When I became a parent, I remember worrying about Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) after being warned about it in my prenatal class.

It usually affects babies during the first year of life, and about 2,500 babies die from SIDS every year in the US.

For the first few weeks after bringing my son home from the hospital, I had this constant fear that he would suddenly stop breathing.

I remember taking all the necessary precautions, like making sure he was sleeping in his own bassinet. But I would startle awake in the middle of the night between feeds to check if he was okay.

I decided to look into baby breathing monitors that could keep me updated on baby’s breathing in the night.

What do smart baby monitors track?

Smart monitors are different from traditional baby monitors because they don’t just give you video monitoring of your baby.

Smart monitors can track your baby’s oxygen levels, heart rate, and sleep patterns. In a nutshell, they let you know whether your baby is doing alright, so you don’t have to keep hovering over her while she sleeps.

In this review, I will be looking specifically at two popular brands of smart baby monitors — Owlet’s Dream Sock and the Nanit Pro.

This in-depth look at the two will give you all the information you need to decide which device is best for you and your baby.

Is a baby breathing monitor right for you?

You may be wondering if the health monitoring statistics of these newer baby monitors are what you are looking for.

Below are some cases where a breathing monitor is preferred over a standard monitor with audio and video streaming.

Bundles compared: Owlet Dream Duo vs. Nanit 5-Year Plan

Owlet Dream Duo

The Owlet Dream Duo offers two components:

• Owlet Cam 2: a baby monitor that streams HD on your phone app with 2-way audio. 
• Dream Sock: a sensor that measures your baby’s heart rate, oxygen level, and sleep which can be tracked on the phone app.

The provided base station alerts you if the Dream Sock detects deviations from preset oxygen and heart rate values.

In total the Owlet Dream Duo bundle includes:

• Dream Sock sensor
• 4 fabric socks
• Charging base station
• Owlet Cam 2
• Wall mounting kit
• Owlet Dream app

Nanit 5-Year Plan

Nanit offers The 5-Year Plan Bundle that comes with the following:

• Nanit Pro camera
  
• Camera mount
  (wall or freestanding)
  
• Breathing bands
  (0-3 months)
  
• Nanit Insights app
  (Free 6-month trial)

But you can also buy each of these products separately.

The video camera streams HD video to the Nanit phone app so you can see and hear your baby in her nursery at all times.

The software within the camera itself helps assess your baby’s sleep patterns.

The sensor-free Breathing Band, when used with the camera, monitors your baby’s every breath and sends alerts if there are any abnormalities.

Nanit vs. Owlet comparison table

30% off bundles: Nanit

Nanit Pro review

Nanit was founded in 2014 by Assaf Glazer. When he had his first child, he was quickly disappointed with the baby monitors available to him at the time.

They were poorly designed with limited capabilities. So he decided to team up with a group of experts to create Nanit — a smart monitoring system that goes beyond providing a live video stream of your baby.

It uses machine learning and the latest technology to give deep insights into your child’s breathing and sleep patterns.

The team hopes that the information provided by Nanit systems will help make the parenting journey easier for many out there.

Nanit Pro Camera

The Nanit Pro is a baby video monitor that can be set up as a wall-mounted, floor stand, or portable stand camera. Its multi-angle feature allows you to have a bird’s-eye view of your baby or an upright view of the nursery. 

The Nanit Pro camera has:

• HD-quality video streaming of your baby to your phone app, so there is no need to carry an extra monitor screen.
• 2-way audio function, which lets you hear whatever is going on in the nursery and allows you to talk to your baby as well.
• Special sensors to monitor your baby’s sleep patterns: you can find everything from how often your baby woke up to the total number of hours she slept.
• Temperature and humidity sensors help determine if room conditions are just right for your baby.
• Extra features like a night light and white noise functions help soothe baby to sleep.

Nanit breathing wear

Nanit’s Breathing Band (for babies 0 – 24 months old) has specially designed patterns that help the Nanit Pro camera to assess your baby’s breathing.

The video camera uses AI-powered technology to analyze the movement of the patterns on the band to understand your baby’s breathing.

