Owlet baby monitor review: This camera and smart sock take the stress out of bedtime

Assembly

First off, you’ll need to download the Owlet Dream app to set up your monitor. It’s free and, once you’ve created an account, you can use it to log in on up to five phones or tablets, meaning you and other caregivers can access the camera’s live stream and sock monitoring remotely. Setup is fairly straightforward, if a little fiddly and long-winded, with multiple steps to complete to pair the devices to your wifi network. It took us three attempts to connect the camera as, despite living in a typical three-bedroom house and being close to the router, it kept losing connection.

Once synced, you’ll need to choose a home for the sock’s base station – ideally somewhere from which you will hear any alerts, as an alarm will sound to let you know if your baby needs you. We placed the base station in our bedroom, so we could be alerted while sleeping. You can also have push notifications (for baby’s cries or movements) sent to your phone or tablet, and even set the monitor to record video clips of these moments so you can see how your baby woke up – a useful add-on we didn’t know we needed until we tried it.

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One thing to bear in mind when travelling is you’ll need to connect the camera to the wifi at your destination, to view live pictures and health readings via the app. While the device promises to remember your past five locations, we had to reconnect it to our home network after returning from a trip to the grandparents’ house.

Safety

While the Owlet smart sock doesn’t claim to be a medical device, it is certified by MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency), responsible for making sure that devices work and are safe. It is also one of the few monitors on the market that offers insights into your baby’s health. The wearable sock works like an oximeter to measure your baby’s heart rate and oxygen levels, and it will sound an alarm on the base station if these levels fall below a certain point. If all is well, the base station will glow green, providing quick and easy reassurance at a glance, which is handy in the middle of the night.

We were initially unconvinced we needed to know this level of data, and worried we might begin to obsess about the numbers, but it enabled us to spot patterns in our baby’s readings, which meant we knew something was off when they changed noticeably the day before she came down with a cold. It also provided some welcome reassurance that all was still well when our baby was (unusually) sound asleep for long periods.

In addition to health analytics, the app monitors room temperature, humidity, and noise levels, so you can be confident your little one is comfortable in their surroundings.

Practicality

The camera quality is excellent – even in night mode, the device picked up tiny insects as they flew past the lens – and the x4 zoom is useful for taking a closer look at what’s happening if your baby stirs. Another great feature is the two-way audio communication, which enabled us to soothe our daughter back to sleep by shushing, without getting out of bed.

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However, the big draw here is the sleep prediction technology, which we found to be extraordinarily accurate. Having spent the past 10 months tracking our baby’s awake windows, it was a welcome relief to simply follow the suggested nap times in the app. Using your baby's age, and information you log on their awake times and how long they last slept, the device works out the next optimum sleep window. We’ll admit we went into using it with a high dose of scepticism, thinking there was no way our daughter would sleep at the suggested time, only for her to regularly fall asleep within minutes. The device also details whether your baby is in light sleep, deep sleep or awake, and how much they are moving, so you can see how much quality sleep they are getting.

As our daughter is 10 months old and very much in her active era, which includes sitting and standing in her cot if she wakes up, we were doubtful she would tolerate wearing the sock without a fuss. She was very curious at first and seemed amused by the light on the sensor but it was soon forgotten once out of sight in her sleep sack.

The battery lasts up to 16 hours, so you needn't worry about it running out overnight, and, if it falls off, you’ll get an alert to let you know. The camera’s livestream relies on wifi and, on occasion, it took a few seconds longer to load than we would have liked, even with a strong connection. Reassuringly, the sock connects to the base station via Bluetooth, so you will still receive alerts if you lose phone signal or your wifi goes down.

Design

The camera is compact and can be mounted on the wall via its magnetic base. It comes with an extra long lead and cable tidy, meaning it is easy to get the ideal view of your child’s cot or bed while keeping wires safely out of their reach. A feature we particularly appreciated was the ability to shut off the blue monitoring light, if your little one needs complete darkness to sleep.

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The sock is made from super-soft material and comes in three colours: mint, rose and blue. It fitted snugly against our baby’s skin – the sensor sits neatly to the side and didn’t appear to bother her as she moved about.

One downside to not having a separate parent unit is having to use your phone or tablet for monitoring. So, we loved the app’s split screen feature, which means you can continue using your phone or tablet unimpeded but still have your baby in view. You can also set the app to run in the background, so you can hear the audio while using other apps – although, that will drain your battery quickly.