Infant Optics DXR-8 480p Video Baby Monitor, Non-WiFi Hack-Proof FHSS Connection, Interchangeable Lenses, Pan Tilt Zoom, LED Sound Bar, Night Vision, and Two-Way Talk.

I hardly ever write reviews on Amazon, even though I purchase from Amazon all. the. time. But I know I spent way too much time poring over reviews of baby monitors, then buying the wrong monitor, then returning the wrong monitor, then finally buying this one. I have had this one for over a year now and this is why it is the best. I have three kids who are 5 and under. I have owned way too many monitors that sucked. I bought the expensive Motorola one and the sound went out a month in. These things can happen, sure, so I called their customer service and explained to them that I needed a new parent unit and they told me that I had to mail it back to them and once they received it they would process sending me a new one. This was less than 30 days in to owning it and I was going to be out a monitor for at least two weeks according to them. I tried to explain to them that this wouldn't work, but it didn't seem to matter. I returned to Amazon instead and ordered the DXR-8. 1. Features: I needed to be able to see two different rooms, have the parent unit switch back and forth, and also be able to move the camera on my end to scan the rooms. My two older kids share a room, and if I wanted to see both of them I needed a wider angle lens. DXR-8 has been awesome, there is maybe one area of the room that I wouldn't be able to see them but everywhere else I can find them. Color or black and white at night, either way picture is clear. It also does everything else I need it to do: displays room temperature and has clear sound. There are other features I never use, but I'm sure are helpful to others. My needs are pretty basic at this point (just knowing my three kids are in their beds is what I need these days!) 2. Ease of use: HUGE for me. I was able to set these up with kids all over me, asking a million questions, in about five minutes. When I had to pair a camera with the parent unit, it was SO easy that I actually have since been able to redo it in the dark. No joke. 3. CUSTOMER SERVICE: Again, this is a MAJOR reason I love this thing. Our parent unit just started to lose sound/video features. I tried a few tricks I found online, but nothing was really working. I contacted their customer service team, who asked me a few questions, then said I was out of my warranty period but they would still send me a new parent unit. All I had to do was mail it back any way I wanted, and take a picture of the unit's package and send to them. As soon as they got the picture showing that I had mailed the package they mailed out the new parent unit. It arrived in under two days. Set it up in five minutes. AMAZING. I think the trick with any technology these days is that things are going to break or there will be a faulty unit here and there. The customer service experience is what determines for me if it's a company that I will buy from again or support. Infant Optics has it figured out. This is the monitor to get!

We've been using this product for a little over 4 months for our LO and it has been pretty perfect for our needs. We did shop around a bit to look for a possible wireless option afterwards, but ultimately ended up sticking with Infant Optics and purchased an add-on camera so we could cover both the baby room and our room. Thought we had a battery issue at one point, but that was quickly resolved by checking the battery and seeing that the cable had somehow come unplugged. Picture quality is great, love the features. Really the only thing I would love as an extra feature would be the ability to have a second monitor - I've been hogging the one monitor and I know my wife would love to have one also. When she demands it, she'll get it - but that will leave me without one! ------------- *update* We've been using the DXR-8 for over a year now and it's been the perfect solution for us. We've come to expect all of these features as standard, and recently even tried a different brand and found it lacking several of the features we assumed would be standard such as camera movement and temperature gauge. Anyway, I contacted customer support because we were thinking ahead to our next child (not even pregnant yet) - I worded my email in a way that merely said our existing unit was "starting to show some effects of use"...nothing terrible, just that we've had it over a year and wanted to see what it would take to purchase another monitor because currently amazon only offers the combo of monitor/camera and we already have three cameras for it. So in theory we should just be able to buy another monitor for a cheaper price. Anyway, customer service immediately asks what I meant by "starting to show some effects of use". I explain that I had dropped the unit recently and the antenna had popped out a little, didn't think it affect the functionality. The camera is working - but every so often it would pop an "out of range" kind of message. Usually normal when we're in the basement but it happened a few times recently while in the room directly below the camera. Long story short, customer support said we were just out of warranty service period, but that they understood our issues and would be willing to send us a warranty replacement. They detailed the process - which involves us sending back the unit first. This was the only tricky part because we'd have to find a temporary solution in the meantime since we only have one monitor at the moment. We gave it a couple days to find a temporary solution then mailed the unit back. I just got word that they're 2-day shipping the replacement to us. And, again, after using the temporary solution we're finding out just how much we appreciate all the features on the DXR-8 unit. I couldn't be happier with it. We'll probably still buy a second unit to have two monitors going for two kids (they detailed an option to buy just a monitor for half price of the amazon combo with a 50% discount coupon they would send us). Highly recommend this product and this company!