If it detects any abnormalities in your baby’s breathing motion, it will alert you through the app.

Nanit insights

How it Works

The 5-Year Plan Bundle can be augmented with one of the Nanit Insights Plans, which you can access through the app.

It gives you detailed tracking information about your baby’s sleep by using data detected from its Breathing Wear and your baby’s movements.

This information is then carefully organized for you as a summary so you can better understand what it all means.

Personalized sleep tips are also provided based on your baby’s age and the data that’s been gathered.

Nanit app

The Nanit app allows various caregivers to pair with the camera so that grandparents or babysitters can share the account.

30% off bundles: Nanit

Is there anything that sets Nanit monitors apart?

There are a few features set the Nanit Pro apart from other baby monitors.

Nanit pros and cons

Nanit prices and what’s included

Nanit offers a number of bundle options which you can find on their website.

All purchases including a Nanit camera come with a 1-month free trial of Nanit Insights.

Nanit Pro 5-Year Plan Bundle: $340 (30% off $485) (or $29 a month)

The 5-Year Plan Bundle includes:

• 1 Nanit Pro Wall-Mounted Camera
• 1 Small sensor-free Breathing Band (0-3 months)
• 1 Flex Stand
• 1 Sound + Light Audio Monitor
• 1 Traveling Light Case

If you choose to have a floor stand option, the price for this package increases to $409 (30% of $584).

Nanit prices when sold separately:

• Nanit Pro Camera (Wall-mount): $239 (20% $299)
• Nanit Pro Camera (Floor Stand): $319 (20% off $399)
• Nanit Breathing Bands: $15.99 (20% off $19.99)
• Flex Stand: $39 (20% off $49)

Nanit reviews: what customers had to say

Nanit had a rating of 4.5 stars out of 5 based on 4,276 reviews from 3 different websites (Amazon, Best Buy, and Target). Here’s a summary of what reviewers had to say about it.

Nanit pros and cons from online reviews

Pros from customer reviews:

• One-device solution to baby monitoring. Parents like that Nanit provides complete monitoring of baby’s sleep, breathing, and environment with one camera. Many were impressed that it went beyond just providing video and audio streaming and helped to track room temperature, humidity, and more.
• High image quality even in night vision mode. Many were impressed with the clarity of the video.
• Breathing wear helps assure anxious parents that baby is doing fine. The camera picks up on micromovements to monitor the baby’s breathing while wearing the breathing band.
• Detailed sleep tracking was very helpful. Reviewers liked that the device could objectively assess when their baby fell asleep or woke through its sensors. This helped take the guesswork out of tracking baby’s sleep.
• Nanit Insights helped parents understand baby’s sleep needs. An overwhelming majority were impressed with Nanit Insights, which provided parents with a detailed analysis of their baby’s sleep overnight.
• Parents loved that the sleep training tips were personalized and aimed to help baby get more sleep at night.
• Remote monitoring options. Parents could check on baby while out of the house (like on nights out).
• Multi-user options were helpful. Relatives could pair their phones with the camera for babysitting.
• Nice extra features. Many liked the extra features like a night light and white noise.
• Peace of mind with data safety features. Reviewers who were fearful of baby-cam hackers liked the 256-bit encryption to secure data in transmission.
• The baby-safe design was a plus. Several mentioned they liked that camera cords could be hidden behind an adhesive cover to prevent baby from reaching them.
• Easy to set up. Many were happy with the less than 10-minute setup for the Nanit.

Cons from customer reviews:

• Technical issues: some parents found that background audio switched off in the night which caused htem concern.
• Parents were unable to remove carers added to the account after they stopped working with the family.
• Price of Nanit Insights: some parents didn’t want to pay for Nanit Insights which offers most of the useful information on baby.

Here’s a look at what some reviewers had to say:

Is the Nanit smart monitor worth it?

Nanit offers a good smart monitor with clear video and audio quality and a sensor-free way of monitoring baby’s breathing.

Nanit also offers a wide range of other useful data that parents can use via the Nanit Insights app. However, Nanit Insights costs extra after the first six months, so it may not suit parents on a budget.

