Bambino Wireless Internet Baby Monitor w/iPhone, Android, and Web Viewing (Windows PC required) | 
| Brand: Imogen Studio
Category: Baby Product
List Price: $149.00
Buy New: $99.99
as of 9/8/2010 20:36 CDT details
You Save: $49.01 (33%)
Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 15670
UPC: 705105131436
EAN: 0705105131436
ASIN: B003104LP6
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Connects wirelessly to a computer through USB dongle - no cable to keep the camera tethered to a PC | | • | Included Seedonk software lets you securely check in on your baby while you're away, and share your camera with family and friends | | • | View from the same computer or any other PC with Seedonk software, or from your iPhone and Google Phone w/Seedonk App | | • | Video Resolution: 640x480, Built-in microphone, Night vision: 9 IR LED's, Wireless range (line of sight): 60m (~196ft), Power: 6V DC or AAA Battery x 4, Battery life (night vision on): 3hr (alkaline AAA battery x 4) | | • | System Requirements: CPU Pentium 4 1.4GHz or above; Windows XP & Vista ONLY; USB 2.0 port; 256MB RAM and 100MB hard disk space; NOT Compatible with Mac OS |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
With the Bambino there is no USB cable to keep the camera tethered to your PC. Simply plug in the USB dongle to your computer and place the camera in a convenient location.
Use the bundled Seedonk software to securely transmit the video over the Internet. With the camera added to Seedonk, you can view your baby from the next room or anywhere online. Seedonk lets you remotely log on to view, manage, and share the Bambino from anywhere on the Internet. Furthermore, the Seedonk iPhone and Android App provides mobile access to the Bambino while you are on the move, and the Bambino can also be safely and easily shared with close friends and family through Facebook.
Bambino helps you stay in touch with your child when life pulls you away.
NOTE: Bambino currently works ONLY with PC running Microsoft Windows.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 9
 Understand what you're getting August 30, 2010
Ben Perry (Boston, MA)
This may be a decent product if you have a very specific set of needs. We bought it as a replacement for our regular video monitor and found it sorely lacking. The good is that it has better than average video quality and you can view the baby remotely via your iPhone. Oh, and the return process was smooth. That's about it. Here were my issues with it:
- The audio sounds like the baby is underwater
- The software shuts down after a period of time. We never made it through a whole night without it losing the connection
- Despite the mention of Android in the title, there is no indication in the documentation that it works with anything but an iPhone. I have an iPhone so I don't care but someone else may be upset.
- The iPhone app has to be restarted every time you let the screen go blank. I think this was a bug but very annoying.
- The issues above make it useless for middle-of-the-night monitoring. This unit is really only good for daytime monitoring when you have a laptop running.
- The camera is very hard to mount compared to other video monitors. It is meant to be set up on a flat surface pointing right at the bed with few angle adjustments. If your setup isn't like that, mounting it will be a pain.
- I found the Seedonk software that comes with it to be a pain to use
- It only works with Windows, I knew this from the description but it's still annoying
I think if you wanted a monitor to watch your pets while you're at work from your iPhone, this might be an ok solution. But there are so many compromises versus a normal infant video monitor that I wouldn't recommend it for your baby.
NOT a good baby MONITOR August 8, 2010
Andrew Percey (Boston, MA USA)
We bought this to be a baby monitor, which is clearly how it's marketed. However, it appears to be a typical IP cam re-purposed and re-marketed as a baby monitor. In doing so it gets some things right, but not the most important things. It's kind of like an iPhone being great for everything except making calls.
So what are the problems from a baby monitor point of view?
1) You can only hear audio from the PC into which the USB dongle is attached
If you view the webcam via the seedonk website on another PC or via your iPhone/Android, you will NOT be able to hear audio. As a baby monitor, audio is the most important thing to alert you to trouble.
2) The video stream times out
After a certain amount of time, the video will time out. Other reviewers have commented on this in detail. Again, to be useful as a *monitor*, a time-out makes no sense.
3) There is no way to attach the webcam to a crib or a wall
It is only designed to sit on a flat surface. If you happen to have a tall dresser right next to the crib, then you're in luck. If not, then you'll need to jury-rig some kind of strap for the crib or build something to attach it to a wall.
4) There are still far too many bugs (some persistent, some occasional) for this to be reliable
Sometimes the webcam goes "offline" for mysterious reasons. If I try to change whether the audio is on or off. If I try to change the resolution. It just seems rather flaky. That's not what you went when using a device to let you know what's going on with your baby.
