VTech DM221 Audio Baby Monitor with up to 1,000 ft of Range, Vibrating Sound-Alert, Talk Back Intercom & Night Light Loop, White/Silver

This monitor replaced an older 49mhz analog baby monitor that we have had since our three year old was born. We still like to keep a monitor in his room just in case he wakes up before us or calls out in the night, which is rare. The old monitor was picking up interference quite a bit and was beginning to have problems, so it was time for an upgrade. This unit uses encrypted digital technology on the 1.9 GHz spectrum. Theoretically this should give increased range and eliminate any possibility of casual eavesdropping. Compared to the old monitor which had a single on/volume knob, this one is much more high tech. With that, however, comes a lot more settings that you have to (or get to) fiddle with. In addition to dedicated volume and power buttons, there are also menu and select buttons with which you can navigate an on screen menu of settings. This unit has a sensitivity setting, which is what Id call a digital squelch, a term from my old ham radio days. It lets you have complete silence until the signal breaks a certain threshold. Only then do you hear it over the speaker. This is disabled at its most sensitive setting. You can set a vibrating or audio alert to go off if the squelch is triggered. There is even a way to remotely trigger the nightlight LED on the base and a button to talk back to the child. This lets the unit function as a simple 2-way intercom, which is helpful for us in certain situations. There is no doubt that this is a full-featured baby monitor, or that it gives you a lot of value for your money. Each of these features works as advertised, and once you get it set up like you want it the menu and its settings arent that much of an issue. Even with the squelch on its second highest setting my bedside table has gotten a whole lot quieter thanks to its digital technology. However, I do wish that the transmitter unit had a battery backup that would allow for operation in a power outage or for easy placement during nap time. I also wish that the monitor had a back-lit screen or LED that let you know it was on. As it stands now, I have to turn on my bedside lamp to look for the word LINKED on the screen to make sure its on. My only caution here is that it may be a little bit much for a parent looking for a basic, reliable digital unit without all these literal bells and whistles. We have another digital unit made by Graco for our younger baby, and all it has is an on switch, volume buttons, and a physical vibrate switch. Theres no screen at all to fiddle with, and it has proven to be a reliable tool. If you are a technophile and want a value-priced device with intercom features, however, this unit hits the sweet spot. In my opinion, its silence and intercom more than overcome its minor shortcomings.

Distance was about 40-40 feet. Voice is clear and no buzzing or random noise from either end

Ive been meaning to leave my review for a while, but today after I dropped this monitor for the 100th time, I said no more! I have to let people know how durable this thing is. I purchased this monitor May 2017 so I could still monitor my cats whenever they are outside on the screened porch since I had put in a pet door, and I love this thing! The base unit has been outside on the lanai for 1 year and 4 months, and Ive had no issues with it. The parent unit with the clip is inside the house on me or near me wherever I am at, or even outside in front of my house far from the lanai if Im doing yardwork (I love the clip on it!). The sound is superb and so clear, it even sometimes picks up my neighbors conversations LOL. This monitor allows me to hear when one of my cats jumps on the screen to chase a squirrel or lizard, even if Im on the other side of the house or out front, and I can then run out to the cat real quick to get them off the screen. Even now as I type this and the monitor is in the kitchen with me, I can hear a breeze blowing, wind chimes softly moving, and the birds outside. I can even hear if its about to start raining because it picks up even just little sprinkles. This thing has truly been a godsend so I can have peace of mind knowing my cats are safe while they are enjoying the fresh air outside (only during the day supervised, they are never out there at night or when Im not home), and I can still move around the house and not have to keep my eye on them 100% the time. The most impressive thing about this monitor is its DURABILITY. This thing is always on me using the clip or placed near me wherever I am at in the house or out front doing chores, and because Im always moving around, this monitor has been dropped on the hardwood floor, tile and concrete driveway outside too many times that I cant even count (see all of the scratches, nicks and marks on the included picture). And it still works just as great as the first day! I would totally recommend this product.

