Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

As new parents, we did A TON of research on baby monitors before finally coming to the conclusion that nothing currently available is going to be perfect. They all seem to have advantages and disadvantages along with technical challenges that prevent them from being 100% reliable. Our going in position was then to pick a suitable, smart phone based monitor that would allow us to easily view our baby's crib while we're home. We ended up purchasing the Lollipop despite the very little information on the Internet about it. This is a brand new item for 2017. The company appears to be small, private, and based in Taiwan. From what we saw, we liked these things about the Lollipop: it has similarities to the Nest cam but is specifically made for nurseries, there is a clean aesthetic to the camera and app interface, and it doesn't require a monthly subscription (for video recordings). At $149, it seemed like a reasonable price to try it out. Out of the box, the Lollipop was very easy to set up. The exterior is made of high quality silicone. We love that the flexible tail allows you to put it on a counter, mount it to a wall bracket, or attach it to the crib and that the camera head swivels and bends into any desired position. Once we downloaded the app, it took 60 seconds to get it working. This process involves signing up with an email address and then connecting to the camera. The only issue we have with initial setup is that while there are clear instructions for the physical mounting of the camera, there is zero information for operating the app itself. We had to play around to figure out precisely how it works. There should be an FAQ section in the app’s menu or on the product website. For example, only a single user account (one email address) can own the camera. So as two parents, we can’t connect to the camera using different accounts. We have gotten around this by both signing into the app using my husband’s login. [Note: The share feature only allows users to view a live feed and see saved images. There are no administrative rights.] With two phones using the same login, either one of us can control the camera settings although any changes to notification settings are specific to our devices. There are three types of events detected by the Lollipop: crying, crossing, and noise. Every time an event is detected, it automatically records a 30-second clip which is then saved to event videos. If you have event notifications turned on, you will receive a push alert on your phone. We find that because it takes at least 2 minutes for the system to upload videos to AWS for playback, it’s better to go directly to live view and see what’s going on with our baby. The camera settings allow you to turn on crying detection, draw walls around the baby, and set the decibel range for noise. Even if you have event notifications (push alerts) turned off, when you open the app, you still get notifications in the activity feed along with corresponding video clips unless you turn off detections within camera settings. Moreover, you can turn off detections for crying and crossing but not for noise. It is managed by setting a decibel limit and is on ALL the time, catching every sound that hits the limit (thereby triggering an event video). We discovered this early on when going about our day and later finding random video clips in the app of us entering the nursery and putzing around. It would make more sense if noise detection had its own off switch too. [EDIT 8/25/17: The developers have now added the ability to turn off noise detection.] A few reviewers have mentioned long delays for notifications to appear on their phones. After several weeks of use (in addition to my own tests using recorded sounds and tossing around objects), I would summarize that notifications are very reliable and occur within seconds when it comes to crossing and noise. Makes sense, right? It’s far easier for a machine to detect when something crosses an imaginary wall or when a noise hits a threshold. Trying to determine if a cry is in fact a cry is more difficult. Sometimes the push alert for a cry is received immediately. Other times, it comes 2-5 minutes after our baby has started to cry. In this case, I really think the initial cries may not have been detected as “cries” in the first place and not that there's an actual delay from the first cry. Like most babies, our baby will whimper and fuss before letting out a "real" cry that is then picked up by the Lollipop. We often hear our baby's sounds through the door before we get a notification, if we get one at all. For parents that want to take EXTRA precaution, I would suggest changing your noise sensitivity to a much lower decibel so that any and all sounds are picked up by the Lollipop. The #1 thing we wish the app had was a shortcut to pause everything - notifications AND detections. After our baby has woken up, I want to be able to stop the system with a single tap. Right now, I have to open the app, tap the menu, go to settings, select the camera, then switch off each event detection. It takes at least 10 taps! Do this while you’re half asleep and holding a crying baby - a few times a night - and you will see just how cumbersome it is. We really hope the mobile developers add this feature. As for the video quality, it's great, both daytime and nighttime. The camera has a wide-angle lens and the live feed only has a 1-2 second delay when using our home WiFi. You are not able to manually create a video recording although you can take image stills. All event videos and image stills can be saved to your phone’s camera roll - something all parents will love. I already have far too many videos saved of our stinkin' cute baby! The talk feature will also be quite useful as our kid gets older. So far, we have never encountered the app crashing or the live feed not working. The app performance has been remarkably stable. The only annoyance I have is when playing videos within the app, the sound often does not load. [EDIT 5/11/17: Based on the reply from Lollipop, I can confirm that the on/off ringer for my phone controls the sound for video playback. While this is not typical, it's good to know.] Everything considered, we are quite happy with the Lollipop and that it provides us with the convenience of not having to step into the nursery all the time. There is still room for improvement though and hope that future product enhancements address our suggestions and concerns.