We have been using the Infant Optics DXR-8 video monitor for 1 year now and felt we could now give an accurate review. If you're in a hurry, the summary of this review is that this camera and monitor are great and the customer service provided by the company is outstanding (see below). So stop hunting and trying to weigh all the baby camera/monitor reviews and get this camera and monitor if it provides you with all the features you want. You really aren't going to find anything better. We initially purchased this camera and monitor after spending way too much time pouring over all the options available to us, trying to find the BEST camera and monitor for our new baby. Our main concerns were getting a good camera with quality night imaging, good sound and an easily viewable monitor. We also felt we didn't want a system that sent our image feed off to some remote server where it would be stored for some period of time for whatever analytics that the company performed. The Infant Optics DXR-8 fulfilled all our wishes. Set-up: Setting up the monitor and camera was easy. We followed the directions and had no issues at all pairing the camera and monitor. The camera was actually very light and we hung it up on the wall so it could capture the entire inside of the crib. Again, it was very easy. USE: The monitor had a clear picture in day light and more importantly, at night. The monitors range was sufficient for us and we had no problems even after we moved baby out of our room and into her own as our rooms were on different floors. The monitor always worked great and we could always see the baby when we wanted. The controls on the monitor were easy to use and the buttons were large enough to use in the middle of the night with no light or light from monitor alone. We appreciated the simplicity, particularly when sleep deprived. In terms of battery life for the monitor, we had no issues once we figured out our schedule. We used it pretty much throughout the day unplugged and kept it plugged in overnight night by our bed, pretty much like our phones. Occasionally we ran out of battery but not frequently enough where we thought there was something wrong. It was all we could ask for. Customer Service: Now for the best part. Coming up on a year of use, the power button on the monitor began to stick. We started having issues turning the monitor on and off and putting it to sleep. It got to the point where the monitor turned on and off by itself sporadically which was problematic at night. We wrote an email to Infant Optics explaining the situation and hoping for a repair or replacement. We received a response on the very same day we wrote (Sunday!) explaining that a replacement monitor would be easiest. So we sent the monitor back through the mail and sent them a picture of the package and the receipt. Given this proof, they were able to send out our replacement before they received our broken monitor and we received the new monitor in the mail in 2 days! But that’s not all. We accidentally sent back the battery for the monitor which we were instructed not to do (The monitor still works without a battery if plugged in). So we wrote again explaining our mistake. Infant Optics immediately got back to us again and sent out another battery for the monitor. 2 days later we had a new battery for our new monitor. Conclusion: Honestly, we could not ask for better treatment. This is the type of costumer service that actually makes you happy and reaffirms that the Infant Optics camera and monitor was the right choice for our family. You can’t go wrong with this camera and monitor. It works great and it is backed up by outstanding customer service that provides peace of mind all new parents should be afforded.