Nanit seems to have thought about everything that could be useful for new parents and done their best to provide it. Examples are a split-screen monitor for when you have two cameras to monitor, soothing sounds from nature to white noise to help baby go to sleep, a night light, and a travel stand for when you’re traveling.

So, Nanit is a good choice for parents who want a monitor with a wide range of different features. Although it’s on the pricier side, many parents have mentioned that it’s worth the extra investment for a high-tech monitoring solution.

Get up to $25 off your first purchase: Owlet

Owlet Dream Sock review

The co-founder of Owlet Kurt Workman, understands the worries that parents have about SIDS from his own experience.

His wife has a congenital heart condition, and they were worried it could affect their children.

He didn’t want to take any chances with monitoring his baby’s health and decided better home-care equipment needed to be available for parents like himself.

With this mission in mind, his team created the Owlet Dream Sock and Camera to empower parents with the health information they need about their babies.

Owlet Dream Duo 

The Owlet Dream Duo provides a complete monitoring system for your baby so you can see, hear, and know she is safe.

There are 2 components to the system — the Owlet Cam and the Owlet Dream Sock. 

Owlet Cam

The Owlet Cam live-streams HD-quality video of your baby to your phone app. It also has:

• Night vision
• 130° wide-angle lens: for clear views of the whole nursery
• Phone-to-camera 2-way audio: this allows you to hear everything going on in the nursery and talk to your baby through the camera.
• Room-temperature and humidity sensor: this is built into the camera, so you will know if the room is too hot or cold for your baby.
• Transmission through secure, encrypted WiFi: information gets sent securely, so you don’t have to worry about third parties accessing images of your baby.

You can choose to have the camera free-standing on a surface — it even comes with a magnetic base.

It also comes with a wall mounting kit so you can have a bird’s-eye view of your baby’s crib. 

Cable guards come included to make the device child-safe.

Owlet Dream Sock

The other component is the Dream Sock (0-18 months), a small fabric wrap with a sensor attached that you place on your baby’s foot. It uses pulse oximetry technology to measure baby’s:

• pulse rate
• oxygen saturation
• sleep patterns

How the Owlet Dream Sock works

This data is wirelessly sent to your phone app and the base station, which uses different colors and sounds to notify you if your baby is okay or needs attention.

Any alerts come up on the base station and on the app.

The Dream Sock sensor connects to the base station via Bluetooth and to the phone app through WiFi. You also get:

• An app for accessing all your baby’s sleep data, sleep alerts, heart rate, oxygen, and sleep coaching.
• A base station to alert you if your baby may need sleep assistance.
• Alerts if oxygen and heart rate is out of a specified range. 

You need to charge the Dream Sock at the base station, but it charges relatively quickly and can be fully charged within 90 minutes.

Owlet app

Both the Owlet Cam and Dream Sock are linked to the Owlet app, which gives you the health information you need about your baby, like oxygen levels and heart rate.

How the Owlet app works

The app can be downloaded on multiple phones so different caregivers can access the account.

Along with the base station, the phone app also notifies you if your baby’s health vitals are not within the safe zone.

It also has a useful additional feature that tracks your baby’s sleep trends like total hours slept, number of wakings, and sleep quality.

Get up to $25 off your first purchase: Owlet

Is the Owlet Dream Duo worth it?

The Owlet Dream Duo is worth it if you want a complete video plus audio baby monitoring device that is also able to track certain vital signs and sleep.

Here’s a closer look at its features and why parents love about it:   

Owlet and FDA approval

It’s worth mentioning that although the monitors provide detailed health information, the company states the Owlet Cam and Dream Sock are not medical devices.

Both devices are designed to monitor healthy babies and is not meant to be used for diagnosing, monitoring, or treating medical conditions.

If you are looking for medical-grade monitoring for health conditions then the Owlet FDA-Cleared BabySat™ Monitoring System is available with a prescription.

Owlet pricing and what’s included

The Owlet Dream Duo (sock and cam) costs $399 at the time of writing.

