We liked the original Nanit when we reviewed it back in 2018, and we liked its successor, the Nanit Plus, enough to give it an Editors’ Choice award. The new Nanit Pro Complete Monitoring System (starting at $299) replaces those smart baby monitors and delivers some improvements to the camera and several to the app/service, which is enough to keep it at the head of the pack. The camera resolution has been increased slightly and night vision is better, but the big addition is the ability to use the system for measuring your child’s growth. So if you’re searching for your first baby monitor and want a model that keeps track of a lot more than crying, the Nanit Pro is our new Editors’ Choice winner.
Nanit Pro Pricing and Design
Pricing for Nanit’s cameras can be a bit complicated, but the one thing to know right away is that they’re expensive across the board. The lowest price for the Nanit Pro starts at $299 and includes a multi-stand and a Breathing Band for monitoring your child’s breathing; adding a floor stand increases the price to $379. The Nanit Pro Complete Monitoring System we tested starts at $379 and includes a Smart Sheet to track your child’s growth. Once again, adding a floor stand increases the price by $80.
No matter which bundle you choose, you get one free year of Nanit Insights, which is necessary for tracking your little one’s sleep. After that, it starts at $5 per month or $50 per year.
While Nanit’s cameras aren’t covered by insurance, some of the accessories, bundles, and Breathing Wear are HSA/FSA approved.
The look of every generation of Nanit camera is almost identical to the naked eye. The idea is to place it over your baby’s crib or bassinet, so it can see inside and slightly around. The camera can be placed via a wall mount, a floor stand, or a tabletop multi-stand.
Using the floor stand, the Nanit Pro measures 65 inches tall, has a 23-inch wide base, and is 10 inches deep from the wall. The total weight is 8 pounds.
Installation is simple. The floor stand has three legs to stand freely, or you can take one off so it can be pushed against a wall with the weight of a crib to hold it in place. The floor stand and wall mount both feature excellent cable management to keep baby hands from pulling cords. The camera itself simply plugs into the top. In testing, the hardest part of installing the Nanit Pro was moving the crib away from the wall enough to place it next to the Nanit Plus (for comparison testing), and chances are you won’t need to worry about this because you’ll only be using one camera.
Once the camera is in place, just push the power button to start pairing it with your phone via Bluetooth. The Nanit app will see the camera and ask you for Wi-Fi credentials, after which it sets the camera up automatically.
The Pro supports both 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi. It has two-way audio so you can talk to your little one over the built-in speaker if needed. There’s also a night-light with adjustable brightness on the top that you can activate from the Nanit app.
Multiple users can be set as caregivers with their own view of the crib, which is helpful for providing to babysitters or even distant family members—as the owner, you can make them an admin or just a viewer. You can also rescind their permission to view the stream at any time.
Nanit App and Camera Quality
You can use the app to turn a Nanit camera stream on and off, but that doesn’t turn off the camera entirely; the night vision infrared LEDs remain on. In addition to two-way audio, the app can be used to play nature sounds through the camera such as birds, waves, white noise, and wind, though they don’t sound great over the tinny integrated speaker. We really like the option for background audio, so even if you turn off the app, you can still listen to what the camera is capturing. It’s worth noting here that there’s no separate audio/video monitor for the Nanit—you need a smartphone or tablet.
The app has a night mode that dims your phone’s screen if you leave it on for monitoring—your phone won’t go into standby as long as you’re viewing the stream. This is a godsend when you have your phone next to your bed at night for monitoring. There’s also continued monitoring even if your internet goes down using a Local View option over your home Wi-Fi.
The 1080p camera on the Nanit Pro is a slight upgrade over the 960p Nanit Plus. The difference is fairly negligible—I set the two up side by side and couldn’t see much of a difference. Both cameras offer excellent streaming image quality. The view during the day is vibrant and colorful, and it seems like night vision has improved, which is interesting considering the Nanit Pro camera actually has fewer infrared LEDs than the previous model. The switch to night vision causes nary a click as the infrareds switch on and off, unlike many other models we’ve tested.
Nanit Monitoring Features
A subscription to Nanit Insights is required for sleep tracking and to keep a video history of what’s been captured. Sadly, you have to get a separate Insights subscription for each camera you use, so if have triplets, each with their own Nanit camera, you’ll have to shell out for three subscriptions. That said, the need for Insights diminishes a lot after your child is over two years old.
Insights provides excellent sleep tracking information, which is invaluable for parents of a fussy sleeper. Knowing sleep and wake times down to the minute, with overnight wake-ups factored in, can be really helpful; this information has really helped me narrow down a better bedtime for my grumpy little cherub. Insights also includes time-lapse videos with a heat map of where your child flails around the crib at night. These are fun to watch if nothing else, and can help you understand the inexplicable positions your kid sometimes ends up in by morning.
In addition to sleep, your Nanit Insights subscription supports Breathing Wear motion tracking. As mentioned, you get a Breathing Band with the camera, and Nanit offers a number of additional (pricey) accessories. To track your child’s breathing, press the button in the app with the lungs icon, and the Nanit will start to monitor the black-and-white pattern on the Breathing Wear for the subtle movement of continued respiration. In testing, the subtlety of a rising and falling chest was easily tracked by Nanit’s software. You get a reading with number of breaths per minute, and, more importantly, an alarm for when breathing stops. After 20 seconds of no respiration, it plays a loud alarm—even on the camera itself if you desire—and can flash the light on your phone, to preempt the possibility of SIDS.
The only other thing that comes close to this feature is the Owlet Smart Sock, which is itself $300 and has electronics that attach to your child to measure their pulse oximetry. Nanit’s Breathing Wear doesn’t require any wires or batteries, though as mentioned, it costs a lot, with the least expensive item being the $20 Band you get with the camera, up to a swaddle for $50. They also now sell pajamas.
Nanit’s newest feature introduced with the Pro—and supported via the app for older models—is growth tracking using the company’s Smart Sheets. Lay the sheet down, put your baby on top, and Nanit helps you track height progress over time. Sadly, this isn’t automatic: You have to take a picture of your little one in the app, centered on the sheet, then use a digital measurement tool. Additional sheets are $34.99 each and fit a standard crib mattress. But you won’t need additional sheets unless your kid grows like a science-fiction character. And performing the manual, digital measurement process once every couple of months is probably sufficient.
The Best Baby Monitor Gets Better
If you’re in the market for a smart baby monitor, the Nanit Pro is the first one you should consider. There’s not much of a reason to upgrade if you already own a previous Nanit camera, but newcomers will find everything they need for keeping tabs on their little one day and night. The peace of mind you get with this well-designed, life-monitoring ecosystem is worth the hefty price. It’s especially helpful for new and/or neurotic parents, as it lets you track a lot more than just your child’s crying. Ultimately, you can’t put a price on your top priority, not to mention your nightly peace of mind, and that earns the Nanit Pro our Editors’ Choice award.
