Customer Reviews

Angelcare Baby Movement and Sound Monitor Deluxe Plus, Blue

5 star:		(97)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

First a little background on myself and the condition this product is supposed to help prevent. I've worked in the medical field for over 20 years and I've had the misfortune to treat well over a dozen SIDS cases. One of the big knocks you'll see against this product on other review sites is that it will do nothing to prevent SIDS. Such reviews are usually followed by a personal story about how the reviewer had a child who died from SIDS or they had a friend who had a child who died of SIDS, and that they were told by the doctor that there was absolutely nothing that could have been done to save the child...that even if they had been there to witness the child stop breathing, that the child still would have died. I'm sorry to have to break this to everyone, but that's simply untrue. All of us in the medical profession, from doctors to nurses to paramedics, are taught in our basic training to tell parents this. I've told parents this countless times myself. Parents are already grieving enough when they lose a child, the last thing they need is to spend the rest of their life thinking they could have done something. The truth is that if someone had been there at the moment the baby stopped breathing, something MIGHT have been able to be done to save them. We just don't know because every case is different. Remember that SIDS is a diagnosis of exclusion. It's not a disease or other pathological process that "shuts down all the vital organs one by one" (as one reviewer claimed). What this means is that if a baby under 1 year old dies for no other identifiable reason, they're automatically stamped "SIDS," case closed. A good number of babies who die of "SIDS" are believed to die from some unexplained sudden apnea, whether it be too many blankets smothering the child or whether the baby simply "forgot" to breath, as some doctors believe. If a child suffers some sudden period of apnea, a person who is there immediately MAY be able to save them through waking the child or through mouth to mouth breathing. That is medical fact based on years of research. Hospital don't use $5000 infant apnea monitors for no reason. If they did no good no one would use them. This product, when used correctly, functions as a very suitable apnea monitor, and at a cheaper price.

All that is my way of saying we love this monitor. With my medical background and having witnessed the tragedy of SIDS many times, I'm hyper paranoid when it comes to our new daughter. I'll do anything and spend any amount of money to make sure I've done everything within my power to keep her safe. This product gives us peace of mind and allows us to sleep a little better at night. We've had no false alarms so far and the sound quality seems just fine. The night light function is pretty cool too. My only complaint would be it's not the easiest thing to set up initially. Sit down with a cup of coffee and be prepared to play with a lot to get it working just right.

SIDS isn't the only thing that this movement monitor can prevent. When our son was about three months old, the alarm went off at 2:00 AM. My husband and I rushed to our baby and found that he was limp and wasn't breathing, even with the alarm blaring next to him. Terrified, I put my hand on his chest and jostled him a little, and he started to breath again. (Thank goodness we didn't have to resort to CPR.) After that our pediatrician monitored our son for a 24-hour period and diagnosed him with reflux apnea. (He did - and still does - have a real problem with reflux.) Needless to say, I can't say enough good things about this product. Thank you, Anglecare/BebeSounds for saving our precious baby!

I researched several different types of monitors before deciding on this one. I am beyond satisfied with my purchase. The movement sensor is amazing. We have not had any false alarms. I know it works because the warning alarm (one beep) will go off 10 seconds after I take the baby out of the crib if I forget to turn it off. This monitor helps me sleep sound knowing that my baby's breathing is monitored. I think I would be getting a whole lot less sleep if not for this monitor. I read a review of it that said "If you are the type of person to get up and check all the locks before you go to bed, you need this monitor." That is the one that sealed it for me. I can't say enough good things about it. The range is amazing. We tested it all the way into my neighbor's backyard. It never dropped signal. I highly, highly recommend this product.

I'm a first-time father who's a worrier by nature, so this product is in some ways a godsend. It is well made, and well featured, and I may some day thank its makers for saving my daughter's life.

I'm happy but not thrilled with this. For the sake of skimming, here are my concerns in bullet form:

1) I found it quite difficult to set the pad sensitivity 'sweet spot.' The sensitivity dial goes from 0-5 (though the manual notes 1-5...perhaps 0 means the pad is turned off entirely, but this isn't mentioned, I don't think). When it was set at a more sensitive level (say, 2.5), it would detect movement even with no baby in the crib and no-one within a foot of it (and without an obvious source of vibration). With it set to a lower sensitivity level (1.5), we had lots of false alarms. The small dial range in between these points gets close to the right setting but doesn't get rid of the problems. This is NOT a deal breaker for me, and I'm sure experience with the product will help - but it is a bit frustrating for me. If you follow the spacing suggestions from the manual, there is a fairly large gap (perhaps 10 inches) between the two motion pads. With a 20 inch baby, there's a lot of the baby that isn't on the sensor. We just put the pads closer together, but I prefer to set things up so they look exactly as they do in the diagrams provided for fear that I'm using the product incorrectly.

