Sizzlin’ Summer Sweeps #giveaway Day 7: Deluxe Day&Night Handheld Color Video Monitor $199 (ends 8/7)

This post is part of the Sizzlin’ Summer Sweeps – 31 Days of Giveaways for July 2010, brought to you by Crazy Coupon Mommy and Sisterly Savings! Make sure you check out all the other awesome giveaways you can enter!

What is it?
Summer Infant Deluxe Day&Night® Handheld Color Video Monitor

How much is it?
Retail Value $199.99

Where can I buy it?
Retailers that carry Summer Infant products include: Babies R Us, Toys R Us, Target, Kmart, Wal-mart, Baby Depot, JCPenney, and Buy Buy Baby.

You can also purchase online thru sites listed on Summer Infant product page.

Tell me more!

Jeana’s 2 Cents

We were late to the game with purchasing a baby monitor.  Mostly because we just didn’t need one.  We’re co-sleepers.  But we knew the day would come when it was time to kick the monkey out of our bed so we purchased a reputable one from Babies R Us in the $80 range.  It had two receivers and a base station – no video.  I was so disappointed with that monitor – it was awful.  The sound was crackly, it frequently lost connection and beeped constantly, it barely worked just in the livingroom 15 feet away.  We returned it within just a couple days and I dreaded having to pick another one out.

I was so excited when I was presented with the opportunity to try out Summer Infant’s Deluxe Day&Night® Handheld Color Video Monitor.  I have always been a 100% believer that I did not need a video monitor and that was just for overprotective parents or maybe those with preemies or health issues where they needed to see their little ones sleep for piece of mind = not us :)

I tell you what, after trying out this baby there is no going back to audio only!!!

Setup

Let me start out by saying I’m “one of those” people that always try to put it together first and read the instructions last and only as an absolute last resort.

That said – I was able to set this up in less than 5 minutes, intuitively, with no instructions and it worked perfectly the moment I turned it on.  I noticed on the base unit there was an A to B switch and that there was the same on the hand-held.  I assumed they were channel settings (correctly) and set them both to A.  I plugged in the base unit and propped it up next to Whistler’s crib.  Walked out, plugged in the hand-held (once again, assuming the batteries would need to be charged overnight before I could use it without the AC adapter) and turned it on.  Beautiful perfect picture instantly with surprisingly crisp audio.

*note – I did go back and go over the included documentation just to make sure everything was set up for optimal performance (distance between units and desired viewing area, etc) and it was all very easy to follow and straight forward.  They make sure to let you know the key important steps upfront.

Video and Sound

There are only 2 dials on the side of the handheld – brightness and volume/on/off.  You do not need to have this unit on very loud at all the hear everything.  You would have to be in a busy nightclub to need to turn the volume up full blast – but even when you do, there is very little distortion.

The screen is decent sized (maybe an inch bigger would be nice) and pretty clear.  Much better than I expected. The unit does have a video-out jack that you can use to connect it to your TV or monitor which I think is very cool (cable sold separately).

A super cool feature is that the camera automatically switches to black and white nightvision when it gets dark.  I’m not sure how they do it, but even in this mode in a pitch black room where I can’t even see my own hand in front of my face, the picture appears like theres a spotlight or its daylight – but without any sort of light shining from the unit.

(a sample of night view in a PITCH BLACK room with NO nightlight!)

(this is the view from inside the dark room.  the pale green/purple light in the upper right corner is the base unit.

as you can see, there is no disturbing light coming from the unit)

I also like the power bar display below the screen.  It’s basically a visual read-out of the level of sound that is being picked up by the base station.  So little or light sounds will be displayed as 1-3 of the 6 bars, and if the baby is really screaming, all six will light up.

When running on battery, the handheld will auto-shut off the video to conserve power, leaving only the audio.  If you want to view the video again, just press the big button on the top!  You could also turn down the audio to silent and be left with only the light bar display.  So you have lots of options of how you want to be notified.

Range

I was able to walk 59 steps away from the base station in the nursery (thru the livingroom, out my front door, down the steps around the pool and out to the mailboxes in the front of the apartment complex) before losing video.  The sound cut out at 37 steps away (at the pool).  I feel this is more than adequate.  It also lets me know I can catch some rays during a nap some day!  :)

What would make this even better…

My only improvement, in addition to a larger screen,  I would make to this product is 2-way audio feature – where I could press a button on the hand-held and be able to speak to the base unit and comfort baby back to sleep with my voice or lullaby.  That would make this PERFECT!

