[blparent] Most accessible baby monitors (and thermometer)

[Star Gazer]

				The below post nails it. 
Really the best thing is to keep your baby close by and get to know him or
her. Trust me, you'll know when something isn't right and not a lick of
technology will help you there. 
If your wife is dead set on having a visual link to the baby at all times
then get her the Angel Care monitor or try Summer. Video monitors are common
now. 
Realize too that if the idea of someone talking to your baby from somewhere
on the internet doesn't phase you, it means that anybody in the world can
listen to your home and see what you're doing. Odds are nobody cares what's
happening in your home, I just don't know why you'd want to allow that kind
of visibility and access when all you guys want is a baby monitor. 

-----Original Message-----
From: blparent [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Niko C. via
blparent
Sent: Monday, October 26, 2015 11:55 AM
To: Blind Parents Mailing List <blparent at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Niko C. <nik62591 at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [blparent] Most accessible baby monitors (and thermometer)

Hi-

We got the Angelcare Video, Movement and Sound monitor. It is a standard non
WIFI baby monitor with one nursery and one handheld unit. It has physical
buttons for turning the unit on/off, controlling the volume, and talking to
the baby, but the rest is operated through the touch screen.
This is okay for us since my wife can see, and we live in an apartment, so
there'll never be a need for more than one of us to have a hand held unit to
hear or see the baby, but I realize this will not work for everyone.

I had initially thought about the WIFI baby monitor, or a DYI security
camera solution, but I chose not to go that route for a couple of reasons.
For one, it offers us personally no benefit. Like I said before, there is no
real reason for both of us to ever need to have a handheld unit, since we
live in an apartment, and even if we didn't, it would generally be assumed
that the one with the unit would either get the baby when they cry, or ask
the other person to do so. Secondly, I've seen no solution that uses strong,
"trust no one" encryption; this means end-to-end encryption where no third
party has the key. This is of utmost importance to me, because I don't want
anyone to be able to listen in on our home, or talk to the baby from some
random place on the Internet, both of which have happened more than once
with these solutions. Even with the security camera solution, I've heard of
several cameras that have been found to have a default password, or exploit
allowing anyone with limited technical skills to search for the cameras and
then view and control them. All of these solutions use the internet. I had
initially thought that some WIFI baby monitors just used your wireless
network as a means to talk to the handheld, but didn't connect to them over
the internet, but I've so far found none that actually work this way. This
means that if your internet service is down, so too is your baby monitor,
not an inconvenience I'm willing to unwittingly experience in the middle of
the night, when my baby is crying and nobody is coming to see what is wrong
because someone tripped over a cable in Comcast's data center. Finally, I
like using my phone. As far as I know, if you take a phone call, you don't
hear or see the baby monitor app. If you want to play music, or watch a
video on Youtube, same thing happens. Too inconvenient. The only benefits
manufacturers offer when selling these monitors is that Grandma and Grandpa
can see the baby too from their home. If you can find one person who
actually thinks this is a benefit, please let me know, as this person needs
to be studied. :)

I don't want to say all of this to detour you from finding a clever solution
for monitoring your baby, but simply because I think  it might be helpful to
think about before you go down that road. If you find some WIFI, but non
internet using solution that works well for you, please let me know as I'd
be interested in playing around with it.

On Mon, Oct 26, 2015 at 7:50 AM, Steve Repsher via blparent <
blparent at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> My wife and I are expecting our first child in a couple months, and 
> being the computer nerd and engineer of the two of us along with being 
> visually impaired, I took on the task of finding a baby monitor that 
> would be accessible to me without taking away any "sight" features from
her (e.g.
> video is a requirement).  Instead of going with a typical baby monitor 
> with a single receiver, I'm planning to go the more techie route and 
> buy an IP/security camera, connect it to my home network, and use our 
> phones and tablet as receivers.  There is plenty of info on the web 
> about this more DIY approach, but nothing about the accessibility of 
> the smartphone/tablet apps that would be used to control everything.
>
> So, without me wasting time and energy on going through testing all of 
> them, I thought I'd ask the members of this list for suggestions on 
> what worked for them and what didn't with this approach.  All comments 
> are welcome!
>
> And while I'm on the subject of accessible baby products, what's the 
> consensus on the best talking baby thermometer? (I know, the choices 
> aren't exactly abundant).
>
> Thanks for your time!
>
> Steve
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--
Niko Carpenter
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