Wednesday: monitors

So we've been having some baby monitor problems.  Isaac's contact with the power cord is super twitchy and likes to disconnect if you breathe incorrectly.  Joshua's monitor has to be rather close (i.e., just outside our bedroom door) so that it doesn't randomly unlink.  So while both are working, it was rather annoying.  I'm already waking up for children, I don't need to wake up for monitors too.

So Ben did used his superpower of searching for electronics (that aren't crazy expensive) and found some cameras that would work and have computer/phone apps.  So now we have two monitors that we can control from our phones.  (There is a computer interface too, but it isn't quite as nice.)  We've only used them for one night, but I like them.  (I will warn you that Ben said he had to do quite a bit of fiddling to make everything connect correctly.)

There are more infrared lights, so we get a very good picture.  We can change the squelch threshold to be "just right".  We can move the camera (not that I foresee doing that much.)  We can take pictures and video.  (I was hoping Isaac would be funny tonight, but he wasn't.  I'm sure a video will come shortly.)  We can still talk through the cameras.  The downside is that my phone can only go about three hours while monitoring without being plugged in, but that really isn't too bad.  And I'll still keep the old monitors around for vacations.

So far, two thumbs up!