Summer Infant Extra Camera for Baby Secure Pan/Scan/Zoom Video Baby Monitor (28920, 29250, 29253)

This camera was purchased for our second child. After using other types of video monitors such as Graco brand I would recommend this camera with correlating hand system. The reception quality is great. My handset images are clear. The system is in color or black and white depending on the brightness of the nursery, which is most helpful for daytime napping.It has a wide, quick pan/scan option so I can check the whole room for those nights the cat snuck in the nursery behind me. I can check the whole room, not just a wimpy screenshot of the bed (like my last monitor).I have two wishes for this system that would make it a dream:1) the ability to tell me the temperature of the nursery- it's a delicate balance. I have had winter and summer babies and struggle with temperature control in both seasons. the worst feeling is going into the nursery two hours later to feel ice cold hands or sweat soaked swaddle blankets. knowing the exact number that works for my baby (in combination with which blankets etc) would help me set the nursery exactly.2) slightly better zoom in. it has 'one click' further zoom. My crib is about 1.5 feet from the camera. I can see my infant and his shape but I cannot see well enough to 'see the breathing.' Experienced parents, you know what I mean when I say you wake in the night just to make sure they are breathing even if they haven't made a peep to wake you. How much safer would we sleep if I could roll over and see the breathing without walking into the nursery? much.Compared to my last Graco monitor this one is reliable. It does not "lose connection" and need to reconnect. My Graco would suddenly disconnect and beep at me in the night-- the last thing you want is to come between a mother and her sleep! This hasn't failed technically in six months since the day I set it up.It was somewhat difficult to connect the second camera to the monitor. I actually had to use the directions (LOL). There's a button on the monitor that is not easily seen, without the pictures on the directions I was a little stumped. For the record my technical skills are considered average, I'm young enough to have taken computer classes in Elementary school. At least the directions were quality so once I paid attention to them it was a breeze.I'm thrilled the system I have allows up to 4 of these cameras! Bring on the babies :) I will be using these for years to come because even when the kiddos are sleeping well through the night, like my two year old, I still use it to make sure there are no shenanigans instead of sleep. He was once able to reach the powder from his changing station next to the crib. Thank goodness I had this awesome video monitor with wide view of the room to see everything and prevent the biggest mess ever!

This is our third Summer brand monitor and the improvement over the years is remarkable! This monitor has a great picture, battery life and controls. It's our first monitor with a pan and zoom function. Although this might not be a must for everyone, it is great for us since we have twins so we can move the camera around to check on both kiddos. Additionally, once they are no longer confined to the crib you can keep an eye on them if they are moving around the room. Because of this feature, the set-up was much easier than with our other monitors and if the camera gets moved or bumped I don't have to go into their room and risk waking someone to fix it. The picture at night is better than our previous monitor but not perfect. You can see them, and their positioning in the bed but not much more in my opinion. I'm attaching a picture of our monitor at night. There is no baby in the picture but you can see the crib, a blanket, and get a general idea about the clarity. FYI. The lines you see in the picture are not that pronounced on the actual monitor. It also has a function that allows you to talk to the child from the monitor. We really have not used this, but I'm sure some people find it quite useful as long as it doesn't frighten the kid:). The only feature I wish this had is a temperature monitor. I'd love to be able to see the temperature in their room mainly because it's a small room and the temperature seems to vary quite a bit from my room. I know some other monitors have this. Overall, it's a solid monitor with good features and comes from a company that we have had good prior experience with for durability of their monitors.

So, there are a lot of good things about this baby monitor system, and in fact I've had to buy 2, hopefully I'm done as it isn't cheap.Pros:- Good color picture in daylight- Impressive picture in pitch dark, it's a really great feature to be able to see baby with no light!- Pan / zoom is really useful so you can move the camera without having to wake up baby- Signal reach is pretty good, I can go out in my yard through brick walls and it works fine, I find that to be a pretty strong signal- Sound quality is just fineCons:- I have had to replace the 'monitor' unit as it started failing unfortunately (screen stopped working intermittantly, and got worse over time until about unusuable). I had 2 cameras for 2 kids, and there is no option to just buy the monitor itself without cameras, at 150$ it's not cheap.- I was pretty unhappy that the unit failed after about a year and a half. I know the electronics aren't the most expensive, but I would really expect better durability . I have to take off 2 stars for the failure of the monitor unit, that is pretty unfortunate.

After 2 and half weeks usage of this monitor, it broke. It stopped charging the monitor. We didn't drop or anything done wrong, we were simply using only night time to watch our 2 & half years old sleep. This monitor was our 3rd baby monitor from Summer Infant brand and all three had same problems of quality issues of the monitor not the camera part. This monitor cost not $50-, we paid $133-, and it didn't last even a month. So disappointed and won't recommend at all to anybody to spend over $130- for this monitor. We are returning this to Amazon for refund.....