Audio vs video baby monitor: which do you need?

For most evenings an audio baby monitor is enough: it tells you when your child cries or calls, and you go to them. A video monitor is worth having when you’d like to see what’s happening before you go in – whether a stir will turn into a full wake-up, or whether your toddler is standing up or climbing. Neither kind makes your child’s sleep safer. A baby monitor helps you hear, and perhaps see, your child; it doesn’t watch over their health.

Is an audio baby monitor enough?

For the job a baby monitor actually does – letting you know that your child needs you when you’re out of earshot – yes. You hear crying or calling, you go. An audio monitor is usually all you need when:

• you’d go in anyway once your child cries, so a picture wouldn’t change what you do;
• you’d rather not spend the evening watching a screen – sound speaks up when something happens and stays quiet otherwise;
• your baby still sleeps in your room at night. The NHS recommends that a baby sleeps in a separate cot or Moses basket in the same room as you for at least the first six months [1]. A monitor then mostly covers the evening, before you go to bed yourself;
• your child is older and doesn’t want to be watched. At that point the camera should go anyway.

A good audio monitor has three things: adjustable sensitivity, so rolling over and babbling don’t make you jump but crying always gets through; a warning when the connection drops, so silence can’t mean a flat battery; and nothing that lights up or beeps in your child’s room.

What does a video baby monitor add?

A picture answers questions sound can’t:

• Is your child really awake? Some children murmur, sigh or call out in their sleep and drift straight off again. With a picture you can wait and see rather than open the door just to check.
• What is your toddler up to? Standing in the cot, sitting on the floor, trying to climb out – you don’t always hear it.
• Is it worth the trip? If the nursery is a floor up, one look can save you the stairs.

What are the downsides of a video baby monitor?

• Attention and worry. A screen invites you to look even when nothing is happening. Red Nose, the Australian safe sleep charity, notes that for some families monitors may increase anxiety rather than provide reassurance [2]. A 2025 study in BMJ Paediatrics Open analysed 11,262 Amazon reviews of 48 “smart” infant sleep monitoring products, 15 of them cameras. When devices worked well, reviewers often reported peace of mind and sometimes better sleep; nearly a third of the reviews the researchers coded described poor device performance, which went along with more stress and anxiety [3].
• It isn’t a health monitor. The Lullaby Trust says there’s no research showing baby monitors help prevent SIDS, and that a monitor can never replace a parent’s supervision [4]. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) advises against commercial devices that claim to reduce the risk of SIDS, warning that they can give a false sense of security [5]. Both point to safe sleep practice instead.
• Light. Anything that glows on the baby unit, your child can see. Make sure nothing lights up in the nursery – and that a bright screen by the sofa doesn’t take over your evening.
• Battery and data. Sending a picture takes more data than sending sound, and a lit screen drains a battery faster.
• Privacy. An internet-connected camera in your child’s room raises the question of who else could see the picture. In 2015 the security firm Rapid7 examined nine internet-connected baby monitors; unencrypted video streaming was among the common findings [6]. Our guide on whether baby monitors can be hacked covers what has happened since and what protects you.
• Price. Which? puts the range at less than £20 for a basic audio monitor and more than £300 for a top-end wi-fi video monitor with several cameras [7].
• Placement. To see the cot, cameras tend to end up close to it. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) advises keeping monitor cords at least three feet from any part of the cot, crib or bassinet, and never placing a monitor inside a cot or on its edge [8].

Is an audio baby monitor better than a video one?

Neither is better across the board; they answer different questions. Audio tells you that your child needs you, video shows you what is going on. If what you do next is the same either way – you get up and go – the extra information doesn’t change much. If a picture would regularly save you a trip, or let you leave a settling child in peace, it earns its place.

Do you really need a video baby monitor?

No one needs one; the question is whether it’s worth it for you. A video baby monitor tends to be worth it when:

• your child often stirs briefly and goes back to sleep, and a look saves you getting up;
• your toddler has started standing in the cot or climbing, and you want to judge quickly whether to go now;
• the nursery is far from where you spend the evening;
• a picture genuinely calms you. That’s a fair reason. But if you find yourself checking a sleeping child every few minutes, try a few evenings with sound only.

Whether you need a monitor at all is a separate question, covered in do I need a baby monitor?.

Can an audio-only baby monitor cover two rooms?

Yes, if its parent unit takes a second baby unit. The questions that matter with two children are the same for audio and video: do you hear both rooms at once, and does an alert tell you which child it’s about? Our guide to a baby monitor for two rooms goes through them.

Audio and video in one app

With a phone as the baby monitor, you don’t have to choose at the checkout; you can decide each evening, provided the app does both.

With Babyfino you choose on the baby device. Audio only runs with its screen off and the app in the background; with video the screen stays on but black. Either way, nothing lights up in your child’s room. On your phone you listen live and, with video, watch as well. For every noise alert the baby device keeps a sound clip – from ten seconds before the alert to the end of the unrest, one minute at most – and, while it listens, the last 30 minutes to rewind. Both stay on the baby device and never on a server; there is no video replay. Babyfino is not a medical device and doesn’t monitor breathing or movement. It needs an internet connection on both devices and is coming soon for iPhone and Android.

Sources

1. NHS: Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), 2025 (retrieved 22 October 2026)
2. Red Nose Australia: Monitors are not Needed for Healthy Babies and Toddlers, 2025 (retrieved 22 October 2026)
3. BMJ Paediatrics Open: Dosso JA, Teng KA, Roy KT, Robillard JM – The quantified baby: real-world use of infant sleep monitoring technologies and its impact on parent mental health and medical decision-making, 2025 (retrieved 22 October 2026)
4. The Lullaby Trust: Baby monitors, 2025 (retrieved 22 October 2026)
5. American Academy of Pediatrics: American Academy of Pediatrics Updates Safe Sleep Recommendations: Back is Best, 2022 (retrieved 22 October 2026)
6. Rapid7: Internet-Connected Baby Monitor Security Research – Frequently Asked Questions, 2015 (retrieved 22 October 2026)
7. Which?: The only guide you’ll ever need to baby proof your home, 2026 (retrieved 22 October 2026)
8. U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission: Infants and Toddlers Can Strangle in Baby Monitor Cords (Publication 5066), 2012 (retrieved 22 October 2026)