Owlet Monitor Duo Preview | PCMag

Editors' Note: Owlet has stopped selling the Smart Sock included in the Baby Monitor Duo in the US in response to a request from the FDA. According to the company: “We plan to offer a new sleep monitoring solution, which we believe will be available soon. We also plan to continue to support our current customers.” In light of this, we have removed our original 4-star rating and Editors' Choice designation from this review. Our original article from November 20, 2021, is below.

Baby monitors are useful for seeing and listening to your little one when you aren't in the same room, but there's only so much you can track through a camera. Owlet's Monitor Duo includes the company's Owlet Cam, along with a smart sock that lets you easily track your infant’s vital signs. This isn't entirely unique—the Nanit Pro Complete Monitoring System (starting at $299) tracks breathing and growth—but Owlet's ability to track heart rate and blood oxygen level is especially useful for parents who fear SIDS or have a baby with special needs. And while neither system is cheap, Owlet's doesn't require a subscription fee, making it a better buy over the long run and earning it our Editors' Choice award.

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Owlet Pricing and Competitors

Owlet was one of the first companies to offer a smart sock that can alert parents if their sleeping infant isn't breathing or lacks a heartbeat—and, of course, if they've somehow pulled off the sock. The latest version included here—the Smart Sock 3—has a new sensor and design compared with the previous model, and sells separately for $299. On its own, the Owlet Cam is $149. Therefore, the Owlet Monitor Duo bundle saves you $49. (If you want to use the sock on a child older than 18 months, you need the $69.99 Smart Sock Extension Pack.)

Nanit is the top competitor in this category, but its system is ultimately pricier. For instance, Nanit requires you to purchase special clothes for your child or fabric for their crib's mattress. It also charges a subscription fee for its baby sleep training program, Nanit Insights. Although I didn't test it, Owlet also offers something similar called Dream Lab for a one-time fee of $99.

App, Design, and Setup

You control both the Owlet Cam and Smart Sock 3 via the Owlet Care app for Android and iOS. There's no web-based monitoring option for desktops, which is unfortunately the norm in this category.

The Owlet Cam isn't quite as fancy as competitors. That said, the vaguely egg-shaped device offers all the typical features of a Wi-Fi-enabled baby video monitor. It streams 1080p video at a 130-degree angle of view, includes effective night vision via infrared LEDs, has two-way audio in case you want to speak to your child remotely, and supports background audio so you can listen to your kid even if you switch to another app on your phone. The camera lets you digitally zoom in up to 4x.

It also has a temperature sensor, the result of which is prominently displayed in the app. That said, you can't set up any alerts about temperature thresholds of your choosing—the app will say the room is just right until it goes below 63 degrees Fahrenheit or over 83 degrees Fahrenheit. Owlet also shuns prerecorded sounds or music playback to soothe a child to sleep—a feature I too find superfluous because the speaker on most cameras, including this one, isn't capable of quality audio.

To get started, create an account in the Owlet Care app, plug in the camera, wait for it to say, “ready to pair,” and enter your home Wi-Fi credentials. A QR code will appear on the screen; hold it in front of the Owlet Cam until you hear a chime. Then, the camera will join the network and show up in the app. You also can create one or more child profiles and pair a child with one or more Owlet products. You can enter lots of demographic data about your kid if you choose.

Aside from setting the camera on a table or shelf, you can also mount it on a wall to look down into a crib or bed. The package includes mounting hardware, plus cord covers to stick the power cable to the wall so that prying hands can't yank it down. I prefer Nanit's movable floor stand, although it costs $125 extra.

You can turn off the Owlet Cam status light using the app so the glow won't bother your baby—otherwise, it's red when the video stream is active and blue if it's just connected to Wi-Fi but not streaming. It doesn't have a night-light option like Nanit's camera, but the status light may work in a pinch. You can add multiple Owlet Cams to your account and monitor all of them in the same app, but you can't invite multiple people to the account. That means if a babysitter or remote family member wants to see your kid sleeping, you need to give them your Owlet credentials, which isn't ideal.