2) I think the instruction manual is AWFUL. This might sound snotty, but 3 people sharing 6 degrees spent *hours* trying to get this set up. My wife (admittedly, chock full of new-mom hormones) was in tears, convinced she was an idiot (she's not. If you're reading this, I love you honey, and think you're very smart). I don't point out the degrees to sound cocky, and hope I don't come across as a jerk. But we are *not* stupid, illiterate consumers, and despite being fairly bright people, set up was far from easy.

One problem is simply the formatting of the instructions: I'm used to instructions that use "Step 1" and "step 2" style prompts actually leading you in a direction with an end point. These are more independent nuggets about what the product can do. Getting it up and running is actually quite straightforward - but it's much easier if you rely on your intuition rather than trying to follow the guidelines.

3) You have to have a pretty good memory for turning things on and off! Obviously, if you remove the baby from the crib so you can feed it, the motion pads will interpret this as something to be worried about! It would be nice if there was a way to turn off the nursery unit without it causing the parents' units to sound a warning that the nursery component is switched off! I totally understand why it sounds that alert, but if you're woken at 3am by the 'need to feed', remembering to turn off the two parents' units plus the nursery unit, and then remembering to turn all three back on...well, let's just say it's easy to forget!

4) As one or two others have commented, the sound through the monitors is not terribly loud, even with the volume on full.

I would buy this unit again and don't intend these comments to put others off buying it. I would *highly* recommend getting this set up well before your due date so that you're not trying to get it functioning when you're sleep deprived and stressed. Perhaps that was my mistake!

After 2 prior miscarriages and 4 years of infertility it was a miracle we conceived on our own, with twins, but we would have been happy with just a single baby. These two are our little miracles and we will always feel that way. So when the doctors told us they would be prematurely born (because the smaller twin has IUGR), I researched the conditions associated with premature birth. Some I could do nothing about, but one of the condition, SIDS, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, seemed to have a decreased risk if you monitored the baby extremely well. So I began to look for a way to monitor the baby constantly. I researched every baby monitor, and most seem to have very large monitors and audio setups, but I was surprised to find these expensive monitors ($200-300 range) had no movement sensor. MY wife wanted one of those monitors, but the more I thought about it, I felt I had to find one that monitored movement. I don't care about video or audio, because neither is going to tell you if the baby is still breathing at 12.55 in the morning when you're sleeping.

Anyway, I went against my wife's opinion, and searched out monitors that detected movement. The best rated came off of amazon in the UK, but I felt really nervous about getting the baby home and still waiting to get the monitor. So I looked for the next best things here in the US, and this one came up. I liked the idea that it detected movement, but that there was also two way talk, so you could soothe the babies, and that the monitor also tells you the room temperature, to make sure the baby isn't getting too hot or cold when you're out of the room. But because of the movement sensor, I went with the monitor. And because I didn't want to wait for delivery, I ran down to my local store and picked it up, even though Amazon.com has it for $20 less. And believe me, I would have rather saved the $, because my wife doesn't work, but I thought that, with all the garbage we had gone through, why take a chance over saving $20?

This was one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life. I bought this monitor now, about two weeks ago, knowing I was bringing home one of my premature daughters (we have premature twins born at week 30) very soon. I'm also glad I set it up a week ahead of time, as it took me a week to adjust the sensitivity so it didn't pick up the air conditioner or air purifier as "movement" on the sensor pad (which it will do and did with me until I adjusted the settings to a lower sensitivity. You'll find this too).

Anyway, our baby girl, Shaelynne, came home two Sundays ago. She came come early because she had no problems and was referred in the NICU at their "rock star". At home everything was going great. Her feeds went from 55cc every three hours to 70-80cc every 4 hours in just over a week. She never cried, was always happy. A great baby to have - we couldn't have asked for more. She is very responsive and loving. Each night she would sleep quietly, with the occasional cooing sound or baby vocalization. I would wake up, even with the monitor on, to go and check on her breathing to make sure she was ok. She did fine each night.

