Comments on: Curse of the baby monitor

By: Jason Dragon

Jason Dragon — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:48:49 +0000

Most baby monitors work on the exact same frequency as an wireless internet router. This also happens to be the same as most older cordless phones and also microwaves. If you use any of these devices try turning off these devices and see if it fixes your problem. If it does you know what the problem is. These signals can travel for up to 1000 feet so if you have a house near you the problem could be in that house.

Because you are a blogger I would bet you are techie and probably have a router. If that is the problem try to change the router channel to either the highest or lowest and change the baby monitor to the opposite.

I own a computer store so we never did buy a baby monitor for our son, I simply found some old security cameras with sound and night vision that was extra from a job we did a while back and I set them up, they work great. Perfect sound and even in a pitch black room I can see great. The only problem is now we have little wires taped to our baseboards.

Hope this helps.

Jason Dragon
http://blog.capitalactive.com/

By: maleesha

maleesha — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:28:15 +0000

We also had better luck with the cheapos instead of the expensive-o’s. I know that ours are mostly okay, but we do get a little static, and every now and then we can hear some talking on them from some radio wave somewhere.

By: emuleman

emuleman — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:16:27 +0000

Our cheap $40 monitor is still working ok, but it has only been in use for 6 months.

Thanks for the entertaining blog, will check back often.

By: shannon maccuaig

shannon maccuaig — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:45:34 +0000

hmmm… bummer… can’t recommend mine which was $35 at walmart. though ours works perfectly, everyone i know says they got tons of interference with it…
maybe you could try it at another house and see what happens there…? GOOD LUCK!

By: thisiskat

thisiskat — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:10:48 +0000

Hey, nice blog. Just stumbled on it today. I would agree that interference is the problem…there’s just so much of it these days! We had an old garage sale version that worked like a charm – but that’s over 7 years ago now, in the pre-Made-in-China days.

Best of luck to you! I know we got a lot of use out of our monitor (more for doing stuff around the house at naptime than during the night).

By: Marianne

Marianne — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:50:53 +0000

I agree that if it’s happening with more than one type of monitor, it is likely interference from something — and might not even be within your own home. We get occasional interference on ours but we think it must be from the neighbours microwave because it never lasts long. You might need to try a monitor with a different frequency range — some are less likely to have interference than others, but I don’t understand the science behind it so I can’t suggest what might work best.

Oh, and I think the monitors are useful for toddlers with or without epilepsy. But then, I have what my husband and I refer to as the “paranoid parents monitor” — you know, the one that monitors breathing as well as movement. We had bought a very simple sound one, but when our daughter had her apnic episodes in hopsital and stopped breathing, my husband when home and returned it and bought the fancy schmancy thing.

By: fawnahareo

fawnahareo — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:40:04 +0000

Hrm, I don’t know if that makes me feel better or worse…! But thanks for the encouragement, Robin.

By: Robin

Robin — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 08:04:24 +0000

Something very similar happened to us, and once the monitor stopped working NONE of the other ones we tried worked either. The only thing we could think of is that some electric appliance / cable tv / wireless internet / something else entirely is causing interference and preventing the monitors from working. Our kids were old enough that we finally gave up, but it will definitely be a problem if we ever have another baby. I hope you find a solution that works.