Best audio-only baby monitors: the twenty-dollar device that does the job a camera mostly pretends to do

Why audio is still the right answer for a newborn

For the first several months, everything you can act on arrives as sound. A baby who cannot roll, sit or stand is not doing anything on camera that the microphone misses, and the overwhelming majority of night-time checks are triggered by a noise, not by something you happened to see. An audio monitor costs a fifth of a video one, lasts far longer per charge because it is not driving a screen, and reaches further because sound needs a fraction of the bandwidth.

There is a second argument, which is that a screen is a habit. A parent unit with a picture on it gets watched; a parent unit with five LEDs on it gets glanced at. Which of those you want at 2am is a personal question, but it is worth asking before you spend three times the money.

What DECT 6.0 means on the box

DECT is a digital cordless standard. In the United States the equipment sold as "DECT 6.0" operates in the 1920-1930 MHz unlicensed PCS band, which the FCC governs under 47 CFR 15.323 and confirmed in its 2012 order may be used by DECT technology. Two things follow from that. First, it is a digital link, not the analog hiss of a 1990s monitor: VTech's listings describe exactly this - no static, no white noise, silence until the baby makes a sound. Second, it is a different band from your WiFi, your microwave and your Bluetooth headphones, which is why a DECT audio monitor tends to hold a cleaner connection in a crowded house than a 2.4 GHz video monitor does.

The Motorola units here do not name a radio standard on their listings - they state only that no WiFi is required - so their cards say that rather than claiming DECT. None of the five listings claims conformance to ASTM F2951, the consumer safety specification for baby monitors, and none of these cards says otherwise.

How we ranked these

Monitor weighting: the stated radio standard first, then the placement reality, then the parent unit in the dark. The DM221 wins because it is the only unit here that combines a named digital standard, talk-back, a vibrating alert and a mute-and-watch sound meter. The DM221-2 is the same monitor with a second unit, which is worth it for some households and dead weight for others. The DM111 is the value pick and loses only the intercom. The two Motorolas reach further than anything else on the site but do not name their radio standard, which the rubric weights heavily; their range case is made on best baby monitors with long range. Rubric on how we choose.

The three features worth paying for

A visual sound meter. Five LEDs that show how loud the room is with the speaker muted. It lets you check on a sleeping baby without waking the adult beside you, and it is the single most used feature on an audio monitor. Every VTech unit here has it.

A vibrating alert. Silent notification for a noisy kitchen, a vacuum cleaner or a parent who is hard of hearing - VTech names deaf and hearing-impaired parents explicitly on the DM221-2 listing. Neither Motorola here states one.

Adjustable microphone sensitivity. The difference between a monitor that transmits every snuffle and one that only opens up for a real cry. VTech calls it sound sensitivity and lets you set it from the parent unit; it is also the setting that most affects battery life, because the unit is quiet between triggers.

What is not worth paying for: lullabies you will stop using in a month, and a night light on the baby unit. The night light in particular is a trap - it makes people want the baby unit near the crib, which is the one place it must not be.

The cord rule applies just as hard to audio

When to switch to video