Infant Optics DXR-8 Add-on Camera (Not Compatible with DXR-8 PRO)

This camera was perfect for our first kid! However, it’s not ideal for two kids. We bought the extra camera, and connecting to the monitor was very easy. The part that I don’t like is the “scan” feature which is supposed to go back and forth between the kids room and it does just that but not all the time. I’ll set it on scan when I put our kids to bed, and an hour later it will stop scanning and just stay on whichever room it was on. I found this out the hard way when I couldn’t hear my new baby crying cause the “scan” was stuck on my toddlers room. It will still say it’s in scan, but it’s not scanning. So before I go to bed I have to just put it on the babies room. Thankfully 99% of the time my toddler sleeps through the night. It’s annoying that it doesn’t scan all the time. If I would have know this I would of bought a split screen monitor system.

We ordered an additional camera for the arrival of our second child. I love Infant Optics and not only is it a great product, but their customer service is amazing. We had originally received the Infant Optics monitor and camera when expecting our first child almost three years ago. Recently the night vision on that camera started to have issues and even though we were way past the one year warranty, they went above and beyond to resolve the issue for me.

We bought our first monitor for our son two years ago. We never realized the infrared sensor was not working and therefore, the night vision was poor. We thought it was just the system, so we stuck with it in order to avoiding purchasing a whole new monitor system with a different brand. Our second son was born recently and we purchased an add-on camera. We couldn’t believe the difference in quality. We called the company and that was when we realized the sensor must have come damaged with our original camera. However, since the one year warrantee had lapsed, they could offer us a 50% discount for a replacement. Customer services was quick and responsive. We did need to buy a separate zoom lens and battery replacement (with a much longer life), as well as a wall mount. Seen below: -Zoom lens: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ECGX24E/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 -Battery replacement: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074J5B2LW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 -Wall mount: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RZCRW7X/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I do wish it came with the technology to automatically switch to the room where a child is crying or making noise as opposed to always remaining on scan. In addition, it would be nice to be able to access the monitor though an app on my phone so I did not always need to bring the monitor with me (the range does reach a little outside the house).

This unit is perfect for caring due my elderly parent with Alzheimer’s. I have 4 cameras and one monitor. I can easily switch from one room to another which will allow me to get something done while knowing where he is and that he’s safe. I’ve even been able to go water the garden and feed chickens outside 70-90 feet away from the house with no issues. I honestly can’t review the zoom cuz I’ve never used that, but both daytime and nighttime are clear, easy to hear, able to scan the entire room, and able to help me sleep at night knowing I can check on him from my own bed. I tried another brand and I loved that the screen on the monitor was much larger, but when I would go outside I could not see him well if he was in a dim room and couldn’t make it to the garden or chicken coop without it disconnecting. I prefer this brand.

Overall, this camera is great value (good quality for low cost). The picture quality, battery life, and overall ease of use are all excellent. The reason for holding back on the 5th star is due to the brightness on the night vision mode. The sheets in our baby’s bassinet (and crib) are all white and a highly reflective material, thus the night vision shows up on screen extremely bright (even on the lowest brightness level/setting). Accordingly, the brightness of the night vision causes some eye strain when taking a peek in the middle of the night. The only other comment/observation I have is related to the built in temperature sensor. Although it seems like a relatively handy feature, and the sensor seems fairly accurate, it’s only useful if your camera is mounted close to the baby’s sleeping area. In our nursery, the camera is mounted near the ceiling, high above the crib. Because of that, the temperature always appears to be 3-5 degrees higher than the actual temp near the baby(Heat rises), so if you intend to place this camera more than 3-5 feet away from the baby, I’d recommend buying an alternative temperature sensor, as you won’t be able to reliably utilize the temperature reading.

