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Over the course of my career, I've tested out quite a few baby monitors. The timing of these tests overlapped—by design, of course—with the years in which our household actually needed a baby monitor, having young kids herein, and it’s bittersweet to realize that those years are nearing their end. That’s because our youngest is now more than old enough to simply get out of bed and make her way to our room when any need arises, be they serious, like required potty assistance, or more like a requirement of additional snuggles. Which can also be serious business.
But as we’ll still be using a monitor for at least a handful of months more, if not for another year or so, I’m glad I got to try out the Motorola PIP 1510 Video Baby Monitor, which may well be the last one we ever use. And which would have been my go-to choice for baby monitors had it been on the market years ago.
Why? Because this monitor simply checks all the boxes—and more. It has a high-def camera that gives you a crystal clear picture by day or in night vision mode. It also plays pre-recorded lullabies and soothing sounds to help your little one stay asleep throughout the night. It offers two-way talk functionality, and it shares real-time data on things like room temperature and sound levels.
But lots of monitors do all that, of course. And many do so while costing a lot less than this one, frankly speaking. But this monitor has two more features that truly set it apart in my book. The first notable feature is that you can connect to the camera unit in your kid’s room via an included parent unit or via a smartphone app. That means you can quickly and easily check in on the nursery when you’re nearby (or up to 1,000 feet away, in fact) with no wi-fi even needed, or that you can check in from anywhere on earth you have a signal via the paired app. I’ve had frustrations aplenty with many baby monitors that only work via parent unit or via phone or tablet, so the option to use either is a great relief.
But several monitors these days offer that flexibility, even some very good ones I have personally tested, like the ChillaxBaby Daily Baby DM640, a unit comparable to the PIP 1510 in many ways.
So what’s the second feature that sets this Motorola video monitor apart? Something I never much worried about when the kids were small enough to be confined to cribs: movement. Not only does this monitor have all the basic features like night vision and temperature monitoring and such, and not only can it be accessed via local hardware or smart device from anywhere, but its camera can pan, tilt, and zoom at your command. That means you can still check on a kid even if she moves from one far end of the bed to the other or gets out of bed entirely. The variable field of view allows for much closer tabs on the kid without us having to invade her space (AKA wake her up) and that’s a comfort for all of us, albeit in differing ways.
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