I use the VTech DM221 to monitor a 93-year-old with mobility and hearing disabilities, although he is generally still surprisingly agile and moves about the house between bedroom and bathroom. Using two sets of DM221 I can monitor both locations simultaneously and track him continuously when he moves about with hearing acuity approaching that of the cat which follows him around. The price point for these sets makes this a feasible approach. However, under the current technology configuration, monitors from different sets cannot be linked to the same parent unit unfortunately. Why? Having two parent units side by side presents no major problems however and, given the sensitivity of the monitors over a wide range, ensures continuous tracking within and between various locations. I found no issues at all with the range of transmission so I can take a parent unit with me into the yard or basement of the house without losing sound quality or sensitivity. The quality of the reception within the wide parameters claimed by the manufacturer is extremely good. You can literally hear a pin drop at any location/room and it is so sensitive that it sometimes picks up extraneous sounds from the adjacent street. At times Ive heard that darn cat purring at a particular location when the animal must be at least 1.5-2.5 metres from the monitor. A persons normal breathing can easily be heard with monitor placed a minimum of 1m from the source. If these sounds become too much, just turn down the sensitivity on the monitor or the volume on the parent unit. VOX sensitivity level can be adjusted across 5 settings. Having a monitor that does not require the person being monitored to press buttons or even to speak (all sounds, normal and unusual, can be heard clearly) is a great comfort since a sudden stroke or accident may leave the monitored person unable to communicate verbally. With this monitor, allowing that you are attentive and able to interpret sudden and unusual changes in behaviour and patterns of sound, you will not miss a thing. I would have preferred to buy a 2-unit monitor set with a single parent unit to facilitate this configuration but only a 2-parent/single monitor set is available. Why? I normally cannot be in two places at once (although that feat is quite often necessary) and if I need to I can simply move the parent unit to a second location, with or without AC power connected. I can use the parent unit without AC on battery power which is sufficient to last at least overnight without AC power. (The monitor is permanently connected to power so no battery issues there. The parent unit should be connected to AC power most of the time to make sure the battery pack is fully charged and ready for mobile use). There must be different battery packs for different models to the DM221 or otherwise comments about lack of battery life on Amazon are just wrong. Australian customers must buy separate AC power plug adapters which are very cheaply and quickly available on Amazon AU. The units are compact, light-weight, durable plastic (although I wouldnt try a drop from a height) with fairly simple menu controls and the possibility to monitor sounds visually as well as aurally by observing LED sensors on the parent unit which register the strength of the source. The parent unit can be used to talk to the monitored person and, in my case, even if the deaf nonagenarian cannot determine exactly what is being said he does register the fact that you are there and attentive. The sound quality is so good that occasionally he understands simple messages such as breakfast/dinner coming and that is totally amazing given the quality of his remaining hearing capacity. There might be monitors on the market which could resolve a couple of the issues Ive presented for my needs/configuration, but this product serves my purposes extremely well, most especially in terms of sensitivity to sounds on the monitor side and sound reception quality on the parent unit side. If your needs are similar, just buy it. It works perfectly well under Australian conditions.

This is the perfect monitor that I needed for my Mom. She lives with me now, and I am her care giver. A monitor with a camera would be out of the question. She is 85 yrs old, and has fallen 4 times since living with me. The last time she fell she was screaming for help a couple of hours before I heard her. I bought her a Ive fallen and cant get up device, but she takes it off at night. We also use walkie talkies during the day, but if it is out of reach when she falls, that dont work. One time when she fell, my Hero Dog came and got me right away, but the dog prefers to be outside most of the time, so I cant count on that. Ive never used it while unplugged, so I cant say how good it is on battery power. I really like the push to talk button on my end, my Mom can talk to me without the need to push a button, and I can hear whats going on in her room at night. The sound quality is not superb, but it is loud enough to wake me if she has a problem. One reviewer said he uses this device to monitor his goats, so we call it the goat monitor.