This is *almost* a perfect monitor system in my opinion. I got this to replace a summer infant monitor I’ve had for about 2.5 years since we’re adding a child (and camera) and wanted something a little smaller that we could potentially travel with as well. Overall I’ve been using this a little over a month and it works well. The picture especially in the dark is better than the image on my summer infant system and I love that the battery keeps a charge for way longer (manufacturer says 10 hours). But here are my complaints: 1) no VOX. This is huge when you have an infant. Basically if the volume is off, you can see on the side bar if there is noise coming from the room but it doesn’t turn ON the monitor. The benefit of this from my summer infant monitor was I could turn the volume off and not be awoken by small shifts or whimpers from the baby but when there was serious fussing going on the whole video monitor would turn on, illuminating the room to wake me. This is also problematic for having two cameras in different rooms as I intend to do: the point is to see that both children are fine and if one starts to cry I’d love to see the camera immediately shift on to which room/camera is picking up the noise. Instead this one continues to scan at the 10 second intervals but doesn’t adjust to the noise. 2) the light from the charging indicator is super bright- as in it can keep me up at night so I found myself placing it face down until I covered the light with a piece of black electrical tape except for a tiny sliver to see the color indicator. Those are the big things. Here are some smaller things I’ve noticed that bug me- the little stand on the back isn’t adjustable so you can’t adjust the incline of the monitor. Either it’s standing or it’s flat and that’s it. It bothers me when I have it at an angle on my nightstand and I can’t see it from my position in bed. Lazy people problems. Also there is no immediate volume adjustment switch. You have to click the shortcut button then the volume. It’s an extra step that (again with lazy people problems) a new mom just ain’t got time for. Lastly, they make a lot of fuss about the lens options for this camera but I think most people like me would just use one and be set. I don’t know why I’d change up the lenses ever, that doesn’t seem practical or helpful. The regular lens on mine is already closer than I’d like it to be so I’m not putting the zoom (that came with it) on and I don’t *need* the wide angle. So that’s a useless feature as far as I’m concerned. Overall, it’s decent for the price and I’ll know more once I travel with it a bit but I’m happy enough for the time being but definitely not thrilled.

So the screen on our monitor stopped working, but there is still sound. Why the 5 star review? Because it is freaking awesome! We have had ours for 4 YEARS! Only 4 years you ask? Yes, 4 freaking years this camera and monitor survived many things others have not. The reason the screen stopped working is because I accidentally sprayed it with the hose. Not just. Light spray, it was completely doused, water dripping from it, type of sprayed. But sound still works! So, this monitor and camera has really been through some stuff here. I used it to watch our baby during nap time so I could mow our grass, tend to garden, just really do anything I could while baby slept. Along with the normal indoor use, it spent many times outside while I worked. I carried it with me everywhere in our yard, even the furthest distance in our very large yard from the house and it would lose signal for maybe a second and come back. Its been covered in dirt, dropped many many times on grass, concrete, rocks, etc. It's been sprayed with water numerous times, used during rain, cause work don't stop just because of a little rain. Fell in the dog bowl a few times. In the 4 years we've had it, it's definitely been through rough stuff. At one point, we did think we needed a new battery because it just didn't seem to charge. Then one day it had been charging all night and would only stay on for a second. So before I ordered a new battery for this awesome monitor, I wanted to try something I've done with other electronics. I took the battery out, held the power button for about 5 seconds and let go. Then put the battery back in, turned it on and voilà, the little battery icon shows fully charged. Had to do this maybe 3 or 4 times in the last 2 years. Which, no big deal right? Takes seconds to do. So, the monitor is awesome, definitely a survivor. Even though the screen doesnt work, the sound still works, both ways. I can hear and my son can still hear me talk to him when I use the talk button. The sound indicator light still works too. Which is pretty darn handy when you are using loud equipment. Now, the camera. Pretty freaking awesome too! Love that its small and portable. I love the option of lenses. Being able to have that close, zoomed in view so you can do what every parent does with their tiny infant and check to make sure they are breathing. What's also so cool too about this camera is even with the regular lens you can still zoom and the picture is very good though the monitor I could see my son breathing. I'd still go in and check most times, cause well, I'm somewhat of a helicopter worry wort type of mom, especially when he was tiny. Anyways, the camera has been through it's own toughness test also in our house. It's been dropped on the floor, fell in the dog water bowl a few times too, when my son was a toddler,I wasnt fast enough for him to come get him after he woke up, he pulled the monitor off the shelf and threw it, then stomped on it a few times...... you know toddler tantrums...... anyways still worked fine. One of our dogs got a hold of it once and drooled all over it. Still worked perfectly. Awesome, awesome stuff. The size of the monitor and camera is perfect. We have taken it with us traveling. Love that you dont need internet to work and you can just plug it in and turn it on. There have been times it lost connection while using my laptop. Solution? Very simple. What worked for us was making sure it wasnt sitting between the router and wifi device. Literally, it basically just took moving it from one side of the laptop to the other and it worked just fine. We will probably use this one till it just finally doesn't work anymore, but definitely going to order another set now so we have one with a working screen. I don't write reviews for stuff often. But, as I sat down to look for another one of these, I thought, this deserves a great review and hope it helps other parents decide on a monitor. This one has been great for us, it's definitely survived more than just the average use. Not even gonna try looking into what else is out there. Just gonna save the time and get another one of these. Hope this helps you make your decision. Have a wonderful day!

