Philps Avent DECT Baby Monitor SCD506 Review

B Loves: Great battery life makes it easy to use

If you’re looking for an audio baby monitor, this has most of the functions you’ll need and is a good price.

With a good battery life and range, the monitor is easy to use and doesn’t have lots of fiddly functions that sound good on paper but that in practice, you’ll never use or need.

DECT is a type of technology that cuts down interference from other electronic sources such as phones and other communications devices and as a result, the sound you get is clear and you don’t have to worry that others can listen in on your home, as it features data encryption.

The monitor will pick up sounds from your baby’s nursery and play them over the parent unit. If you prefer not to listen to sounds you can instead use the light display. Five LED lights will illuminate when your baby makes sounds and of course, the louder the sounds, the more lights will turn on. This is immensely helpful if your baby likes to make lots of noises when they are asleep but isn’t actually unhappy, as you can just respond to louder sounds or more lights.

The baby unit can either be plugged into a socket or use four AA batteries – handy for holidays where the unit might not reach a socket. There’s an alarm to tell you when they are running out. The parent unit has a handy neck strap and a rechargeable battery that should last you up to 18 hours, which is superior to many monitors. There’s also an eco-mode that saves battery power; as you get closer to your baby’s room, the amount of power needed to connect is less, so saves on battery life. If you forget where you have left the parent unit, you can use the pager button to find it again.

In addition, there are more ways to soothe your child. There are five lullabies which you can play to get your little one off to sleep and you can also talk to your child through the baby unit, meaning you don’t need to go into the room and risk your baby becoming more awake. There’s a nightlight too, for night feeds and changes and if your baby prefers a little light.

Range is good; 50 metres indoors which will be ample unless you have a particularly long or tall house and 330 metres outdoors. There’s an out of range alarm.

The Small Print

• Monitor type: Digital
• Video display? No
• Temperature display? No
• Talkback feature? Yes
• Range: 50m indoors, 330m outdoors