Prior to biting the bullet and spending the $$$ for this monitor, I had tried a few other Wifi baby monitors, but was terribly unsatisfied with them.

The Owlet Cam app would freeze the sound or video feed randomly and cause me to miss my baby crying (Owlet customer service told me to just restart the app, but if I'm ASLEEP I can't do that!)

The VTECH Wifi cam I used, I was convinced it was defective because it just wouldn't stay connected to the receiver in my 800 square foot apartment. They sent me a replacement and it had the same issue. And when that one disconnects, it beeps pretty loudly to wake you up. One night I didn't sleep at all because it just wouldn't reconnect so I went and laid in my baby's room. I even got an expensive Wifi Mesh system with 4 satellites and this did not solve the connectivity issue, so that got returned as well.

Anyway, now that you know the history, let's look at the Nanit. I had wanted a Nanit from the start, but it's just so expensive compared to all the others! But when I went and did research and read reviews, I couldn't find one that I could guarantee would work for me. After the Owlet issue I was hesitant to use a product that didn't have a physical receiver, but I decided I would just try it, and if it didn't work then I would return it.

Bottom line: I am absolutely blown away by how good this camera is! The picture quality is good even at night, the app has never once crashed or frozen, and there is a backup connection (local mode) if the Wifi ever fails (which sometimes it does say it lost connection, but I never lose my feed if I'm in the house).

Nanit also provides a lot more important information (IMO) than the Owlet Cam did. I don't have the Nanit subscription, but the information I get from the basic app is perfect. It shows when baby wakes up, whether baby was put to bed asleep, time to fall asleep (if they weren't already asleep), how long baby was out of bed, and when significant sounds were picked up (crying, etc). The paid version gives you deeper analytics of baby's sleep habits, if you want that.

The app does allow background sound so you can listen with the screen locked or while using another app, which is very helpful! I will say that my husband and I pretty quickly disabled motion and sound notifications on our phones because they were very spammy and not that useful for us.

I cannot review the breathing band, since my baby was too big for the one that came with it, and now that he's older I don't worry that he's going to stop breathing every night. I'm sure it works great, considering how great it works in general.

This is a really great camera and has an awesome picture, especially with the night mode feature where you can see your baby very well in the dark. You can play white noise, or other sounds directly from the camera, however, when you are using this feature, the camera will not give you any noise alerts only motion alerts. there is also a nightlight on the camera. And the app will also alert you for motion, or sound detection, and save a record of all those events throughout the night. I do find that it is challenging to know when the alerts occur because they only show up as a notification on my iPhone home screen, however, you can set up the phone to just remain on all night long if it is plugged into power and function as a video monitor. You can also download video clips on the app of any of the events that the monitor recorded.

The free version works very well. We are extremely happy. Our biggest concern was WiFi failure or connectivity issue. However, it has only happened twice for 1-2 seconds within the last 10 months.

We love everything the Nanit has to offer, it has given us peace of mind when it comes to our child's sleep!

Very useful and needed for the nights with our baby girl