Posted in May 2015: This video monitor is wonderful! I hated my old baby monitor, a Lorex, but this one is great. I have no complaints. I really enjoy being able to pan the camera around the room if my son gets out of bed, I can push buttons on the monitor without any noise (my Lorex made clicking noises that woke my husband at night), I have taken this on vacation across Europe and it works wonderfully. I have absolutely no complaints. It is well worth the money for this package - we bought an extra camera for my daughter's room even though she is 5 so that I can keep an eye on her if she's not feeling well or something. The set up for the cameras is unbelievably easy - even during our trips the cameras remain paired with the monitor after I've unplugged them at home - so, there is no work to do once we arrive at the hotel (other than plugging it in). I have enjoyed this camera and monitor since the day we got it - thank you for such a great product! UPDATE to initial review - August 2015: My add-on camera began making an extremely high-pitched noise that I could not resolve on my own. I emailed Infant Optics and within 12 hours I had an email from Ann, the nicest and most helpful customer service representative I have ever dealt with in my entire 36 years! She is unbelievable. There was no hassle, no grilling me for detailed information, only a simple question of what I was dealing with and what I felt the problem was. Once I provided that information, Ann immediately emailed me back and notified me that she would be happy to send me a replacement. I was extremely happy, pleased, and impressed with the outcome and her proposed resolution to my issue and concern. I sent her a direct email thanking her which I will include here instead of paraphrasing... "Thank you, Ann! I really appreciate your help. The level of great customer service you and your company provide is outstanding and surprising - most definitely the best company I have dealt with in a very long time! Please pass along my appreciation and praise to your supervisors and management. If this is how you treat your customers I can only imagine how nice it must be to be an employee of such a company. I am beyond impressed and appreciative of the ease at which my concern was addressed and resolved. Purely outstanding! You are definitely an exemplary employee and customer service representative. Thank you!" I cannot stress enough to prospective customers how much you will love this product...and, IF there are any issues, you can rest assured that there is someone like Ann at Infant Optics who is willing to go the distance to help you resolve your concerns so that you can relax and know that the products are working perfectly and helping you monitor your babies. Too many people in the world don't get the thanks and appreciation they deserve and I was so impressed that I felt I had to add this to my initial review - Having companies and employees like this is amazing. I love knowing that they back up their products and customer satisfaction seems to be their first priority! From initial contact to full resolution this process took ONLY 26 hours (and partly because I live in Germany and we are on different time zones). Just amazing!

