Thank you Lorex Technology
for providing me with a product to review, free of charge
and for sponsoring this giveaway.
These are my own honest opinions.

I tend to be wary of all the trendy baby gadgets people tell you you absolutely NEED when you have a baby. I try and stay objective and think about the fact that parents were still able to do their job before a supposedly vital product came along. For this reason, I never had a video baby monitor. I didn’t even have an audio baby monitor. I thought to myself: my mom, let alone my grandma, never had them and we turned out okay so why bother! Boy, was I wrong…

I guess you don’t know what you’re missing until you’ve had a taste of it. Well, Lorex Technology gave me not just a taste but an actual hands-on experience of one of their video baby monitor and I am never going back!

Lorex Technology is an industry-leading company that specializes in video security cameras and monitoring systems. Their mission is to offer your the best products to protect and keep an eye on what matters most: your family, your property, your business, etc. Here is a sample of the products that Lorex Technology has developed.

For this review, I was thrilled to receive a Sweet Peek Video Baby Monitor which is one of their newest products. This baby monitor is packed with great features!

First of all, it comes with 1 camera, which can either be plugged it or used with batteries and a receiver (monitor) with a 2.4 inch screen. I find the screen to be a good size and I can easily see my daughter on the screen. The monitor has the ability to support up to 4 cameras (extra cameras can be purchased separately). This means you can set cameras in different rooms to keep an eye on your children, pets, etc. I will personally be getting another camera to set in the bedroom for when Baby #2 comes along.

This is the screen in about the size you’d see it in person (the photo is not zoomed in or out). The image is crisper in person but even in night vision, you can see my daughter’s face and her open eyes.

The camera has night vision capability. You don’t have to turn it on or off, it automatically adjusts to darkness and day light. It is set up to ‘see’ things up to 12 feet away. The way I have the camera set up in my daughter’s room, the camera is about 3 feet away and the image is very clear.

I was really impressed to find out that I can distinguish my daughter’s facial features and I can see if her eyes are open. I can also see her breathe, see the print on her bedding, etc. The images aren’t pixelated or blurry which is probably due to the fact that Lorex specializes exclusively in video cameras so they know what they are doing and don’t take shortcuts that could compromise quality. I didn’t expect it to be so good in night conditions but when you think about it, that’s probably when you’ll use your monitor the most so if a camera delivers images are of poor quality in night vision, it’s really not worth it. The camera is equipped with a night light which can help if your little one is afraid of the dark or if you want to ease her into sleep. You can turn in on and off directly on the monitor.

During the day, the images are also crisp and detailed. It’s a color camera so the colors are vivid. I did try to take a photo to show you but the screen is reflective like an iPad so I get a big glare every time but I promise the images look great! The camera picks up a wide view of the room and you can easily see a large part of the room or just the bed or crib, depending on your preference. There is also a digital zoom which you can use both during the day and night if you need to take a closer look. I find my camera is already close enough to my daughter’s bed that I don’t use it much but if the camera were across the room, I would definitely use it more for example to see if my daughter’s eyes were closed or not.

The monitor has a 2-Way Talk feature which I really like because I can talk to my daughter from a different room. I can let her know that I’m coming to see her when she wakes up from her nap or soothe her if she gets upset. The microphone is quite sensitive so I can even whisper to her or sing softly. It’s quite funny because I know she recognizes my voice but every time I talk to her she gives the camera (which is where the sound is coming from) a weird look as if she’s thinking ‘How can my mommy be in there?’

There are 5 built-in lullabies that you can activate directly from the monitor. Each song plays in loop until you stop it. My daughter loves music and she often requests a lullaby to fall asleep. The only 2 downfalls so far with them are that I wish I could set them on a timer so they would stop automatically after a set period of time. I also wish I could control the volume because I find it to be a bit loud and there is no way to gradually turn the volume down. My daughter doesn’t really mind but sometimes when I think she’s asleep and I turn off the music, she wakes up in a jolt because the transition from music to silence is too sudden.

The monitor has a range of 450 feet. I take it with me from room to room and from floor to floor with no interruptions in the signal. I also take it with me in the backyard and still get perfect reception. I don’t get any interference either. There is an antenna that is usually folded and hidden at the back of the monitor but you can extend for maximum receptivity.

The monitor and camera were very easy to set up by following simple instructions. Once everything is plugged in or charged, you’re good to go. Turn it on and start using it right away. No complicated set up or pairing to do, the monitor recognizes the camera immediately.

The monitor has a rechargeable battery which can last up to 8 hours with both video and audio on continuously. It’ll last even longer if the video isn’t on at all times. I personally use the monitor unplugged during nap time and a few hours at night before going to bed, then I plug it in for the night so it is fully charged for the next day. I find it works best to ensure I don’t run out of battery during the day when I carry the monitor with me.

To preserve battery life, I recommend you use the VOX mode. When you turn it on, this mode will automatically turn your video off if there are no sounds above a certain threshold (which you determine yourself) after a few minutes. It will also automatically turn the video on when sounds are above the determined threshold. You will still hear soft sounds and can manually turn the video on if you’re curious to see what’s going on. This is by far one of my favorite features because it saves battery life and also because it means I don’t have to keep the video on at all times ‘just in case’.

As a side note, the Lorex team offers amazing customer service. They are quick to respond to emails and are eager to help. For example, it seems that my monitor has a little glitch in VOX mode so sometimes when I turn the camera on manually, it doesn’t turn off by itself even though there is no sound to keep the camera activated. I contacted them and they quickly tested it on their own monitors and are troubleshooting with me to see what might cause it. They assured me that it is not a common problem and that they are currently looking into it. It reassured me to know that they didn’t dismiss my concern and they care enough to find a solution with me even though it is admittedly not a very big problem because I can always turn the camera off manually.

Until I had this Sweet Peek baby monitor, I didn’t realize how convenient it was to be able to see my daughter without going in her room and risking waking her up. I now know exactly when she falls asleep whereas before I just guessed that when I couldn’t hear her move around or talk, she was asleep (which I now know isn’t always the case). I also know exactly when she wakes up. Before, I had a tendency to go in her room too soon when she was just stirring in bed because I thought she was awake and I would sometimes end up waking her up mid-nap. Now I can watch her face and her eyes and know when she is fully awake.

I love that I can tell if a cry in the middle of the night requires me to go to her or not. With the night vision, I was able to see that she sometimes whimpers in her sleep but doesn’t need me to soothe her. In other cases, she does wake up and I use the Two-Way Talk feature to calm her down. I love that I can also activate a lullaby directly from the monitor.

Overall, I am really pleased with our Sweet Peek Video Baby Monitor. It is such an easy monitor to set up and use, even people who aren’t tech-savvy will be able to use it. The quality of the video is amazing, even in night vision, which is of course very important when it comes to video monitors. All the extra features (2-Way Talk, lullabies, night light) are very convenient and are a reflection of how Lorex took the time to think about what parents want in a baby monitor.

Buy It: Head over to Lorex Technology to see for yourself the great selection of video baby monitors and cameras they offer.

Connect: Don’t forget to like them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter and Pinterest and subscribe to their YouTube channel for all the latest news and promotions.

Win It: Lorex Technology is generously offering one of our lucky readers a Sweet Peek Video Baby Monitor  just like the one I reviewed. The giveaway is open to US and Canada. The giveaway will end July 27th. For your chance to win, enter the Giveaway Tools below. Good luck!

Rachel