Video Baby Monitor

Overview

A video baby monitor is a closed two-piece system: a camera in the nursery and a handheld screen the parent keeps nearby, joined by a private radio link rather than the open internet. The Camera Unit watches the crib with a night-vision camera mounted on a motorized head, listens with a microphone, and can speak back through a small speaker. Its video and audio travel over the RF Link to the Parent Display Unit, a pocket receiver with a touchscreen and two-way audio of its own. A Temperature Sensor on the camera reports nursery temperature, and the Mount Kit fixes the camera to a wall or crib rail. Keeping the link private and self-contained is the point: there is no app, account, or cloud hop between the two units.

How it works

In the dark, the Camera Unit switches to infrared. Its IR LED emitters flood the crib with light the eye cannot see, and the CMOS Image Sensor, with its IR-cut filter swung aside, captures a clear monochrome image without disturbing the baby. The camera SoC on the Camera Board compresses the video and audio, and the RF Module transmits the encrypted stream. To follow a moving child, the parent can drive the Pan Motor and Tilt Motor from the handset; the stepper driver aims the head on command.

At the other end the Parent Display Unit radio receives the stream, the Video Decoder IC reconstructs the picture, and it appears on the LCD. Pressing talk routes the parent's voice back over the same link to the nursery speaker. The receiver runs off its Battery Pack so a parent can carry it room to room, recharging it over USB between uses, while the camera stays on mains power in the nursery.