Best Budget Baby Monitors

The Scoop

• Incredibly affordable
• WiFi cam with live HD streaming, audio, night vision, pan, tilt and zoom
• Easy to use via the Wyze app

What Our Experts Think

Nope, you’re not seeing things. The Wyze, the home-surveillance-camera-turned-baby-monitor by lots of enterprising parents, is a WiFi-enabled camera with HD video and audio capabilities that costs under forty bucks. And it’s pretty darn great. If that’s not enough to get your attention, we’re not sure what is.

The Wyze cam is controlled remotely via an app and can be shared by multiple family members. When you’re using it as a baby monitor, you can monitor the live stream in real time via the app or set up push notifications on your phone to alert you to motion and sound. (You can adjust the sensitivities of the motion and sound sensors along with what time of day you want them to activate, too.) The camera has night vision and two-way audio capabilities, can record 12-second video clips, and can pan, tilt and zoom either manually or via an automatic preset feature. It also works with Alexa and Google Assistant. And have we mentioned that it’s less than a week’s worth of Starbucks’ lattes?

What’s Worth Considering

You’ll need your phone around (and always charged) to use the Wyze cam, which isn’t ideal if you’re using a sitter and want them to be able to use the monitor. (Although you are able to let them access the camera if they download the app and you give permission.) Some parents also don’t love the cloud-based storage—but there is an option to insert a micro SD card instead and store the files locally.

Also note that there is a newer version of this camera, the v3. While the night vision is slightly improved, it lacks pan and tilt capability, so we prefer v2 if you’re planning to use the Wyze as a baby monitor.