The entire time she was home, the monitor never went off once, unless I removed her from the crib and forgot to turn it off (which happened a few times)

Then all of a sudden, two nights ago, on the early morning of my wife's birthday (no, I am not kidding) the alarm went off at 12.55am and woke me from my sleep. I jumped out of bed, and saw her lying motionless in the crib. She wasn't breathing. Thank god the hospital had made us take a CPR class before we left, just in case of a SIDS or CPR situation. I used that knowledge to stimulate her breathing, and it worked. I brought my little girl back to life, and rushed her to the Emergency Room. She is now back in the NICU (Natal Intensive Care Unit), where she is undergoing round the clock observation to determine why this happened. They may not find a reason, as SIDS is closely associated with pre-term birth and low birthweight, both of which she had.

Were it not for this movement sensor (I now call it the SIDS sensor), my daughter would have DIED and been just another statistic in the SIDS column. This monitor clearly saved our little girls life and I can not overstate this clearly enough - spend the $140 it'l cost you. Get it home, install it right away. Do not wait. It will do two things for you - it'l give you peace-of-mind and should the worse case scenario occur - as it did for us - and this monitor might just save your precious babies life, as it did ours two night ago.

I would tell every new mother to make sure to buy this product. It works great. The monitor itself is awesome. I like the temp. component. I now know that my baby sleeps best at 73 degrees and this helps me keep her happy and warm. I also sleep much better at night now. Each time I take her out of the crib..it gives me a warning beep and then the alarm sounds. It definitly picks up on breathing movement even when she is on the edge of the crib. A small price to pay for a little more peace of mind! I want to tell all my friends to buy this monitor. It makes so much more sense than the video monitors. If I had only known about it sooner, I would have bought it when she came home from the hospital.

I love this monitor! I am a NICU mom who's first baby came home on a medical grade apnea monitor for apnea of prematurity. This product is the next best thing.

This monitor is surprisingly sensitive to the slightest movement. I have it under a mattress, mattress pad, fitted mattress sheet, waterproof mattress cover, AND an inclined sleep positioner! The directions were very clear and the device was very easy to set up. The range on the receivers (parent devices) is excellent even in the 'dead zones' of our house where our cordless phones don't work. The receivers not only give very clear sound but also show the temperature of the room. The receivers also have a sturdy little clip on the back so you can clip it to your shirt and walk around hands free. Oh and the receivers give you a warning when the batteries start to go, it beeps once every 15 seconds or so. I also love the little night light feature on the transmitter. It's bright enough that you can see several feet pretty clearly but not so bright to light the whole room. The wires that connect the pad (that goes under the baby mattress) to the transmitter are a decent length so you don't have to worry if you want to set the transmitter on a high bureau near the crib. The receivers hold their charge for a long time and use rechargable batteries (included with the product). The settings are adjustable and its easy enough to turn features on or off but I left the factory settings which work very well.

It is a very expensive monitor but SIDS scares me silly. Having experienced my first son almost dieing but for the apnea monitor (he was discharged from the NICU with an apnea monitor) telling us that he stopped breathing, I needed the next best thing for my second (my 2nd is a full term baby). I highly recommend this fantastic product (for full term babies, of course use a medical grade apnea monitor for wee ones who need them) despite the excessive cost. In my humble opinion, if you have concerns about SIDS then this monitor is worth every penny.

I have no doubt that this is a great baby monitor, however, do not make the same mistake that we did. The instructions clearly state that this product does not work with memory foam crib mattresses. Otherwise I am sure it is a great product!!

I originally bought the angelcare with just one sensor pad. It was nice but we had too many false alarms. The two sensor pad unit is a HUGE upgrade for just a little bit more money. Now,we rarely have false alarms and if we do, it's usually because one of the sensors got moved when we made the bed. This unit is perfect but I gave it only 4 stars because the volume level is a bit low even on the highest setting. You cannot hear it over the tv or any other noise, I cannot hear her if I'm in the shower. Or if the unit is next to me and someone else is in the shower. Just for comparison, my other intercom (a Sony) is MUCH louder and can be heard over ANYTHING.

I am a new mom and a little paranoid. Before we got this monitor I was up all the time checking on our son to make sure he was breathing. He slept so soundly that it was hard to tell. With the monitor I can sleep soundly too knowing that the alarm will let me know if he isnt ok.
We use it in his pack n play and it works great.. just placed the pad on a piece of wood.