The Cubo AI Plus ($349) is a smart baby monitor that does more than just show you a video feed of your little one—it tells you when your child is moving around, when they’re crying, or if a blanket is covering their face. It also offers sharp 1080p video and clear two-way audio, as well as sleep analytics that provide insight into your baby’s sleeping habits. It even has environmental sensors that monitor temperature and humidity levels in your child’s room. That said, the humidity sensor wasn’t spot-on in testing, and the Cubo doesn’t monitor your child’s breathing like our Editors’ Choice winner, the $299 Nanit Plus.
Cubo AI Plus Design and Features
As with the Nanit model, the Cubo AI Plus offers numerous ways to mount the camera for optimal viewing. You can secure it to your baby’s crib, attach it to a weighted floor stand, or use it as a mobile camera that you can place on a shelf or on any flat surface in your home.
The kit comes with various stand elements (support bars), connectors, a crib attachment, a floor base that uses a water bag for weight, a camera holder, a mobile stand, a 6.5-foot USB power cable, a 10-foot USB power cable, two power adapters, and a temperature/humidity sensor dongle that plugs into the power port. It also comes with an illustrated quick start guide that shows you how to install the stands and connect everything, with a complete parts identification list to help make the process as smooth as possible.
The glossy white camera enclosure measures 4.5 by 3.2 by 4.2 inches (HWD) and is shaped like a baby bird. The camera assembly is mounted on a rotating panel with a faux wood finish and can be rotated up and down for an optimal viewing angle. It also allows you to position the lens for privacy mode. There’s a night-light built into the top of the enclosure and a speaker around back.
The camera captures video at 1080p, with a 135-degree field of view and a 4x digital zoom. It also has an infrared LED for black-and-white night vision and contains a light sensor and a microphone. Around back are a mini USB power port and a multipurpose power button that can be used to put the camera in sleep mode and activate the night-light. The button also serves as a status indicator and will glow solid white upon startup, turn solid green when everything is working but the camera isn’t streaming, turn solid blue when the camera is streaming, and turn solid red when the Wi-Fi connection is lost. The camera connects to your home network via an embedded dual-band Wi-Fi radio.
The Cubo AI Plus offers several features designed to give parents peace of mind. In addition to capturing live video, you can configure the camera to send push and audible alerts and record video when your baby is crying, when they roll over, and when there’s a blanket covering their face. You can set up a motion zone (called a Danger Zone) that will trigger an alert when your child wanders out of it, and you can monitor room temperature and humidity levels and be alerted when your chosen thresholds are breached. While these are more features than you get with your average baby monitor, the Cubo doesn’t offer the Nanit’s breathing monitor option that uses special clothing to measure breaths per minute and will alert you if your child stops breathing.
The Automatic Photo Capture feature responds to movement, smiles, and crying sounds, and will snap pictures when they occur and store them in the cloud on your Moments Wall for 10 days. Sleep Analytics track your child’s sleep patterns and presents them in a report that lets you monitor things like how long it takes for them to fall asleep, how long they sleep, and how often they wake up during the night. You get one-day sleep reports for free, but if you want to view historical reports with 30 days of sleep data, you have to subscribe to the Cubo AI Plus Premium plan for $8 per month, $45 for six months, or $80 for one year. The subscription also gives you the ability to view and download 18 hours of recorded event video and notifications (without the subscription you can only view the video) and access 30 days of Moments Wall images.
Cubo AI App
When you launch the Cubo AI mobile app (for Android and iOS), it opens to a home screen that contains a video panel with a live stream, and below that is a smaller lullaby panel. Tap the video panel to view the feed in full-screen mode, where you’ll find a sliding timeline of recorded motion and sound events at the bottom, along with a two-way talk button, a manual record button, and a snapshot button. At the top of the screen are temperature and humidity readings.
To play a lullaby, tap the arrow button on the lullaby panel. When you tap the music button, you’ll open a drop-down list of nine lullabies and sounds effects including Birds, Rain, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and White Noise. However, you can’t download lullabies and audiobooks like you can with the Motorola Halo +, or draw from your own music library like you can with the iBaby M6S.
There are four buttons located at the bottom of the home screen. The Home button takes you back to the home screen from wherever you are in the app, and the Sleep Analytics button lets you view your child’s sleep pattern reports. The Notifications button displays a history of all motion, crying, temperature, and humidity events with video thumbnails; tap any thumbnail to play the video. The Settings button takes you to a screen where you can create a profile for your baby, share access to the Cubo AI Plus with friends and family, turn the night-light on and off, edit Wi-Fi settings, and turn the status LED on and off. Here you can also turn sleep safety alerts on and off, configure Danger (motion) and Crib Detection Zones, enable cry alerts, and set temperature and humidity alert thresholds.
The Cubo AI Plus doesn’t support IFTTT applets, and doesn’t currently work with other smart home devices. At the time of this writing, Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant voice support weren’t ready, but a spokesperson confirmed that both will be available in the near future.
Installing and Using the Cubo AI Plus
With over 19 various mounting parts, cables, and adapters to contend with, I prepared myself for a lengthy installation process, but it turns out installing the Cubo AI Plus was quick and easy as everything simply snaps into place without the need for tools.
I started by assembling the floor stand, which requires running the 10-foot power cable up through the base and into the first stand element, which snaps into the base. I repeated this with the other two elements, attached them to each other using the snap-in connectors, then ran the cable through the L-shaped element and attached it to the top element. I attached the U-shaped camera holder to the L-shaped element, attached the camera to the holder, plugged in the temperature and humidity dongle, and connected the power cable to the dongle, at which point I heard a chirping sound. I removed the cover to the base, filled the water bag and placed it in the base compartment, and replaced the cover.
Next, I downloaded the mobile app, created an account, and selected the Cubo AI Plus from the list. I verified that the LED was pulsing white and entered my network SSID and password when prompted. This generated a QR code on my phone, which I placed in front of the camera. When the voice prompt informed me that the Cubo was connecting to my Wi-Fi I tapped Next, and within 15 seconds the camera was connected. I updated the firmware and the installation was complete.
The Cubo AI Plus delivered sharp 1080p video in testing. Daylight video showed good color quality, and black-and-white night video was well lit, with crisp image detail. Two-way audio was loud and clear, and the Cry Detection feature worked well, triggering a push alert accompanied by a chirp sound on my phone.
Temperature and humidity alerts arrived instantly, but the humidity sensor readings were typically two to three percentage points lower than the readings I received from an Eve Room sensor and a Honeywell Lyric Wi-Fi Water Leak and Freeze Detector that were placed in the same room.
A Smart But Spendy Baby Monitor
The Cubo AI Plus Smart Baby Monitor is a solid choice for parents who want to monitor their infant’s sleeping habits and receive alerts when their child is crying or rolling around in the crib—or when they’re older, out of the crib, and entering a danger zone. It delivers sharp 1080p video, its motion and sound alerts work well, and its sleep analytics feature can report on your baby’s sleep patterns and habits. It even monitors room temperature and humidity levels, though the latter were slightly off in testing. That said, the Nanit Plus offers most of the same features as the Cubo AI Plus, along with the ability to monitor breathing, for $50 less, remaining our Editors’ Choice for smart baby monitors.