I wrote a very long and angry review about the loud BEEPING you might see others complain about on here, but I fixed it by using the manual- I had the sound mute feature on without realizing it; I could still hear my baby on the device so it’s not like it was actually muted. However, that feature was on so whenever it picked up noise from her room, it would loudly beep. I turned off that feature, and I’m back to loving this monitor. We already have a camera in her room, so I just wanted something to be able to constantly hear her room during the night, and this does the trick.

Weve been using this baby monitor daily and overnight for 2.5 years and it is still going strong. As long as we turn it off between naps and plug it in overnight we havent had any issues with the battery life. It will silence if there is no noise or only low level noise in the babys room and start transmitting sound when there is a an increase in noise. The sensitivity setting is helpful if you want to hear what is going on all the time. The parent unit has a belt clip which is handy for moving around the house or working outside. Overall we have been very happy with the monitor.

Actually, I dont use this product to monitor a baby; I use it to monitor my dogs. With all the fans running in the bedroom at night this hot, humid summer, it would be difficult to hear their warning cries if they had to make an emergency trip outside. This monitor remedies that problem. We have a second one of these monitors also--the version with two parent units--and we use that one to monitor my wifes 87-year-old mother who sleeps downstairs. If she ever needs help in the middle of the night, well know about it. All of the components work great. The volume & sensitivity are adjustable. There are a number of other features, too (that I dont use myself), including a night light in the transmitters handle that can be turned on & off manually or can operate in an automatic mode. As far as durability, I have to admit that I have knocked the parent units off the nightstand onto a hardwood floor on more than one occasion, and have let them slip from my hand and drop about four feet, and theyre still working. The parent units hold a charge reasonably well, but it takes a while to fully recharge them again. Of course, you can charge/use them simultaneously with the included A/C adapter. [FYI: The transmitter does not have a battery option and must be plugged in to use.] There is a hook on the back of each parent unit, so you can roam around the house while still monitoring your child. If there was one thing Id change about this product to make it perfect, it would be to add user-selectable channels to the components. As I mentioned, we have two units. They dont interefere with each other--which is a good thing--but what if they had both been using the same frequency? It would be nice if we could select the channel used by each transmitter & receiver. From a business perspective, this would also allow VTech to sell additional parent & transmitter units separately (e.g. to replace a broken one or add additional monitoring capabilities), and then the end-user could just match the new component with the already-existing one. Anyway, wish list aside, this is a great product that allows you to remotely monitor a baby, the elderly, pets, or whatever you else you might need to monitor. It has proven to be a reliable product. ============= Update 10-15-17 Gotta reduce my rating. Ive had far too many sleepless nights because the parent unit loses its link with the transmitter. When this happens, the parent unit starts beeping about once per second. Its like an alarm clock. Now I dont really mind that... in concept... because certainly I want to know when the connection is broken and I need to manually check on whatever Im monitoring; but what I _DO_ mind is the frequency with which the connection is lost. This is a common problem, based on online research, and the consensus is that this occurs when you reduce the sensitivity of the microphone in the transmitter unit. Really? The sensitivity of the microphone should be completely separate from the power of the transmitter. Key word is should; but apparently that is not the case. So if, for example, theres a table fan running in the room being monitored, you have to listen to the drone of the fan all night because you have to keep the sensitivity set to the max. If you turn the sensitivity down, then you have to deal with the link lost alarm. Pick your poison... either way the result is the same, i.e. you dont sleep at night. This is a problem that VTech needs to address.

Works well once you figure out the settings that you like. Could be a little sturdier. I feel like one drop and this could break easily and be inoperable. Also wish it was battery operated instead of rechargeable. I have too many corded baby items that need regular charging!!!

I’ve spent some good money on these but different brand and didn’t work quite well as these. These are the only ones I’ll buy. I buy quite a bit due to what I do for my job.