Eye eye.
Keeping a watchful eye
on our younglings is just about the most important thing a parent can
do. But often, when we can't be there to watch over them for whatever
reason, we need a little technological help in the form of a baby
monitor. Gone are the days when monitors were all about waiting to
hear your baby cry – now we can see and watch the wee sprogs around
the clock, no matter where in the world we are. To that end, we
tested the latest baby monitor from D-Link, the EyeOn.
No strangers to networked WiFi home cameras, nothing about the details of the D-Link EyeOn surprised us... until we took it out of the box. Crikey, this thing is big! Not huge by any means, and sitting upon a shelf or bedside table it looks fine, but we were expecting something the size of the Motorola Blink 1 that we reviewed a couple of years ago. This is a chunky monkey and no mistaking, but nicely filled with useful extras.
First of all, the camera itself. Quite unlike the aforementioned Motorola device, the D-Link EyeOn Baby Monitor captures images in HD thanks to the 720p resolution. That means that the quality of sound is also very good (depending on your network connection), and we were happy to see (and hear) that there wasn't a lot of background hisses and ghostly moans associated with WiFi cameras.
Probably the biggest selling point of the EyeOn is the camera's ability to pan and tilt as you direct it. The smartphone app associated with the monitor gives you plenty of control over the unit itself, with the gentle panning and tilting thankfully not resulting in a lot noise. Once positioned correctly, you have a full 360 degrees of movement which allows you monitor an entire room: great for keeping an eye on more than one child in the same room.
The D-Link EyeOn Baby Monitor also features two-way audio, allowing you to speak to your baby should you wish to (or scare the crap out of the housemate in whose room you might have secretly stashed the camera), and also the ability to play music directly from your phone or tablet. This means that by having some kid-friendly tunes or nursery rhymes saved to your mobile device, you can play them directly for your child to hear. This is a nice touch and far better than the ghastly tunes and songs that often come pre-loaded on baby monitors.
Also included in the package is a 16GB microSD card; again a bonus compared to the competition. The SD card allows you to set the EyeOn to automatically record what it sees and hears when certain triggers are activated, most prominent of which being motion. You can also record images and video when viewed on your mobile device, but knowing that the EyeOn will record regardless of whether you are currently 'patched-in' makes the camera very suitable for doubling as a security device. Certainly the ability to pan and tilt makes this a far more appealing choice for home security buffs than the standard static devices.
So if you really have
to leave your sprogs on their own, you'll feel so much better with
one of these in the room. By far the best baby monitor we've ever
reviewed, the D-Link EyeOn Baby Monitor is also a very capable – if
somewhat large – home security camera as well.
Around £150