Overall Impression

Like I said earlier, now that I’ve used a video monitor, especially one of this quality, I just can’t imagine not being able to see my little one.  Sound alone just doesn’t seem like “enough” any more.  I can see many uses for it beyond just watching baby while they sleep – like keeping an eye on a toddler who is playing in their room while you are making dinner in the kitchen.  Thank you soooo much Summer Infant for making such a wonderful monitor – I truly couldn’t be happier and would wholeheartedly recommend this to any and everyone.

Wanna win it?
Summer Infant has generously offered a giveaway for one lucky Crazy Coupon Mommy/Sisterly Savings reader to win!

One Day&Night Handheld Color Video Monitor ($199.99 value)

How do I enter?
PLEASE follow directions!! Entering the giveaway is not hard – but if you do not complete the MANDATORY entry FIRST, your comments/entries will be deleted. If you have any questions about how to enter, please contact me…or just look at the comments above you and you will get the idea!

Just complete each of the following tasks and leave a comment for your entry(s)! Please leave one comment per task completed. (ie, if you do three of the following, you should leave three SEPARATE comments) Must be over 18 to enter. US residents only.

MANDATORY ENTRY

* Please visit the Summer Infant website and view the product demo for this monitor.   Then come back here and leave a comment letting me know what feature really catches your fancy!

LOTS OF WAYS TO GET BONUS ENTRIES!! Once you have completed the above mandatory entry, you can do as many of the below as you like for extra entries Good luck!

(If you already are a subscriber, follow on Twitter or like on Facebook, that counts as one entry, so be sure to leave a comment saying you already do so!)

1. Subscribe to Crazy Coupon Mommy via RSS Reader or email
2. Subscribe to SisterlySavings via RSS Reader or email
3. Follow CCM on Twitter
4. Follow SS on Twitter
5. Tweet about this giveaway (just click on the retweet button at the very bottom of this post just above the comment form. You can do this daily for extra entries! Just leave a comment each day you complete this task)
6. “Like” SS on Facebook
7. “Like” CCM on Facebook
8. Vote for me on TopMommyBlogs (Be sure to click on the words that say “Click here to vote”) (You can do this daily for extra entries! Just leave a comment each date you vote.)
9. Vote for Whistler here (You can do this daily for extra entries! Just leave a comment each date you vote.)
10. Become a public follower of Crazy Coupon Mommy (Scroll all the way down to bottom of this page and look for this button
11. Share this giveaway on Facebook by clicking on the Share button below in the comment form!
12. Share this giveaway on Google by clicking on the Buzz button below in the comment form!
13. Blog about this giveaway and leave a comment with a link to your blog post (this earns you 3 entries! Be sure to leave a separate comment for each!)
14. Got a blog or webpage? Place my link button on your site and leave the URL of where I can see it.

<a href=”http://www.deals4dummies.com” mce_href=”http://www.deals4dummies.com” <a href="http://www.deals4dummies.com/target" style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:12px;color:#339900;font-weight:bold;text-decoration:underline;" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" onmouseover="self.status='http://www.deals4dummies.com/target';return true;" onmouseout="self.status=''">target</a>=”_blank”><img src=”http://www.deals4dummies.com/images/giveaways.png” mce_src=”http://www.deals4dummies.com/images/giveaways.png”></a>

***IMPORTANT*** You need to leave a separate comment for each of the above that you complete. Each comment acts as one entry, so if you only leave one comment saying “I did 1-3 above” then you’ll only get ONE entry instead of the 3 you deserve!

Contest will end 8/7/ 2010 at 11:59pm PST. The winner will be chosen randomly via computer using “And the Winner is…” WordPress Plugin. Winner will be notified by a blog post (so be sure to subscribe to my newsletter so that you don’t miss the winner announcement!). Winner must respond within 48 hours or another random winner will be chosen.

Many thanks to Summer Infant who provided me with a sample for the purpose of this review, as well as one giveaway to a randomly selected winner. I was not required to write a positive review and no other type of compensation was received. My reviews are always 100% honest and 100% my own.