• Owlet Dream Sock 
• Base station
• Owlet Cam 2

Alternatively you can buy each item separately:

The Owlet Cam 2 costs $159. It includes the following.

• Owlet camera and magnetic base
• Wall mounting kit with cable guards
• Power adapter
• USB power cable with temperature sensor
• Owlet App

The Owlet Dream Sock costs $299. It includes the following:

• One dream sock sensor
• Four fabric socks (to fit 0-18 month olds)
• Wireless charging base station
• Access to Owlet Dream App

Owlet UK

Owlet prices in the UK at the time of writing are:

Owlet Dream Duo:  (sock + cam): ￡399

Owlet Cam 2: ￡149

Owlet Dream Sock: ￡289

Owlet reviews: what parents had to say

The Owlet had a score of 4.5 out of 5 stars based on 10,000+ reviews from 4 websites (Amazon, Influenster, Target, and productreview.com).

Here are some of the feedback that parents gave about the system:

Pros from customer reviews

• Peace of mind for first-time or anxious parents: It gave them peace of mind to have a device constantly checking on baby’s vitals. This was especially so for those who were concerned about SIDS.
• Helpful for premature and NICU babies: These parents felt that Owlet is a helpful aid to replicate the similar type of vital sign readings that would be taken at the hospital. It gave them peace of mind while making the transition from hospital to home.
• Measures detailed health information: Many reviewers liked that the Owlet sock gave specific information about oxygen levels and heart rate.
• Parents reported getting more rest: With the Owlet constantly monitoring the baby’s vitals, parents were able to sleep better as they felt they didn’t have to worry as much about SIDS.
• Different and comfortable sock sizes: Most parents were happy with the way the sock fitted on their baby’s feet and liked that there were 3 sizes to suit a growing baby.
• This device actually saved babies with health complications: I read several reviews saying that the Owlet had alerted parents to babies who had stopped breathing because of chronic sleep apnea, or whose heart rate was too high because of a bacterial infection. These parents felt that Owlet may have helped save their baby’s life.
• Great sleep information: Many liked that it recorded data about their baby’s sleep so they could be aware of the exact hours the baby is sleeping and how often she wakes through the night.
• Good picture quality on the camera: Many were satisfied with the video quality delivered by the Owlet Cam.
• Night vision image quality was also good on the Owlet Cam.
• Easy to set up: Many parents said the Owlet Cam and Dream Sock setup was quick and easy.
• The app can be used with multiple devices: Useful for babies with multiple caregivers.
• The app is intuitive and easy to use: Many liked that the Owlet Cam, Dream Sock, and Owlet app all integrated seamlessly with one another.

Cons from customer reviews

• Expensive for some: Some mentioned it’s pricey for a monitor, but also added that it was worth the cost for peace of mind. It is one of the very few monitors on the market that offers such detailed health statistics on baby.
• Delayed image feedback: Some experienced image lag, but mentioned it could be because of their internet connection rather than the product itself.
• Some were frustrated with false alarms: Some reviewers experienced technical difficulties like the sensor not making good contact with their baby’s skin or having it disconnect from the base station. Some false alarms can happen with all health monitors so it’s good to take care that the sock is fitted correctly.

Here’s a look at what other parents had to say:

Is Owlet worth it?

Owlet is worth it for parents who want to easily be updated about their baby’s vitals and sleep data. 

Most people value the Owlet because of the heart rate and oxygen level readings it provides. 

These have given many anxious parents peace of mind when used in conjunction with safe sleep habits. 

Keep in mind though, it’s not a medical device to be used for diagnosis or treatment of conditions.

The sleep data is a bonus for parents who need help learning about how to help their baby get more rest. 

In general, the design is good for most babies. However, there were several complaints about the sock not fitting securely, which could have resulted in inaccurate readings. So if you have a very small baby, you may want to take care with this.

Which is better, Nanit or Owlet

Both Nanit and Owlet offer high-quality smart baby monitoring. The difference between them is in what exactly you want to monitor.