The Smart Sock 3 uses a completely new sensor than the old model that charges via a small puck-shaped base station; the older version required you to plug the sensor into a cable. The correct alignment of the sensor in the sock is just behind the pinky toe on the side of the foot; the sock has printed instructions on it to make that easy. A bigger concern is making sure that the sock doesn't fit too tightly once you secure the Velcro straps. If the Velcro doesn't reach, you need to get a bigger sock. Owlet's help resources show examples of a bad fit.

To set up the Smart Sock, you must connect both the sock and its base station to the app. The base doesn't have a camera, so you need to select the temporary Wi-Fi name (SSID) it broadcasts in your phone's settings. When the Wi-Fi light on the base station turns on, hold down the button on top of it until you hear two beeps; those indicate that the base is ready to pair. Pick your local Wi-Fi network and then enter your credentials to complete the setup. The sock only supports Bluetooth, however, and therefore needs to stay in range of its base station in order to work.

Owlet Monitoring Capabilities

The Owlet Cam is designed for real-time viewing and listening; there's no subscription-based option for storing video in the cloud. In portrait orientation on your phone, you can see the camera view at the top and the Smart Sock's readings (heart rate and blood oxygen level) below. If you turn your phone horizontally, the camera view takes over the phone screen and the vitals move to a notch on top of the screen. In testing, the live stream worked well.

The app keeps a history of data that the Smart Sock gathers. You can go back and check day-by-day and hour-by-hour to see the status of your child's sleep, blood oxygen percentage, and heartbeats per minute. The more your child wears the sock, the easier it is to spot trends or potential problems.

You also get a notification from the app via a wiggly feet icon if your kid is kicking up a storm. That was the warning I got the most because the sock didn't initially excite my son; he kicked and fussed about it the first couple of nights. By night three, however, it was a fun game to see the app show him kicking. And by night four, he was demanding the sock at bedtime. I don't expect as much of an adjustment period if your child has been wearing the Smart Sock since infancy.

Additionally, the app can notify you of sound or motion and you can control the sensitivity for both. In testing, I found any sensitivity over 40% resulted in too many warnings. Thankfully, you can set the interval between notifications from one minute up to an hour if you've got a real thrasher in the crib. The app stores a list of these notifications, too.

Because the Owlet Cam sends all the video over the internet from the camera to a server and then back to your phone, the feed has a slight delay. That's typical behavior for these types of cameras, but Nanit lets you keep the video entirely on your home Wi-Fi, which results in less latency. And if you have a metered internet connection, you can set the Owlet cam's video quality to 480p or even 360p to use less data. You can also turn off the camera audio entirely or set it to play in the background of your phone.

The Smart Sock's base station uses Wi-Fi to connect to the internet and your phone, and Bluetooth to pair with the sock. You can turn off the base station via the Owlet Care app if you want it to stop communicating with the sock's sensor.

If the sensor stops getting a heart rate or pulse, the base's warnings are loud enough to get your attention. However, the warnings are lullabies, so they aren't too alarming. For example, a strident version of “Hush Little Baby” played on repeat simultaneously from my phone and the base station when the sock had a placement issue. The warnings continued until I placed the sock correctly on my son's foot or put it on the base.

A light on the base shows yellow for a sock not being in the right place; blue if the sock is out of range; and red if the child's oxygen drops below 80%, their heart rate goes below 60 beats per minute with 85% oxygen, or their heart rate surpasses 220bpm. I recommend keeping the base in your room to avoid letting a false positive wake your child. You can snooze the base for 60 seconds and, if you catch a notification in time, deactivate the lullaby notification on your phone.

The app indicates if the sock is charging and also offers a color-coded look at how much time it has left on battery. After a full charge, my Smart Sock said it would last 16 hours and 4 minutes; nevertheless, you should charge the sensor every day when you the sock off by placing it on the base station's charging cradle.

New Sock, Same Peace of Mind

The Owlet Smart Sock remains an effective way to monitor your infant for signs of life, and its third iteration is better than ever. Paired with the Owlet Cam as part of the Owlet Monitor Duo, it's arguably a necessity for any parent who wants to get some rest without worrying about their little one facing serious danger in the next room. It’s the modern tech equivalent of staying in your baby's bedroom with your hand on their chest to make sure they're breathing, but with the added benefit of you being able to sleep peacefully as well. Competing baby monitoring systems like Nanit offer similar functionality, but will likely cost you more.