Summer Infant In View Digital Color Video Baby Monitor review: The Summer Infant Video Baby Monitor nails the basics

With so many video baby monitors and smart cams that cost between $200 and $300, finding a product with both a camera and base station monitor for $130 seems like a steal. And that's exactly how much the Summer Infant In View Digital Color Video Baby Monitor will set you back.

6.4

Summer Infant In View Digital Color Video Baby Monitor

The Good

The Summer Infant Video Baby Monitor is affordable, and the basics work well for the most part. You can have it up and running in under a minute.

The Bad

Reliable night vision is notably absent from the features, the resolution is low and there are some minor connection problems.

The Bottom Line

The Summer Infant Monitor is a solid product if you're on a tighter budget, but some missing features mean it won't work in every situation.

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Of course, for a lower price, you'll also get fewer features. That means no app connection, no pan/tilt control, and most notably, no night vision. The device still works, but the missing features definitely limit the use cases.

For instance, you can really only use Summer Infant to monitor your child from another room, because there's no remote viewing via an app. Again, most people use monitors when they're just a room away, but I like having app connection, so you can check in with your child when you've left them with a sitter.

The Summer Infant also won't monitor a whole nursery very well, because you can't move the view to follow your child around a room. Finally, the room must always be at least somewhat well-lit. Otherwise, you can't see anything.

All these limits mean Summer Infant is best suited for monitoring your napping kiddo from a room or two away -- and only if that room has some light. In that capacity, it works well. I especially like one design feature: a small LED strip along the top of the base station monitor. The strip lights up as the camera senses sound, so you don't necessarily need to keep the monitor volume up -- you can just keep an eye on the lights.

Besides the lacking features, Summer Infant works pretty reliably. Its streaming resolution is too low to see if your child's eyes are open or closed from a short distance, but you can see major movements and hear sounds. Similarly, the connection between the monitor and camera sometimes cuts out, but in my time with the device, such cuts were rare and brief.

Overall, Summer Infant's Monitor is basic, but reliable. You'll need to make sure the crib has some light around it at night, so you can still see the baby, but getting a camera and base station monitor for $130 isn't a bad deal.