Nanit is a better choice for parents who want their baby’s breathing monitored along with tips for their sleep and general well-being. This is done through the personalized tips that it gives parents using Nanit Insights – a feature that’s unique to Nanit.

Owlet on the other hand is better for those who want more health data on their baby as it measures baby’s heart rate and oxygen levels too. This makes it a better fit for parents of preemies or babies who have come home from the NICU, although it should be noted that it’s not a medical device.

As a parent who was very paranoid about SIDS, I personally found that the Owlet appealed to me a little bit more than the Nanit. Its pulse oximetry technology gives you baby’s exact heart rate and oxygen levels which Nanit doesn’t monitor.

On the other hand, Nanit is a great option for those who want an all-round monitoring service. It’s a breathing and video monitor that also offers in-depth sleep tracking and tips. While Owlet does give some good sleep data, Nanit Insights uses the data to give you customized advice about how to help baby.

The personalized sleep tips provide valuable input, especially to a parent who is sleep-training their baby or trying to find the best routine.

The breathing is monitored by the camera which monitors micromovements in the fabric breathing bands. So no monitoring equipment is worn by baby with the Nanit.

Apart from the differences in these areas, I felt that both were great at helping parents to monitor baby by providing high-quality video and audio streaming.

It’s convenient that both use phone apps as the receiver so you don’t need to carry an extra device around to see the live stream of your baby.

They’re also equally safe in terms of design and the way data is transmitted. The pricing of their complete sets is also quite similar (with Nanit coming in slightly cheaper), so I didn’t see a benefit of one over the other in this respect.

Whichever system you choose, I believe both monitors are worth the price as they both go above and beyond what traditional monitors can do.

Knowing your baby is safe is one of the greatest reliefs a parent can have. These smart monitors also provide the extra set of eyes a tired parent needs especially during the night.

Nanit FAQs

Is Nanit safe from hackers?

Nanit Pro makes your system safer from hackers by using AWS cloud computing whose servers are protected using some of the strongest digital measures. 

Does Nanit have music, sound, or white noise?

Nanit is able to play white noise like nature sounds by controlling it through the app, but there is no music. 

Does Nanit require a subscription?

No Nanit does not require a subscription. The Nanit camera comes with a 1-month subscription to their Insights program, after that, you pay a subscription if you want to keep using Insights.

The Nanit camera does not need the Insights subscription to work, but the app provides many more perks when you sign up. For example, you can get more in-depth sleep tips that are tailored to the information it has about your baby, get more video history access, invite more caregivers to the same account, and more.

Does Nanit alert when baby cries?

Nanit does not alert when baby cries. It only sends an alert if breathing motion is not detected for 20 seconds.

Owlet FAQs

Can Owlet prevent SIDS?

It’s important to note that Owlet is not meant to prevent SIDS. However, the Owlet Dream Sock does provide parents with extra support in keeping their babies safe by monitoring his or her heart rate and oxygen levels. 

Is Owlet safe for babies?

Owlet’s Dream Sock and camera are safe devices that meet various standards including the ASTM Toy Standard, ASTM Baby Monitor Standard, and more. 

The sock strap stays snugly secure on your baby’s foot. If it were to come off, you would be notified on your base station. The cords of the camera should always be tucked away within the cable guards. Your data is also secured by encrypted WiFi. 

Can baby wear a sock over Owlet?

Yes you can put on a sock over Owlet. It will continue to work as long as the Owlet sensor is next to your baby’s skin. 

Alternatives to Nanit and Owlet

The Miku smart camera is the most comparable to the Nanit and Owlet systems as it offers breathing monitoring without the need for any wearables on baby.

You can see how it compares to the Nanit in our comparison here: Nanit vs Miku, Which Smart Breathing Monitor is Best?

If you’re looking for a simpler or more affordable baby monitoring system then you might want to try Babysense or Sens-U.

You can see how they compare to Nanit in our article here: Best Baby Breathing Monitors.

Other baby products we love

We also love the SNOO bassinet which has a self-rocking system to help settle baby back to sleep and give new mamas more rest.

You can find out more about this smart bassinet here: Complete SNOO review.