7/25/20 edit... I have had this monitor for years now, since my daughter was 4 months old and she is going to be five years old in September 2020. I simply cannot imagine life without it. I have multiple cameras added, which is the easiest system ever. You literally plug it in and it basically adds itself. Some cameras are in my child's bedroom, some in her playroom. Either way, I always have an eye on her if I cannot be in there myself. VERY USEFUL: 1...the pan around and full rotation. Especially having these in the playroom. She's all over the place in there and now, so am I, even when I am in the kitchen. 2... the time out setting for the screen. I set the screen time out function because like any other device, a screen left on too long is surely going to destroy itself. It will burn in anything that's on it, like the temp or the signal strength. This is especially helpful at night since I am that mom that still has the monitor on even though my kid is almost 5. Thankfully, I didn't have a screen burn issue, as I found that function years ago, but I see that other's have had that in their review. 3... Range. I have zero range issues. Inside or outside of a normal size home. House is 3200 sq ft. and I have about an acre outside that I go around with the monitor when necessary. No issues. I don't have a reason to venture further than that when my child is sleeping so I can't say how much further that would work. Issues... 1. Still having the wifi interference whenever a device is around it that is currently downloading or uploading. But that is ABSOLUTELY FINE because NO ONE can hack this device and look at your children or talk to them. BECAUSE it doesn't use wifi. So all it does is beep and tell you that it's out of range. And then all you do is move whatever device is near it with wifi out of the way and then it's fine. This is not something that is a game changer. It just makes you separate items on your nightstand a few inches. The monitor, the tablet and my cellphone are all within a 12" radius of each other and there is no issue. Very rarely do I have to move the tablet away. It's not a big deal. 2. the only other issue I have is the battery. I think over the last four and a half years I have purchased one extra battery. Other reviews have also stated that the battery at some point doesn't hold a charge. If this occurs, you can take it out of the unit, unplug it altogether and leave it out for a while. Don't try the 30 second trick. That never worked for me. But like ten minutes or so tends to reset it for some reason. Additional batteries are available for like $20 on here if it does get to the point that it won't recharge. Again, I am on my second battery and I bought an additional one which sits in the battery drawer just waiting for it's turn. EDIT******* 1/17/16 The only downside I've been able to find is that you cannot use ANY device that's using WiFi anywhere near the parent unit. Not even in the same room. In a busy connected household, its impossible to have any room that doesn't have a WiFi device. So its disconnected and watching a monitor or save your money and use your devices. Original review: We are loving this new monitor. We had a standard audio only model but have ran into some sleeping issues and some instant awake if anyone is anywhere near the baby. She's the world's lightest sleeper. We've been talking about moving her into her nursery from a shared room and knew it would be hard to creep in to peek at her due to my large old Victorian house. This house is very noisy on stairs, hallways and doors. Now I am able to put her to bed and have complete peace of mind. She's a mover so the pan around and tilting of the camera is awesome. I'm even able to check that the fan is running, her night light is on, and that it's not too warm in her room with the temperature reading right on screen. I only wish it came with more charging stations. I'll have to buy them separately. Husband is excited that you can continue to add cameras as she grows. He's thinking of keeping her "under surveillance" in her teen years. (This is a joke!)

