Baby Monitor with Video on Your Phone

Usually yes: the parent unit keeps playing in the background and the baby unit keeps its screen on. But some browsers — especially the ones built into apps — cut the network in the background. If the link drops while the page is open, the phone sounds a «No connection to the baby unit» alarm; if the browser unloaded the tab, the monitor goes back to the baby unit by itself the next time you open it. A regular browser (Chrome, Safari) is the most reliable.

Over WebRTC with DTLS-SRTP encryption: the browsers create and hold the keys themselves. If the devices can't reach each other directly, a relay (TURN) forwards the encrypted packets. A device that wasn't in the room when monitoring started can't join the running session.

One baby unit streams to three listening devices at the same time, which covers the usual case — a phone in the kitchen, a tablet in the bedroom and a laptop where someone is working. The limit is not arbitrary: every listener is a separate direct connection out of the baby phone, and a fourth one starts costing the audio quality of the other three, especially on an older phone left in the nursery. A new device cannot join a session that is already running — so nobody starts listening to the nursery through a forwarded link. A device that was in the room at the start comes back by itself, even after a reload; a new one is added the next time a session starts.

The parent unit reconnects by itself and does not give up while the session runs. If the baby unit does not answer for more than 20 seconds, the phone sounds a loud alarm and shows how long the link has been down. If the page closed or reloaded, it goes back to the running baby unit by itself when opened again — nothing needs to be tapped there.

Turn on «Send video from the camera» on the baby unit. When the room is dark, the camera switches to night mode by itself: frames are averaged where nothing moves, the brightness is lifted and the picture turns black and white — several times less noise. But an ordinary camera needs some light: in total darkness, without an infrared lamp, it sees nothing. A night-light or the dim red glow of the baby unit's screen helps a lot. You can also pick the mode by hand — Auto, Day or Night — including from the parent's phone.

Yes, it works in modern browsers on both iOS (Safari) and Android (Chrome). No app installation needed.

Yes. The devices find each other over the internet, not only on the same Wi-Fi: the baby unit can stay at home on Wi-Fi while you listen over 4G or from your work laptop. In Chrome and Edge on a computer you can pop the monitor into a "Mini window" over other programs. If the connection drops, the parent unit sounds an alarm and reconnects by itself.