensive, you need to buy a extra app for the Streaming!!!
The video quality is and the zooming is working fine.
The Audio is absolutely not working! I mean you literally not hearing anything.
The apps itself it seems is made in a cheap and low quality.
My opinion, there are plenty apps here For FREE! To monitor your childs with a second phone or iPod, so I will suggest you to stay away.
bought this for my ipad 2. Two complaints:
1. the display doesnt rotate when I have my ipad on the stand landscape.
2. the application doesnt give me the option to prevent the ipad from locking / going to sleep. Why do I have to tap the screen every 10 mins when monitoring? It should prevent the ipad from locking (like when I am watching a movie)
In hindsight, I should have stuck with the free y-cam viewer. Looking forward to updates that might rectify these
Latest Update: Crashes with iPod Touch 2nd generation now. What is going on with these updates? The app was great, then these last two updates with swipe dimming and now crashing with iPod touch and generation. Can you just re-sell the old version of the app as these updates are terrible.
UPDATE: the y-cam was recently updated to support AAC codec and now the sound doesnt work with AAC with this app. So MAC users can now not use audio from the ycam on both the iPhone and mac.
-------------------------------
Amazing App, set up and running in less than 10 minutes
Had the camera and sound running on iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad within minutes. Followed the instructions that came with my y-cam to set up upnp access. Then used the internet address provided in the cam setup screen to configure the away access on my iPhone on 3G. Works like a charm.
Read the help file on the app to config audio properly. Assign the cam a static IP on your router so the IP doesnt change.
My wife and I are going to use this set up as a baby monitor using an extra iPod touch we have.
Really cool app. The inclusion of airplay would be really awesome, so we could send the video and audio to the TV using Apple TV.
Have to do a reinstall often because it just wont work. Hard to say where my network problems end and the app problems begin but no other device in my house has such unreliability. When it works it works fantastic. Problem is it often doesnt work.
We used version 6.1 of this app for quite some time and it was an excellent app with minimal glitches. Since the 6.2 update has come out, the app is almost useless. We use it as a baby monitor and 6.2 constantly loses connection or stays connected but either the audio or video drops out and cannot be regained unless you kill and restart the app. The new version does not allow moving of the camera as the old one did. We have two kids in two rooms and so this used to work great to be able to monitor both reliably with any of our idevices, but now since updating it is so unreliable that we have has to go back to our audio only baby monitors as we never know whether we are getting sound from one or two rooms (since the visual audio monitor still works but no sound is output sometimes) if it even is working at all. Also the old version always produced 15-20 frames per second and on the new version we are lucky to get 5 fps. I am hopeful for an update that will make it useable again as I really loved this app but it is far too unreliable now to use.