One of these days, someone is going to come up with a decent ‘mobilised’ solution for babies – I reckon I could write a functional spec within a couple of days – after all, I’ve got the mobile experience, and I’m the proud owner of one baby – with another on the way (eeeeeeeeeeek!)…
However, for the moment I have to put up with what is one the market for baby monitoring. Of course, if you don’t have a little ‘un, this might not be of immediate interest – however, I recommend you read on, as you never know, one day you might have one!!!
If you have read posts I’ve written before on babies and monitor (audio and video), you’ll know I am no fan – the tech in them is 10+ yrs old, and yet is charged at a stupid cost (often £100+) – because manufacturers prey on parents’ insecurities about what might happen to their precious ones….
So the other day the wife and I invested in a video monitor – it’s *new* tech (yay!) in that it sets up a wireless connection automatically (THANK GOD no manual pairing…..), and streams video over a bespoke, secured, wireless interface. It even manages around wireless (WiFi) networks 🙂
The video codec in use is H.264, and it sports night-vision, digital zoom (that actually isn’t crap), and good batteries – the parent unit is even in a mobile phone form factor!
Awesome you think… well it has omitted/not delivered on on some critical features IMHO:
* too small screen on the parent unit
* flashing light on the camera (baby) unit – why why why!
* no temperature monitoring
* no night light
You might think these trivial, but these are the killer features you would expect on a video monitor – yet they are missed out or not delivered right. There’s a supposed additional function to have more than one camera too – except they don’t sell cameras on their own either! Sigh….
Overall though a giant leap forward in the mobile space for monitoring babies… now if only some manufacturer of baby monitors were to read this post….. 😉