I recently had a kid, so this product came along at a great time. We were using a wall mounted one before that we had some gripes with, so I was excited to try out the Nanit Plus with floor stand.
Unboxing:
The product is neatly packed in the box. Each piece of the actual stand and cable routing is neatly segmented, and the cable routing tubes can be discarded if not needed. My electrical plus was relatively close to the camera location, so I skipped that tubing. The rest of it snaps together well with the floor stand having an option to use three legs or two legs. I opted for two legs since I mostly plan to keep the camera in one place behind the crib. If you plan on moving the camera to other locations in the house, opt for the three-leg setup so you can just unplug it and relocate it easily. It is nice to have both options. For safety, I attached it to the wall with the included adhesive / screw mounted wall mount to affix it to the wall.
Setup:
After putting it together, I downloaded the app and went through the setup. Make sure you click on the correction version, there is a Nanit and Nanit plus option. I accidentally clicked Nanit a few times and it wouldn’t set up, I then realized I was hitting the wrong one and it gave me no issues after that. It will connect via Bluetooth and then let you set up wi-fi followed by any updates required. You will set up an account and have the option to invite family and caregivers to access the camera.
Use:
I am used to baby monitors, so I was excited to see what this brings to the table. Aside from its not-obtrusive mounting on the wall, it is a high-quality looking product with a high-quality app. First and foremost, there is very little lag from the actual sounds and video to what you see on your screen, this is huge since many competitors have lag. When you open the app, the video displays very quickly. The display shows temperature and humidity at the top with your options on the bottom. Zooming in the video is a little choppy but no real issues there.
The activity tab will show you each time there is an important name, baby is taken out of bed, put to bed, falls asleep, etc. You get a few days of video out of the box (more on that later).
The dashboard tab will show you a summary of your baby’s sleep and quality of sleep. It mainly measures this through movement detection within the crib. I have no way of knowing how accurate it is but it is pretty cool. There is also an inbox with tips that come in to improve your child’s sleep as more data is gathered.
The product comes with one year of “Nanit Insights” which is normally $50 a year or $5 a month. It comes with 7 days of sleep tracking, night time-lapse (fun to watch the next day), activity feeds and video history. I never saw any prompts to upgrade during setup which is nice so it doesn’t seem to bug you too much. There is a $100 a year tier and more if you want to add more history to your tracking.
Extras:
There is a nice white light on the top you can turn on, you can send sound, take pictures and play some static noises. No music included on this one so far as I can tell. Your options are birds, waves, white noise and wind. I would have liked to have seen some music included or ability to stream music to the device.
Overall:
I am very impressed with how well this app and camera work together. It seems the company has got it right and it feels like a decent substitute for a traditional dedicated baby monitor. It has all you most likely will want and provides great insights to your baby’s sleep patterns. It is a great looking device and can be used in multiple settings. There is also a wall mounted version that is a little cheaper, but I prefer the floor stand model for stability and the ability to relocate it if needed.