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Simshine Baby Pro Monitor Review
A smart baby monitor with sleep tracking, crying detection, 2K video resolution, night vision, facial recognition and no monthly fees.
When looking for a good smart baby monitor, you need to make sure you get one with a HD camera with customized motion detection, built-in lullabies, two-way communication, clear night vision and a wide field of view (FOV). Some smart baby monitors can be pan and tilt cameras which provide a lot of visibility for you to keep an eye on your infant. And some come with special features like sleep tracking and facial recognition. We recently tested such a smart baby monitor called Simshine Baby Pro Monitor. Simcam provided us with a unit to test and we really liked how it performed. Here is our full review.
Simshine Baby Pro Monitor unboxed.GearBrain
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What is Simshine Baby Pro Monitor?
Simshine Baby Pro is a smart baby monitor with remote pan and tilt zoom capabilities, infrared night vision, two-way communication, motion detection, local storage and 2K QHD video camera. It comes with a power adapter, power cord, 2K QHD camera and stand for installation on a baby’s crib. The camera also works on either a 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz Wi-Fi connection. If you have a dual band Wi-Fi router, you are in good shape.
Features for Simshine Baby Pro include sleep tracking which sends you alerts to your smartphone when your infant falls asleep and then wakes up. The camera can also detect when your baby is crying and send an alert. And it also has facial detection. All these activities can be tracked and put into a log in the SimHome mobile app which is available for both iOS and Android devices.
SimHome app is where you setup facial detection, device sharing and more.GearBrain
Another nice feature for this smart baby monitor is virtual fencing. Setup for virtual fencing is done in the app. Go to virtual fencing setting and turn on alerts, schedule detection period if you want and adjust the sensitivity. Once done, you will get an alert whenever someone comes within a certain distance of the crib or when your baby or someone enters the purple virtual fence. You can also turn on Show AI Zone. This feature only works when your camera is in HD mode and sends you alerts when motion or a face is detected.
And for the little one who cries a lot, you can set up lullabies to play when your infant is crying in the app. The baby monitor also has 5 pre-recorded lullabies for you to select. If you want to can select one or have the Sunshine play random lullabies.
Select any of the five lullabies in the SimHome app.GearBrain
How good is the Simshine Baby Pro 2K camera?
The Simshine baby monitor’s camera is very good. It has 2560 x 1440 p video resolution with 30 frames per second and a 100-degree field of view. You might be thinking 100 FOV is not that big for a security camera or baby monitor, but remember, this baby monitor is a pan and tilt camera. When you factor in the ability to move the camera around using the SimHome app, this camera can provide a 360-degree pan and tilt capability which translate into a large viewing and detection area.
The camera’s infrared night vision is pretty good too. You can see up to 33 feet way in complete darkness. This comes in handy for the little ones who don’t like a night light and you want to see what’s going on without waking the little one.
Use the SimHome app to control your Simshine Baby Pro camera. The touch controls are easy to use.GearBrain
Smart Home Integrations
Simshine Baby Pro works with both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa enabled devices. Users can pair the Simshine with both of these smart voice assistant platforms as well as If This Than applets. (IFTTT). So, if you want to use your Echo Smart Display or Nest Hub Max to check up on your little one while they nap, you can with either of these smart speaker displays. Just follow the instructions in the SimHome app to pair your baby monitor with these smart devices. But if you have a smart display that has either Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa voice platforms built-in, note that these displays will not work with SimHome app.
How to setup your Simshine Baby Pro?
Setting up a baby monitor is simple. You just need to have a good wireless signal in the baby’s room and an outlet nearby. For Simshine, you should download the SimHome app first and follow the setup instructions. They are easy to follow, and you will be able to troubleshoot any problems with connectivity. The setup process takes about 10 minutes, depending how strong the Wi-Fi connection is in the baby’s room and the type of crib you will be installing the stand for your camera.
Cost
Cost of Simshine Baby Pro Monitor is $169 and is available on Amazon. The company does offer a Simshine Baby Pro Kit for $289 on Amazon.
Performance
When we test smart baby monitors, we look for good video resolution, night vision, two-way communication and custom motion detection. The Simshine Baby Pro provides all these and more. Setting up no-go or danger zone areas in the app was easy. We just went to Setting screen and activated virtual fencing, Show AI Zone and sleep tracking. We did have to adjust the motion sensitivity because the High setting kept giving us false alerts due to the light coming in during the day. The camera would mistake a shadow as a person entering the virtual fence. Once we adjusted the motion detection sensitivity down, we stopped getting false alerts
Two other features we liked with Simshine were the crying detection and lullabies. We turned on crying detection which imitates video recording when it hears the baby cry. Then we turned on music soothing which automatically plays music when it hears a baby crying. SimHome app offers five different lullabies, and each was soothing. We liked how you can either select one lullaby to play or have them play randomly when activated.
Virtual fencing will help you get alerts when the baby goes outside these areas or someone comes close to the virtual fence.GearBrain
The camera’s video resolution was very decent, especially for a camera at this price point. We had no issues with seeing the baby day or night. But one feature we liked was the local storage. Many smart baby monitors offer cloud storage but for a monthly fee. Simshine Baby Pro does not store videos in the cloud but does provide a 24. Hour playback for your videos. It also allows you to store your photos and videos locally via a microSD card. It can hold up to 128 GB of storage which is rather good.
Lastly, we tested two-way communication and found it to be sufficient. Slightly delayed like most Wi-Fi smart baby monitors, but not as bad as others we have tested.
Summary
As baby monitors become more complex and they keep adding more unique security features like customized motion detection and facial recognition, the cost for these devices is increasing too. For instance, a smart baby monitor with facial recognition, sleep tracking, custom motion detection, 2K video resolution and clear night vision cost in the range of $155 to $300. And they require you to get cloud storage to store your videos and require you to put a wearable on your infant so they can track their sleeping and breathing. (Check out Nanit pro Smart Baby Monitor). Simshine Baby Pro offers facial recognition, custom motion detection, sleep tracking without using a wearable on your infant and has crying detection for $169. This is a good deal, especially since there are no subscription fees, and you get 24-hour playback of your videos, or you can store them locally.
Another new feature we are seeing with smart baby monitors is the addition of a separate 5” handheld monitor which parents can use to keep an eye on their little one without accessing their smartphone. This smart display is great to have for your babysitter. You don’t have to give them access to your systems via the app and some of these displays can also act as an educational tool for your little one. We found Simcam does offer a Simshine Baby Monitor Screen for an additional cost of $79.99. By adding this 5” display to the cost of Simshine Baby Pro, your system does start to get a little pricy. However, keep in mind there are no monthly fees like many of their competitors who do offer 5” displays and cloud storage, like Hubble Connected nursery Pal Deluxe Baby Monitor system.
Overall, Simshine Baby Pro is a reliable and secure smart baby monitor. You can mount it on the crib or place the camera on a shelf overlooking your baby’s crib. It has excellent video resolution and features to help soothe. your infant when they start to cry and provides you with the tools you need to keep them safe day and night.
Pros
- Excellent video resolution and night vision
- Crying Detection
- Virtual fencing
- No monthly fees
Cons
- No separate display
- Only works with native Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa smart display integrations
Check out The GearBrain, our smart home compatibility checker to see the other compatible products that work with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa enabled devices.
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