I’ve purchased this monitor and camera kit twice. I’ve purchased additional cameras stand alone. I’ve also purchased extra lenses. I’ve used the monitor for about two years. As an electrical engineer, I feel confident in saying this product has a major design flaw that if I could go back in time, I would buy a different brand. Problem #1) The primary problem is the Micro USB charging port. The internal prong is poor quality plastic and breaks easily. Once it breaks, it renders the monitor unable to charge and useless. Given the portable nature of the product, taking it from room to room in the home, it is unplugged and plugged in at least once a day, but possibly more. We used our first monitor for about eight months when it broke. The manufacturer refused to replace it (explained later). Since we had purchased additional accessories like additional cameras and wide angle lenses, we felt we had too large a larger portion of money invested in this monitor to start over from scratch. We bought a second monitor. Like the first, the exact same port broke again after about 7 months of usage in the exact same way, rendering the monitor unable to charge. The manufacturer replaced the second monitor, but not without some hassle. With respect to their customer service, it is not the most accommodating. When I contacted the manufacturer about the broken port on the first monitor, they would not replace the product even though we had only used it for about eight months when the product broke. Admittedly the item was over a year old because we had received it as baby shower gift months before our daughter was born. I guess given the nature of the product (eg baby shower gift) and that it was unused for so long, it was disappointing they wouldn’t honor the warranty. They replaced the second monitor, but it was a hassle because we had to pay for shipping and we were without a monitor for about two weeks. I bought a cheap audio only monitor from the thrift store to get us by until it was replaced. I understand that since it is a USB connector, it provides flexibility to go from charger to charger and from room to room without needing a special charger. But being that the prong is of poor quality plastic, it is a moot point in my opinion. At the very least, they could have installed a reinforced metal prong, much like those found in modern mobile phones. Even then, I’ve known phone connectors to break too. It is my personal opinion that a standard cylindrical DC input connector should have been used since they’re much more capable of being constantly plugged in and out and since this is for charging only. I am unaware of any capabilities to transfer data via the Micro USB connector and therefore don’t think it should have been used. As a side note: when we received the replacement for the second monitor. I built a junky looking case for the monitor. You can see it in the pictures I’ve included. The intent of this case is to prevent cable movement in the Micro USB port, which I guessed was the cause of the broken prong. I know it looks stupid, but so far it works. Problem #2) Poor quality control in the cameras. We bought a second camera shortly after beginning use of our first monitor. When we paired and first started to use the new camera, there were about five or six vertical lines appearing in the video feed. Switching back to the original camera confirmed the problem was not the monitor. We contacted the manufacturer and at first they didn’t believe me when I explained the problem and were kind of rude. I was eventually able to get them to replace the camera, but I still had to pay shipping to get it replaced. It basically added $10 to the purchase price of a new camera and meant waiting for several weeks for the replacement (so much for two day shipping with amazon prime). Problem #3) Rechargeable battery goes bad after about 1.5 years. As an electrical engineer, I know it is the nature of rechargeable batteries to eventually go bad and refuse to hold a charge. After getting the second monitor, we put the first’s battery in the second monitor to keep the second’s batter new and unused. It lasted about 1.5 years before refusing to hold a charge. We’ve now switched back to the second monitor’s original battery. As a side note: when they replaced the second monitor, they would not replace the battery. This meant we had a brand new monitor with a rechargeable battery that had already been used for several months. I expect the second battery to go bad after about 1.5 years like the first. Problem #4) Only one monitor can be used at a time. Even though the first’s micro USB prong broke, occasionally if I held the charging cable in just the right spot I could get the monitor to power on until I let go of the cable. After purchasing a second monitor, I attempted pair a camera to both units. Unfortunately, you can’t pair a camera to two monitors at one time. This isn’t that big of a deal I guess since it wasn’t advertised as a capability. But I could envision that purchasing a second monitor (aside from the broken port problems) would be beneficial since you wouldn’t need to carry it from room to room in your home. In summary, other than the problems listed above, I’ve been pleased with the capabilities of the unit. The color, resolution, and audio are of good quality. If I didn’t have problem #1 listed above, I would probably rank this product 3 stars out of 5. If I didn’t have problem #3 listed above, definitely a 4 out of 5. We hoped this monitor unit and cameras would last us through multiple children, but it appears to only last at most 1.5 years due to the rechargeable battery going bad and maybe even less when the Micro USB port breaks. Given that the Micro USB port is such huge problem, I can’t give this product anything but a 1 star.

Great product honestly

Perfect for small houses

Pros: This is a great, easy to use product. The range easily covers my average sized house. The mic picks up everything and the video quality is good and pretty smooth. Pan and tilt works great. It is very clever of them to market early 2000s computer hardware as a security benefit, which it is. No one is going to traumatize your child over the internet with this hardware. I like to use the speaker to wind up my wife but I'm not sure what other use it has. Thermometer in the camera is a great idea. Cons: The screen is very bright, even on the lowest setting. If you use it beside your bed you will need to turn it off. The buttons are hard to read even in good light. In low light it is impossible. Small white text on a grey background is not a good choice. The power supplies are both wall wort moulded plugs with barrel connectors. International buyers will need to replace them and this is tricky and will add around 30% to the total cost. I find this almost unforgivable because both units could run on standard USB power. The display power cable even has USB on one end but it plugs in to the unit with a barrel. Non USB power supplies for low voltage low power appliances need to stop.

Tiene muy buena señal por toda la casa, la imagen es muy clara. Y con los controles del monitor se puede ajustar la cámara si bebé se mueve por toda la cuna.

We have twins so the remotely moving camera allows us to check both babies. I can not fault this monitor, brilliant day and night vision, excellent sound. Would give this 6 stars if I could!