Pampers is associated with all things infant, so a high-tech baby monitor is a natural extension of the brand. The Lumi by Pampers Smart Baby Monitor and Sleep System ($299) consists of the monitor itself, plus a sensor that attaches to specialized diapers to sense wetness and monitor movement for sleep reports. It delivers on what it sets out to do, and includes sleep coaching that might even help you get your little one to snooze. That said, the competing Nanit Plus costs the same amount and can monitor your child’s breathing, so it remains our Editors’ Choice award winner for baby monitors.
Pricing
The Lumi system consists of two parts. The Smart Baby Monitor costs $229 on its own, while the Smart Sleep System with sensor, sleep coaching videos, and a month of diapers goes for $109. We reviewed the combo, which costs $299.
While the Lumi cam doesn’t incur extra costs, the Smart Sleep System is all about locking you into Pampers. The sensor is only rated to work specifically with Lumi-branded diapers (size newborn to four). The sensor has to be replaced every three months (when the battery dies). Once you turn it on and pair it with your phone, it stays on. You can’t turn it off, and you can’t change the battery yourself.
On its own, a replacement sensor costs $59. Or, if you subscribe, you can get a new sensor delivered three times per year with your Lumi diapers. A subscription for six packs of diapers costs $59.95 per month. Optionally, you can get a single pack of diapers (which includes 27 to 37, depending on the size) for $11.99, or a box with six packs of diapers (with no sensor) for $59.95.
Lumi Monitor
The Smart Baby Monitor is designed to be mounted on a wall, with a pivoting head that can angle any way you want to look. It comes with all the mounting screws and a couple of cable clips to keep the power cord safe from tiny, grabby hands. If you prefer, you can leave it on a shelf.
You’ll need to use the Lumi phone app (for Android and iOS) to set up the camera, as there’s no option for web-based monitoring. The camera first connects to your phone via Bluetooth for setup, then to your home network via Wi-Fi. After getting it connected, just download a firmware update, and you’re ready to go.
The monitor is capable of streaming video at up to 1080p resolution, but can level down to 720p or even 360p for a smoother stream. The field of view can be set to Normal—a nice option for a small nursery or a single crib—all the way to an 180-degree Ultra-Wide view for large rooms. You can see the difference in the images of my son’s room below. No matter the field of view, the picture is crisp, even with night vision via infrared LEDs.
My favorite feature is the noise cancellation, which removes background noise when you monitor the streaming feed. There are five levels of noise cancellation. When turned off, you hear everything. When set to max, you’ll only hear loud noises, like crying.
Every six hours, the system can generate what it calls a Lumi Lookback, which is simply a 60-second or less hyper-lapse video of the previous 15 hours, using motion capture to decide what footage to use. You can make four Lookback videos per day. They aren’t stored beyond 24 hours, so you need to download any you want to keep. These are the only clips you can generate/save from the Lumi cam. Lookback is handy for seeing how much your child tosses and turns and gets up in the night, but it’s not as useful as the sleep insights you get from a camera/service like the Nanit Plus.
You can add caregivers to the list of people with access to the camera, so even far-off in-laws or in-house babysitters can see the stream on their phones. You send an email invite via the app, then that person will have to sign up for a Pampers account. There’s no limit to how many people can live stream simultaneously, but right now, the app only supports one camera at a time, so it’s not going to work if you have multiple cameras in different rooms.
The live feed allows two-factor authentication for extra security beyond the baked in dual-layer 256-bit encryption. That said, once the feed is running in the background, the app is apparently leaving your phone or tablet’s microphone on at all times, even if you’re not using the two-way audio to talk to someone on the other end. This is indicated by a new feature in iOS 14 in which an orange dot appears at the top of the screen when the mic is active. It’s constant until you either turn off the stream or close the Lumi app.
