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

***Update!! After 20 months of use. This monitor still works! Im impressed for the price. However, we recently moved and now have issues daily with the parent unit becoming unlinked from the baby unit.. even when we are in the next room! If we move it closer, it will link back up. Sometimes it will link again on its own. So thats a bit disappointing. The other issue we have, is the battery of the parent unit does not last. We now plug it in every time our son is awake, and unplug when hes sleeping to use. Doing this keeps it charged enough not to die. However its always at 1 or 2 battery level. Also, we have to keep it on ALL the time. Even if it has a full battery, when we turn it off itll turn back on and display low battery and need to be plugged in. While these issues arent deal breakers, they are annoying. But again, for the price Im impressed with how well its held up. Our toddler loves to play with it, the handle on top of the parent unit is cracked, but the screen works still! Still recommended if youre looking for a quality baby monitor for daily use that wont get too much abuse. *original review: Weve had our monitor for a few weeks now and Im pretty happy with our purchase. For the money, its worth it. We bought it as a supplement to our video monitor (we bought a WiFi one so our long distance family could see our little boy) and only needed something for use while hes napping. It works when the baby unit is upstairs and our parent unit is downstairs and on the patio with us, so the range is perfect. We havent had any issues with the screen dying or it breaking at all. The volume is loud enough for us to hear him when were spending time with loud company. And the sensitivity settings make it so we can hear him when he cries but not listen to his rock and play rocking in the background. My only complaint is the battery dies relatively fast, after using it for a few hours it displays low battery and needs to be charged.

**Update 1/5/2016** Since my below review we have used this many more times and Im happy to report that this is still a very solid performer. The range is great, baby noise comes through clear, and my previous complaint about the talk button being easy to press hasnt been a big deal. Four stars remain well deserved. **Original Review 4/18/2015** We have a nice Angelcare monitor that we use at home but wanted something simple we could take with us when traveling to our parents and friends houses. The VTech fit the bill budget wise and after one 5 day trip we have been really happy. Other reviews have done a great job saying what this unit does well so I wont waste time here reiterating those opinions as I agree with them. Couple of cons that I wanted to mention just to keep in mind before you buy, but note I would still buy this product again knowing this so I do like the product a lot. - Battery life on the wireless unit is not great. You will have to charge during awake time at least once during the day if not more. - No battery on the unit that is in the nursery. Minor concern for me since we are used to power outages which would render this useless. How many times is that going to happen though? Not a huge deal. - Biggest complaint is the talk button on the side of the parent unit is extremely easy to press when grabbing the unit. If you wear this on your belt or pocket then when you grab it you will almost certainly press the talk button which will send whatever noise is going on around you straight to the unit by your sleeping baby. Not ideal. Again, Im rating this as 4 stars so obviously I am happy with the unit. For the price, I think youd be hard pressed to find a better option and considering our needs it is near perfect. It is really compact and fits in a pair of shoes easily for simple packing.

I ordered this because I lost the parent unit to my old Vtech baby monitor. The one I had before only had one-way audio, and I ordered this one as a replacement for the talk-back feature because my kids are a little older (2&4), and I can tell them its time to go to sleep when theyre being rambunctious after going to bed. This one also has the rechargeable parent unit, so Im not having to replace the batteries all the time. That is a major plus! The sound quality is great in my opinion, its not fuzzy or anything. My old one did have a bit of a static noise to it, so thats a plus as well. The range is good, reaches all the way across the house with no issues. There are other features on it that I havent really messed around with - the vibration on the parent unit and the night light on the kids unit. I just dont find them necessary for my needs. Its about double the price of the one-way monitor, if I remember correctly, but its completely worth it!

We love this baby monitor! It works great. The sound is clear. The battery life is excellent, and we love the intercom feature. We do think that the warning that (loudly) comes on when turning the parent unit on is annoying, however, we finally found a way around that. This would make a great baby shower gift, too.

We have now bought a second pair of these for our second child because they work so well. You can plug in the parent unit or have battery. The sound quality is awesome! These were worth the money!

We have been very impressed with this monitor set. We replaced a hand me down Sony unit that was just triggering falsely too many times in the middle of the night. PROS - Small - Parent device has a battery - battery lasts for days (seriously...like 3 or 4 before we finally plugged it back in. it may have 5 or 6...just never pushed it) - good voice quality - two-way voice feature (can have a non-yelling discussion with spouse while upstairs in nursery) - belt clip on parent device - good range (I can walk around the outside of the entire house without losing connection) - visual noise/voice indicator - vibrate noise/voice indicator CONS - the volume just isnt quite loud enough on 5 (our old Sony was just as loud if not louder than the baby was when crying) - loses connectivity every once in a while for no reason The volume is loud enough to easily hear at night when the parent unit is in the same room as you. But if you walk out of the room and leave it behind, you may not hear it. Think about getting up in the morning to make breakfast...if the Microwave is on, you wont hear it. We ended up leaving our older Sony unit in the kitchen for that reason. We dont have to carry around a monitor constantly. Every once in a while, the parent unit will lose the connection to the child unit. Our master and nursery are on opposite ends of the house on different floors so we figured it may be just too much material for the signal to go through sometimes. However even when it drops link, I took the parent unit back into the nursery and it kept beeping at me for another 60 seconds. It doesnt appear to be a range issue, but more than likely just one of the units freaking out for a short-period. It doesnt do it enough to return the device, just enough to annoy me enough to note it in the review.

Love this monitor! We always run white noise in our nursery and were looking for a monitor that would filter out that background noise better than the video monitor we have. This one does that quite well. There is a little static in the background because of our white noise machine but it is relatively quiet. It picks up our babys noises from the background without issue and amplifies them so its easy to hear him. I havent tried the feature where it alerts when there is a sound. I just keep the monitor on whenever my baby is asleep and turn it to the volume level I want so I can always hear whats going on. Range is good. Battery is quite good. I only charge it at night. Highly recommend!!

Everything is great about this monitor except the battery life. You pretty much have to constantly charge it. The other features are great though, I love that you can choose the level of sound that it will start making noise at. The sound is clear even from across the room. The nightlight is nice, but not super bright so it is hard to use it for a diaper change, but still good

Bought this monitor a few months ago. Its great for several reasons: Sound sensitivity: we are first-time parents and like many parenting noobs, purchased an expensive video monitor. Turns out, the main feature we care about is filtering out all of our daughters tiny noises through the night (while still hearing her cries). The video monitor had no such sound filtering - but thankfully, this does. This audio monitor does exactly what we want. I have the sound sensitivity set to the lowest level so I dont hear her weird grunting or loud breathing. Just the cries. I never wake up to non-crying. I have it on volume 3. I tried the vibrate mode but it was too intense and loud for me. Further, Id read in the comments that it filters out the white noise and doesnt alert you to that; that has been true for us, too. The monitor doesnt alert us to the sound of the white noise machine. Good battery. It hasnt died on any night yet. You cant beat the price for the features and reliability. Also, fun hack: baby is now sleeping better so I really only want the monitor on after like 1 am. She occasionally cries in the 9 pm to 11 pm window for a minute or two but goes back to sleep. This is SUPER annoying to wake up to. So I plugged the monitor power cord into our old school christmas tree lights timer. When the monitor is connected to power, it turns on, so I schedule the timer to turn on at 1 am. It connects power, and the monitor turns on. No more early night cries waking me up, only the later night cries that may actually require intervention. Dont know of many babies who do this, but hopefully this helps someone. Its been a lifesaver for us.

Only the receiver unit, not the baby unit is battery powered. They should have made both battery powered. Finding a plug every time is a hassle.