Two video monitors?

We have our twins in one room but seperate cribs. We got a Video monitor from a friend and love it--we'd like to get another for the other twin, but can you do two? Wouldn't they interfere with each other? Do I have to get two different models? We do know that one channel on the video monitor (it's a summer handheld) won't work in our house, so we can only use channel b.

Just wondering what anyone else does for monitoring via video two babies in seperate places....

 

Why won't the A channel work? We bought an additional camera and one runs on channel A and the other on channel B. We also have the Summer Handheld. You can order the additional camera through BRU and maybe from Amazon too.

 

Don't know why the A channel doesn't work--we just get static. Maybe our phone lines are interfering with that frequency. Not sure. Thanks for replying.

 

I would contact Summers Infant - I personally havn't had to -- but I have a friend who has one of their video monitors -- and the camera started acting up -- (no sound for some reason) - they replaced it -- no questions asked. So I'd give that a try to get it fixed, and then get a second camera -- that's what we have, and it's great!

 

You might have trouble with the other channel if you have a wireless home network. That was our holdup with video monitors. Monitors, phones, and routers all run on frequencies that are close together, so you have to buy carefully.

If so, you can try to change the channel on your router so it's as far away as possible from the frequency the monitor runs off of. It's not hard, you should be able to look in your router documentation to see how to do it. Though, for the record, we tried that with the Summer one (not the handheld, the other tv-like receiver one), and it didn't work - we still got a lot of static and interference. We also couldn't position the cameras themselves far enough apart to not cause some interference.

What we wound up doing is installing a wireless webcam in the babies' room. It was pricey ($200ish), though it was a gift (yay!). It pans, zooms, covers the ENTIRE room, transmits full color video and sound, takes pictures, etc. It even transmits over the internet if you want it to (password protected). It doesn't work fabulously well in the dark, but we have a nightlight in there, and that's good enough to make out the basics of who's doing what.

So far, we love it!

 

We have two different setups in our house. In the actual nursery the cribs are back to back and we have 1 camera (a Summer 900MHz) mounted at ceiling height that covers every single inch of both cribs. The audio on it is atrocious in our bedroom so we use our Sony 900MHz audio monitors we already had - although I had to try several different channels before I found one that worked (at first we had nasty feedback between the monitor and the camera). In our downstairs morning room turned playroom the cribs are on opposite sides of the room. We went with two 2.4GHz wireless video cameras made by SVAT (meant to be outdoor surveillance cameras) that plug into a t.v. (the whole setup was around $79 on sale). Then we configured the receiver to show split screen. The receiver that came with the cameras can actually handle up 4 cameras. We also found a way to stream the video from the receiver into our tivo and can now see it on any tivo in the house, and can even make it available over our wireless so I can see it on my notebook anywhere I go. The audio is good enough, although I still prefer to use the Sony monitors we already had instead.

FWIW... we also have a wireless airport of a house. We have wireless alarm sensors, lighting, a gazillion wireless phones, wireless network, not to mention all the baby stuff. Most of them have multiple channels and when I install a new device if it doesn't work off the bat I temporarily disable items one by one until I find the culprit and then adjust the channels on the offenders until I find something that works.

 

We started off with one monitor (Mobi cam) when the girls shared a crib and went to two when they split cribs. Our Wal-mart carries them for $99. We use channel A and B. We didn't have any trouble with static until we used both at the same time. One audio is very clear and the other you have to have it just right not to get static. At night we have the monitor set to channel A (clearest)...we figure if the baby in the other crib is crying it will be picked up on her sisters monitor and we could just flip over to the other channel to see her. We share walls so we do hear them if they are crying even without the monitor.

 

I have the summer handheld video monitor and it is pointed on one twin. I was originally going to get another camera (this particular one you can have 2 cameras and 1 monitor) but decided not to just because if 1 is crying I know which one by looking at the camera (if it isn't the one I am looking at it must be the other one). Plus the girls are my 2nd and 3rd children so I am more layed back then I was with my 1st (still using the monitor for naps and bed and he is 20 mo.)

 

Thanks ladies! We'll try playing with the wireless setting to see if we can eliminate the static on channel A so we can get a second camera. Otherwise, we'll go the wireless SVAT route.

Angeez, that's what we do now... but we always feel bad that we're not "looking" at the other one. Just another thing we're trying to do "equally"