Be there from anywhere
If you have ever been away from home and wanted more than a text message from the baby sitter to assure you your baby is sleeping soundly, then the Motorola Blink should be on your wish list this year.
Whether you are a parent on a night out, who travels away with work, or a grandparent who just wants to check in, the Motorola Blink1 allows you to watch the little one sleeping from wherever you are in the world.
Connect up to four devices to the camera; Mum’s Android smartphone, Sister’s iphone, Dad’s tablet, Grandma’s laptop and always feel safe in the knowledge that those that care for your little one the most can check in at any time.
Use the controls in the app to pan, tilt, and zoom the camera, whether it is to get the best possible view whilst your baby wriggles in their sleep or for those all important moments in your baby’s development. First word, first smile, first step…
The ‘Blink’ also boasts a two-way communication function so that you can read a story to your child when away from home. It can also handily be used to talk to your partner while rocking your baby to sleep.
You can be confident that the 100% secure ‘Monitor Everywhere’ server only allows those devices and users that you have setup, to have access to the camera. You are able to register up to four password protected users and Android and Apple smart devices to each camera.
Use the controls in the app to capture unforgettable snapshot & video recordings. Special moments like their first smile, first step, first word…and store on an SD Memory Card
The Motorola Blink is equipped with a room temperature sensor which is will show up on the receivers display. You can ensure that it never gets too hot or too cold.
The Motorola Blink is equipped with Infrared technology which means you can see in your baby’s room without having to switch on any lights which will disturb the babies sleep.
Lull your baby to sleep with the available set of polyphonic lullabies
Product Features
- IPhone, IPan, Android or PC Baby Monitor
- Temperature Sensor
- Night Vision
- Remote Movable Camera
- Baby Monitor
Great Idea but poorly executed On the face of it this really should have been a shining star of the next obvious step in the evolution of baby monitors. But the early versions were released with WAP security only – corrected in a firmware update in May 2013. Security is now WPA/PSK providing you patch to the latest versions. Binatone are the App suppliers.You must use either an Android or OIS device (via a free App) to set this up, and you may need to turn your WiFi off to do the initial set-up before turning it back on to register the unit. It does not play nicely in the presence of existing WiFi Access Points and they need to be a couple of rooms away or off.Picture quality is either 320×240 or 640×480 which although common for older webcams is now poor for this price point. Low light level image quality is also poor. In 2013 the image sensor should have been of a much higher quality for running over WiFi, even if the Internet version was lower for bandwidth issues. Access via the web is through a server which was in the Far East and access was sometimes difficult (capacity issues?) but when it works it’s just fine.All in all it’s a good bit of kit but it probably needs a couple more generations to become a great bit of kit. You can have up to four cameras running and if you give Grandparents etc the passwords etc they can see your little one too. Just remember the camera works day & night, so watch where you position it! It records sound, takes (poor) inages, allows two way comms, plays lullabies from an on board list and shows temp on screen.
Good design, but the execution leaves a little to be desired. UPDATED 13 May 2013On the face of it this is the way of the future. Baby Monitors that run over existing WiFi is such an obvious next step. This device is getting better all the time – although the picture quality needs to come up further – and has improved in capability and security in the last few weeks..This camera seems to have a large amount of involvement from Binatone and there are both good and bad bits. Generally though it is a small neat package and does what it says on the tin, but no more than that.The Good: Neat package; easy to locate; 640*480 resolution, Wifi 802.11b/g/n capability, two way sound and controllable from PC or tablet/smart-phone of both Android and IOS device pools, ability to remotely view (with passwords of course). But see not about setting up below.The Not So Good: Max resolution is only 640*480 (that’s poor in this day and age and at this price point), night vision quality, slow response times to commands, sensitivity to other wireless devices when setting up. Remote server in Hong Kong often ‘busy’ which prevents remote monitoring at times.The Bad: Poor instructions, no warnings when setting up with complex passwords (few of the special characters are OK (&@%*), difficult to set-up in a WiFi environment. NOTE: Adding cameras can only be done by a Tablet/Smart-phone and not a PC. At £100 a pop this is currently too expensive for what it offers.Update: Wireless security has just been updated with an over the air patch to WPA only. No more WEP/WAP. WPA/WPA2 networks will no longer have to compromise at least part of their security to use this hardware. The password security bit is important as if (like many) you follow current conventional wisdom to use alphanumeric and special characters in your user-name and passwords then the set up will fail, but it won’t tell you it’s the password that is causing the issue. I had a number of calls with the manufacturer’s support desk in the UK before between us we worked out what was wrong – and it’s not mentioned anywhere in the set-up or instructions.To get the WiFi to set up properly I had to turn off my wireless side of my router to do the initial set-up (which MUST be done via an IOS/Android device) and then turn it all on again to complete the set-up on a PC.This is undoubtedly a good idea with a bright future in maybe two more generations and other manufacturers are already using better security measures on their latest releases. At present this is an average performing device with great potential, and the ability to have up to four cameras running together. It’s also great to allow your remote family to see your new baby – but remember it’s available all the time to anyone with a password and user-name in your family!! Beware what they can see 😉
I’d wanted a video baby monitor for ages because I thought it would be nice to know whether she is standing/sitting/lying down without having to go into her room to disturb her. I thought this Motorola product would be ideal but I’m not so sure. I won’t give you all the technical details as they are on the product page. What I will saymis this:Easy to set upRequires a smart phone/tablet – useless without, as it works with an app that you can access from anywhere. Means you would need your phone/tablet by bed at night if you wanted to check on them. I prefer a separate handset for the monitor but this is a personal thingVery grainy images indeed. Think of the quality of a scan photo – not much better than that.There seems to be a time lag on the sound, so what you’re hearing happened a few seconds or minutes before. Not ideal.The app itself seems to run the phone battery down very fast, though this may be coincidence.There are options like talking to the baby through the app. This works well, though the baby will look very confusedAll in all I would prefer an ordinary video monitor to this. Admittedly this seems to be a fair bit cheaper than those, but I suspect you get what you pay for. Not terrible but far from perfect.