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!

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!

An update at 7 months: I still like this monitor. I haven't had any problems at all with it. It has great range and reliability, even when the rest of my wireless devices have trouble maintaining a strong signal in my house. Battery life on the parent receiver is pretty good. Picture is decent enough, though I'd always appreciate higher resolution, mostly to reassure my wife that yes, I can see the baby breathing. Anyway, that's all I have to add. I would still recommend this device after becoming very familiar with it day-in and day-out. My original initial thoughts: There's probably not much more I can add about this product; it seems very thoroughly and positively reviewed by others. I waffled for a while over whether to get this or a real quality webcam, like a Dropcam or something. My thinking was that the Dropcam would be better quality video, I could feed it to a DVR and/or a remotely accessible IP address, and I could use it for normal home monitoring after the baby is grown. Ultimately, I decided the purpose-built baby monitor was the way to go. No need to pull out my phone and open an app or a website each time I want to see what's going on in the nursery. No need to run wires all over the house, buy extra equipment, and worry about securing a home video stream. And by the time we're done having babies and done using this video monitor, there will be plenty of other cool stuff on the market that I'd rather have for home security and surveillance anyway. Plus, I've set up IP cams for a friend's nursery, and I understand that the average technophobe couldn't handle that without compromising the security of their video stream and their local network, so...this is a fine solution. I picked up this Infant Optics unit with my Amazon Mom + Registry Completion discounts, which brought it down to a reasonable price. I like the big screen, though the video quality isn't great. The packaging suggests that there are two lenses included, but that's kind of a stretch. There's the default permanent lens, with a screw-on "lens hood," which is literally a piece of aluminum with a hole drilled in it. No optical effect at all. Then, it comes with a "zoom lens," which you can use to replace the lens hood for a little closer view. That's nice, though I'd certainly appreciate an optical zoom built into the camera instead of a spare part that I will lose immediately. In any event, the image quality is pretty poor but not terrible. Again, I don't have anything to compare it to, but I'll definitely have to mount it like right above the crib so my wife doesn't freak out when she can't tell whether the kid is suffocating from the preferable camera placement across the room. Low light mode is also pretty decent, and the IR LEDs aren't noticeable in the dark. As others have noted, the interface is not well designed. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to use it, but things like brightness and volume should just be separate controls right on the side of the unit, rather than accessible via a menu. Voice communication seemed good, with no delay or feedback. I haven't tested the range, but I didn't meet any interference with the multitude of wireless devices in our home on 2.4GHz and 5.0GHz channels. I like that both the camera power and parent unit charger use what I assume is a straightforward USB-to-MiniUSB interface, so they'll be easy to replace if anything gets broken or lost. I feel like these things (baby monitors in general) should be a little better than they are for the price at this point. Like, this thing must be dirt cheap to manufacturer with parts from 2005, but this does seem like the best of the bunch available now in 2015. Add in optical zoom, some wireless networking controls, a vibration alert, and a red color cast to the screen for bedtime viewing; improve the user interface; bump up the CCD and screen resolution significantly; and maybe let me take snapshots to show my wife the silly positions our daughter gets into. Then you'll have a great modern video monitor that will impress the tech folks like me who would rather just use a proper high-res webcam. Hell, offer a DVR version for $50 more that continuously records video to an SD card like a dash cam. You can pay me later for these genius ideas.

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.

Okay, this is my fifth video monitor. Sixth, actually, because I replaced a Motorola one. I started with the Wi-Fi baby monitor, which my friends have liked. When I set it up it was easy but the camera wasn't very good. Also I needed a phone or some kind of device to check on the baby which didn't make any sense to me once I got it out of the box, because you want to monitor going all the time. So I returned that and I did a lot of research and ended up with the Motorola. The Motorola had a very good camera but it said pan and scan on the box and it was just a manual pan and scan. It had a temperature reading which I liked, and lullabies which is stupid. The reason the Motorola ultimately failed is the battery life And more importantly, the USB cable stopped charging that the damn thing. The connection was bad. So I returned that for another one, and that took even less time for the USB port to fail. Then I got a Summers infant wide angle camera, And the picture on that was truly craptastic. Maybe it was good for getting a wide angle of the room but you could make out almost no detail at all on the night vision. It was like watching my baby without my glasses on and I need my glasses. So finally I ordered this product and I also ordered one other video camera called easy at home. The easy at home camera was a lot cheaper; it was only $100 but it didn't have the temperature gauge which I decided I liked and there was a slight buzzing from the parent unit. That might've been solved with figuring out the interference, but then I realized I didn't need it once I opened this infant optics camera. So far I love this camera. It's got two lenses which is very cool, the pan and scan function is automated and can be controlled from the parent unit which is excellent. Before, with the Motorola, if the camera wasn't quite pointing at the baby, we would have to sneak in the room and move it and this one I can just do from the comfort of wherever I'm sitting. It's got the temperature function in the picture is very very very clear. The menu items and functions on the parent unit are very intuitive, and even better, so far it has a very excellent battery life. The Motorola, honestly, lasted about half an hour when not plugged in. This one I haven't tested to its limits but it's goes an hour or more without losing a bar. Plus, smartly, this one comes with a second charger, so you can leave two plug-ins in different places in the house where you normally will be in leave the thing plugged in all the time. The only thing that worries me about this one is it also has a USB micro charger, and that was such a disaster with the Motorola that I am wary, but hopefully this won't be a problem with this one. So I hope this was helpful for you. There are so many options out there and as parents we always want what's best for our child, but it's helpful when a product actually works and isn't garbage.

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!

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!