Tomy Baby Link

...bed. So I spot this Tomy Baby Link, it looks basic, no fancy 'see your baby, talk to your baby, monitor your baby's breathing' nonsense. And it's $(pounds)14.99 (I will eventually get a keyboard with a pound sign, until then please bare with me). Bonus!

So I get it home and out of the box. It consists of a baby unit which transmits the sound and a parental unit which recieves it. As the name suggests they are designed to simply plug ...
...basic features:

#Quality Sound
#Mains operation
#Volume control
#Finger Grips
#Power 'on' indication
#Easy to use

Now when I try it out I find I have no problem with some of these (they are fairly basic). It plugs in easily to the mains, the power 'on' indicator lights up. But, unfortunately, with it comes a high pitch noise (I was gonna say squeal but really it's more like a continuous tone ... more

My son is nearly two and the main reason we still have a baby monitor is because you really cant hear him in his bedroom if your downstairs, he can be screaming his head off and and I would be blissfully unaware. Tempting, but I know without one I'd end up sat on the stairs all night in case he needed me.

So that's the back story, so off I trotted to Boots with the sole aim of buying the cheapest baby monitor I could get my hands on. I didn't want anything fancy, its only function needed to be to let me hear the thud as he fell out of bed. So I spot this Tomy Baby Link, it looks basic, no fancy 'see your baby, talk to your baby, monitor your baby's breathing' nonsense. And it's $(pounds)14.99 (I will eventually get a keyboard with a pound sign, until then please bare with me). Bonus!So I get it home and out of the box. It consists of a baby unit which transmits the sound and a parental unit which recieves it. As the name suggests they are designed to simply plug into plug sockets. The box tells me to expect these basic features:

1. Quality Sound
2. Mains operation
3. Volume control
4. Finger Grips
5. Power 'on' indication
6. Easy to use

Now when I try it out I find I have no problem with some of these (they are fairly basic). It plugs in easily to the mains, the power 'on' indicator lights up. But, unfortunately, with it comes a high pitch noise (I was gonna say squeal but really it's more like a continuous tone or hum). So I go to the problem solving section of the manual which tells me in the event of 'unusual' or 'howling'(although I'm not quite sure that describes it) noises that the first thing is to make sure the baby unit is located far enough away from the parental unit. Well the baby unit is upstairs in the boys room which is where I need to listen to, and the parental unit is downstairs with me which is where I need to listen from, so I can't do too much about the positioning. Besides my house is quite small but I would think that the distance between an upstairs bedroom and a downstairs (not directly below) living room should be sufficient.

So I look through the manual again, apparently it doesn't like being plugged in near other electrical equipment. That's fine, I had it plugged in near the telly, that must be it. So if I plug it in over here, the other side of the room from any other electrics then, oh, no it's still making that hideous noise.

Ok back to the manual, okay it doesn't like sharing a double plug socket, well I have got a Stereo system plugged in next to it but the plug switch isn't on so I doubt that is affecting it, anyway out it comes just to see. Nope. Hows about the kitchen? Nope. Hows about the kitchen if I unplug everything else in the kitchen? Nope.

In addition the more you turn the monitor up the louder the hum gets but at the lower levels it is nearly impossible to hear any actual sounds through it. This is despite the box claiming that 'a pre-set minimum volume means you never turn it down too low'
Eventually we settled on a tolerable medium where we could hear the boy well enough, and our ears didn't bleed from the still persisting high pitch hum.

I would like to say this had a happy ending, with me returning the product the following day for a refund to invest in a less headache inducing monitor. Unfortunately I was away that day and didn't get back til the evening. So we endured another evening, and by the next day we decided that we were starting to get used to it, besides we didn't really want to spend anymore, and I didn't really like complaining anyway, and had either of us seen the manual because you can't return something without a manual. Okay so I chickened, but you really don't notice it so much after a while, and the headaches are getting less frequent now.

Anyway I cant recommend this, it's an awful baby monitor. Cheap, yes, but I would advise you spend a little more simply for decent sound quality

Also posted on dooyoo.co.uk under the same username. 

...less