Netgear’s Arlo has been my favorite webcam for the last few years. The products are attractive, versatile, easy to setup, and once configured, they provide high-quality and reliable video recording anywhere inside or outside the house. I didn’t expect anything less from their Arlo Baby and found that it’s a full featured smart baby monitor that is easy to setup and a great compliment to my favorite line of video cameras.
About Arlo Baby
Arlo Baby looks like two stacked white spheres and can be dressed up with bunny ears and rubber feet. The removable feet stabilize the base for positioning on a dresser or furniture and the top sphere, or “the head,” can angle down to show inside a crib or child’s bed.
The product comes with green feet and optional green bunny ears but for those that need to accessorize things, Netgear sells a yellow kitten and black and white spotted puppy set of ears. Imagine a webcam shaped like BB8 that you can dress up like Mr. Potato Head! Sorry no red lips or mustache!
Arlo Baby is powered by a wall plug but also has an internal rechargeable battery for when you need to temporarily move the baby monitor. The power cord is an extremely long micro-USB cable, giving you a lot of slack for positioning it in a convenient location. The unit can sit tabletop on a dresser, shelf, windowsill, and can also be wall mounted with an adjustable magnetic plate.
How Arlo Baby Works
Arlo Baby records and transmits HD 1080P video with two-way audio. Parents can monitor video and audio with the Arlo mobile app for iOS and Android. The app can stream non-stop audio to your smartphone, even if the screen is off, allowing you to listen for activity in your child’s room.
It can specifically detect crying and alert you when the baby needs attention. With the two-way audio you can talk back to say “Hey Baby, I’m coming,” or “Attention Baby, please go back to sleep, it’s 4 am.” (Let me know if that works for you, it never did for me!)
Integrated into the Arlo Baby are also temperature, humidity, and air quality sensors. When temperature or humidity are outside of a range that you define, Arlo sends you alerts. During the swampy Washington DC summer, I got a lot of notifications that “Arlo is feeling a big muggy.” If it had any idea what it’s like outside, maybe it wouldn’t be so picky!
In more than a month of use, the Arlo Baby air quality sensor didn’t trigger any alerts, which is a good thing. One other baby monitor that I tested a while back was trigger-happy with a vague complaint about air quality, yet didn’t have much of an explanation of exactly what was wrong or what I should do about it.
In addition to serving as a baby monitor, it has a built-in night light. The unit emits a glow of a configurable color, so you can pick a soothing color suitable for the location.
Arlo Baby can also play lullaby music or playback recordings of your voice to soothe your child to sleep.
How to Set up Arlo Baby
Setup of the Arlo Baby is extremely simple. You download the Arlo app to your smartphone and then tell it to add a device. The mobile app generates a QR code telling Arlo Baby how to connect to your home’s WiFi. With a press of the sync button on the camera, it looks for the QR code. You hold your smartphone a few inches away from Arlo Baby, who reads the QR code, and then connects to your WiFi. The Arlo Baby sounds a chime that it got the QR code and you’re done— Arlo Baby is ready for use.
Just like the other Arlo camera products, Arlo Baby comes with free cloud storage for up to 7 days of recordings. Motion detection, temperature, humidity, and all other settings are easily configured through the mobile app. When an alert is triggered, notifications are sent to mobile device(s). If you feel the need to watch your baby’s crib constantly, there is an optional 7” touchscreen which can be added to your system and placed in the kitchen, on the desk, or wherever you are trying to work while the baby sleeps.
Arlo Baby is a well-designed and full featured video baby monitor. Whether it is your first Arlo device or you are adding it to an existing system, Arlo Baby is easy to use and provides HD video recording, two-way audio, and environmental sensors.
Arlo Baby retails for $249 and is available through Amazon.
To learn more about Arlo products, read past posts on Tech Savvy Mama:
- Why Netgear’s Arlo Q Stands Out Among DIY Smart Home Security Camera Solutions
- Netgear’s Arlo Smart Home Security Cameras offer Wireless Operation, Easy Steup & Free Service Plan
We received an Arlo Baby sample for review purposes. All opinions are my own and based on experience. Affiliate links are included in this post.