UPDATE: I absolutely HATE this monitor system. First, this company is inflating their reviews by including a message in the box for the device that asks customers to post a review in exchange for a free second camera (valued at $99 here on Amazon). We played along because we needed a second camera. I hate that I’m probably part of what has made this company so successful. My best friend just bought this monitor because of the reviews even though I continue to talk her into returning it! Ugh! The picture on this monitor is awful quality! We used to have a Summer monitor that was so much better quality. I do like the interchangeable wide angle lens (the only thing I like—which you’ll pay an extra $20 to own). I hate that the speaker for this unit is on the BACK! You have to lay it on its face to hear at night. Standing it up risks it falling over and you not being able to hear. But if you are worried about hearing your kids, you shouldn’t buy from this company at ALL! We just discovered today that if you have the monitor on scan and a camera gets unplugged, it stays on that camera (the unplugged one) and STOPS scanning. We woke up to find our baby covered in dried vomit. It was everywhere like he had been crying for us. Did we hear him? No. By strange coincidence, the monitor in my daughter’s room was unplugged. The monitor was only showing her unplugged warning screen instead of switching to my son’s room. What a terrible flaw! In the product’s defense, I had turned off the alarm feature (not understanding it). I turned the alarm back on high and recreated the scenario to find out that the unplugged monitor does create an alarm, but the camera stays on the warning screen and does stop scanning. So angry about my baby being put through all that. If you still decide to buy this piece of junk, don’t turn the alarm off ever! But seriously, find something else. I am so sorry we bought this and even sorrier that we kept it after we realized this company was scamming the Amazon reviews! INITIAL REVIEW: We purchased this monitor system over the weekend and found the set up was easy. We added on an additional camera today to try the whole thing out and it seems to work well for us so far. Pairing the new camera was simple. I like how the camera can point at a lower angle than our previous Summer monitor. Downsides are that I wish it could do split screen and automatically stay on a camera if sound is detected. I prefer that instead of scanning. Another downside is that the monitor light seemed a bit bright in our room last night. I wish there were a way to turn it down or off. Overall though, it appears to be at least as good as our old Summer monitor and probably a bit better.

Update on 12/15/2020: The replacement monitor that was provided by the company, under warranty, failed at just 1 year, the screen freezes and I have to remove the battery and disconnect the power to reset it before putting it back to turn on again. Imagine your child crying and you have no idea because the monitor froze in the middle of the night. Customer service says its out of warranty, fair enough, but dont expect to buy this and use it for more than 1 year, 3-ish years max if it failed in the warranty period and they replace it for you. They offer me either to pay 45 to repair it, which includes shipping or 50% off to buy the new monitor. Imagine buying an Iphone and it fails after the warranty period is over and you have to pay to repair it or buy a new one at a discount, without assurance that it will last more than 1 year. This unit is not cheap and $165 for monitor and camera, then another $100 for an additional camera. I paid close to $300 for this thing and now its worthless. Correction to my initial review, not worth buying anymore. Original review: I purchased this about a year and a half ago when my twins were born, plus the additional camera so I could have one camera on each child. Recently, the monitor unit would not turn on and I was outside the warranty period. I contacted customer service and they walked me through a couple of steps to test the unit and see if we could reset it, that failed. They were so kind to provide me a replacement unit, I had to ship the broken one back. Kristine was very helpful throughout the whole process and walked me through everything step by step. One of the features I particularly like about this unit is the temperature monitor, since temperatures can differ from room to room, it allows me to adjust the thermostat accordingly so it doesnt get too hot for them in the summer or too cold for them in the winter. Picture quality is really good, quality is affected by the distance, so test how far you want to place the camera before mounting it, mine are mounted on the wall pointing downward. This is an expensive unit, but good product and good company. Worth buying.

This is a pretty good product, easy to use, does what it needs to most of the time. The only exterior design flaw is that its not very stable, rounded edges and an off center support make it easy to knock over. falling over exacerbates the second issue. The battery connection is absolute crap. It jiggles loose constantly and youll suddenly find that its just dead despite having been plugged in all day.They could have found a dozen ways to secure the battery cable but they seem to prefer selling new ones. I had to shell out about $80 the week I bought the camera because there is no warranty on the battery and they did nothing to troubleshoot to problem. But, if you open up the back and press firmly on the plastic part of the battery connection with something hard it will go back to working until one of the next times you reach for it in the dark and it falls off your nightstand.

These camera are great. Easy to connect to the monitor. Picture quality is decent. It alerts through the monitor the temp of the room and sounds an alarm if the room it’s too hot. I’ve bought multiple for my house, been using it since 2018. The monitor it pairs to runs via Bluetooth and has a scan feature so it’ll switch between all the cameras making it easy to monitor multiple rooms with sleeping kids at a time.

The camera and monitor are easy to setup and use, and they work very well keeping an eye on things. I had a technical issue as well and had to call email customer support, and they were amazing with quick, friendly responses, but best of all, doing great work helping resolve my issue, so everything is good now. Definitely I recommend the camera and monitor because of the product quality and customer service!