I think this is a promising product (hence the 2 stars), but there's a lot more work to be done before it can really be considered to be a quality, reliable, easy-to-use baby *monitor*. If you just want to use it to check in from time to time, it's probably fine. But it should NOT be used as a primary baby monitor -- i.e., a device that would immediately and reliably alert you to what's going on with your baby.
Maybe Seedonk would say they define "monitor" differently (as in "occasionally check in", not "constantly be alerted to trouble"), but I think a lot of parents would be misled by their marketing like we were. To me, a baby "monitor" should provide real-time peace of mind, not just address occasional curiosity to see what's up.
 Inconsistent at best July 23, 2010
Erica
When you open up the program, audio if off. Why would ever want video and not audio. It took my husband who is a network engineer 1/2 a day and 2 phone calls to tech support to get it working. And then it only worked sometimes. It is a great idea poorly instituted. I would not recommend wasting time or money until they fix the major bugs. We sent it back.
 Great product!!! April 24, 2010
Jaejean Kang
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This product is simply amazing. We purchased it for friends who just had their 2nd. They RAVED about it, saying that this product has given them 2 extra hours in their day. Their little ones can hang out in the bath or in their crib/toddler bed and the parents can do get some errands done in the kitchen/office simultaneously. I witnessed the product at work. We're pregnant and definitely gonna get one (maybe two) ourselves.
 Happy with this Innovative Monitor April 15, 2010
H. Yau (Palo Alto, CA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
We've had this monitor for a few months now and it has been performing well. We actually bought this product as a way to share our adoption experience with our family when we went to meet our daughter in China. It was really fun for us as well as for the grandparents to be able to "meet" and see her in those first few days for us as a family. Since we had to travel to a few different cities and stay at different hotels, it was really convenient to be able to just plug the usb dongle into my laptop and uses the laptop's internet connection to share out the video with our folks. Here were a couple of reason that closed the deal for us initially for our trip: (instead of just using the built-in notebook webcam)
1. Convenience - it's wireless and can operate on 4 AA batteries, which made it much more convenient to place than the laptop.
2. Availability - we could leave the computer/software running for the grandparents to log in at anytime. (mainly during the night to watch her sleep)
Now we've been home and used it more as a traditional monitor. I feel like I have a good perspective of what it does well and what it doesn't.
The Good
- Internet capable and remote access: this is really the biggest reason for buying this device. The bundled Seedonk software provides good video quality and audio sensitivity. It's really nice to be able to access the monitor over 3G on my iPhone, and the Facebook app is fun and makes it really easy for our close friends and family to view the camera. (though in actuality, we found that we didn't use the Facebook app that much after the initial phase)
- Easy to install and use. I've researched other similar products where it was quite a pain to get remote-access working, so I was definitely happy with how easy the setup and user experience was.
- Battery option. It made it very convenient for temporary placement. It had pretty decent battery life, we had it running for about 4-5 hours on 4AA batteries. (Note that there are no batteries included and it's not rechargeable, we bought a few packs of batteries in China because of this.)
The Bad
- The image quality and resolution could be better. A caveat here is this depends on what you compare it with. It's great if you compare it with a baby monitor's image quality (which is what we figured), but poor if you compare it with standard webcams.
- Video only on the iPhone. (though on their support forum, they say that a new release with audio is schedule for the end of April)
- I need to leave my PC running for remote viewing. (This set up was convenient when we were traveling, but at home it's a bit of a hassle)
- Potential interference w/ wifi. We do not have this issue in our home, but I have seen it happen once when we were traveling. If you search most of the popular video monitors on Amazon that run on 2.4GHz frequency you will see this complaint, so I think it has to do with devices that use this frequency. (People have suggested various workarounds that may or may not work for them) I think whether or not you will be affected has a lot to do with how much 2.4GHz wireless interference you have in your home. If there are a lot, you may have problems.
My conclusion is that this product will not replace a traditional monitor, so if you are looking to this to replace the features of a traditional video baby monitor, you better look somewhere else. (or you will be sorely disappointed) We use it in conjunction with a traditional audio monitor (Philips Avent Basic Baby Monitor w/ DECT Technology) and it works for us. Personally, being able to see my daughter from my iPhone from where ever I am is the main reason I continue to use this product and overall I can say I am quite happy with it. (The grandparents are also happy with it)
Showing reviews 1-5 of 9
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