Philips interference-free baby monitor

B000I1Z04C.01. Aa280 Sclzzzzzzz
Wireless is a black art and I don't seem to have the magick touch. Plus, I live in a semi-ramshackle house with a weird floor plan built from various kinds of construction materials that seem to compound interference problems. A year ago, we had a wireless network with repeaters and 900 MHz and a 2.4 GHz cordless phones. Everything worked ok, except when it didn't. But we dealt. Then, we suddenly had need for a baby monitor. And that was like opening a Pandora's Box of interference. We received a video baby monitor as a gift. Neat idea, but the picture looked like a scrambled cable TV channel and the audio was a great white noise generator. When I returned it, I asked the knowledgeable salesperson at the baby gear shop which audio monitor worked well in a house with WiFi. Her response? "None of them. Just keep trying the different models and maybe you'll get lucky." I quickly found out that the pricey ones were just as noisy and unusable as the cheap ones. And yes, I realize I could have probably rolled my own WiFi baby monitor using X10, a Chumby, or various other components. But that would require the one thing that a new parent doesn't have access to: Time.

Then, Philips sent me a review unit of their new DECT Baby Monitor with the claim of "guaranteed zero interference." DECT (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications) is a digital wireless standard that was imported from Europe. I don't know all of the technical details and at $200, the DECT Baby Monitor isn't cheap. But we've used it every day (and every night) for six months and it has never failed us, never suffered from interference, and never knocked out our WiFi. The Baby Monitor has various other features like a temperature monitor and can also play several lullabies, but the product's biggest selling point is that it works. And in my experience with baby monitors, that's saying a lot.

Link to buy the Baby Monitor, Link to the Philips product page

UPDATE: Ken Kilar of babystyle.com says, "Coupon code boingboing will give 'em $10 OFF & FREE Ground Shipping on that item." Link (Thanks, Ken!)