Sleep System
Setting up the Lumi sleep sensor is even easier than the baby monitor. Again, you use the app, and go to More > Sleep Sensor > Setup, then hold down the heart icon button on the sensor for five seconds until you see a blinking light. You can then attach the sensor to the diaper in the predesignated spot—it has a slightly different surface so the sensor will stay attached.
In the app, you’ll see different icons for dry, wet, or very wet. You can manually track dirty diapers (poop), but the sensor won’t actually detect anything other than wetness.
The sensor also does sleep monitoring, storing up to 12 hours of data even if it’s not in Bluetooth range of your phone. It tracks movement patterns and provides feedback, even if your child isn’t in the crib.
You might worry about having a Bluetooth device so close to your baby. Pampers says that one year of use the Lumi sensor “releases the same energy as a single 45-second smartphone call,” so supposedly it’s safer than using FaceTime to talk to the grandparents. Perhaps the biggest worry is that you have to remove the sensor every single time you change the diaper—I picture a lot of Lumi sensors accidentally ending up in the Diaper Genie.
When I pitched my wife on using the sensor, her first reaction was, “Why do I care when or if a baby pees at night? Of course he’s going to pee!” This is totally reasonable. I’m much more concerned if he’s going to overflow a diaper. Thankfully, the Lumi sensor can tell you that, as it will send notifications for “wet” and “very wet”—so if you get that second one, you can do a nighttime diaper change.
That said, saving your child’s sheets from a washing pales in comparison with the peace of mind you get with products like Owlet Smart Sock 2 or the Nanit Plus, which actually monitor babies for signs of life. As any new parent will tell you, that constant threat of SIDS is a low-level dread that threads every night for the first 18 months. Those products will help you with that; the Lumi won’t.
Do you absolutely have to use the Lumi diapers? I stuck the sensor on a Huggies Pull-Up and poured in eight ounces of water, and almost instantly got a wetness warning on the app. So while it works, the problem is that the sensor doesn’t stay attached, since the Huggies don’t use the special fabric on the front that Lumi diapers do.
The sensor offers access to a series of sleep coaching videos you can watch from the Lumi app on your phone or tablet. This series alone is pegged as a $200 value by Pampers, and that’s probably true—it’s like a MasterClass with pediatrician Dr. Craig Canapari and hosted by sleep consultant Kylee Money. It’s the kind of advice many new parents seek, all clearly laid out and easy to access. You’ll also find a series of articles called WonderWeeks that lists out the major leaps a child takes in mental developmental stages up to 75 weeks. You can find it all on the Insights tab in the Lumi app.
Lumi App
The Lumi app is well designed and offers charts on sleep routines, diaper changes, and (if you enter the data) feedings. Click the Add button in the app to enter extra data on otherwise untracked feedings, potty time, and sleep, as well as special events like vaccines and weight checks. It’s up to you how much you want to enter. Some parents want to know every single molecule that goes in and out of a baby; others just want to get through the night.
Some of this information is automated by the Lumi sensor, for example listing a diaper as changed whenever the sensor is removed from a wet nappy. It also logs sleep start and stop times, but doesn’t always get it right. If the data is wrong, you can correct it in the app.
A Smart Choice for Some
The Lumi by Pampers Smart Baby Monitor and Sleep System is definitely geared more toward parents of a newborn, and best suits those with sleep issues. If you’ve got a kid that sleeps fine and you’re more worried about monitoring their breathing, you should go with the Nanit Plus. And if Pampers diapers don’t work for your child—not all diapers are for every kid—you’ll likely have to skip using the sensor. That makes the Lumi a somewhat niche system, though it might be just the right one for you and your child.
Of course, if you simply want to check in on your little one via audio and video, a simple home security camera can do the trick for far less money than either of these systems. The $20 Wyze Cam and the $50 Lorex Smart Indoor Camera, for instance, have capabilities including 1080p video, voice control, and interoperability with other smart home devices, making them fine alternatives if you’re not looking for child-specific features.
