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Lorex Lw2003 Video Monitor White
Only $128.88 @ Amazon
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Lorex Lw2003 Video Monitor White
We have owned this monitor for with regards to 48 hours now and wanted to provide our initial impressions quickly.
First, we have antecedently owned a Summer Infant video baby monitor with our primary child two years ago. We were not happy with it is The sound wasn’t swell and the video eventually went out on it after regarding a year of applied With our second kid we decisive to get another video baby monitor and looked for one that supported more than one camera. Let’s just say that there isn’t a high quality video baby monitor out there that I have found. I’ll start with the pros.
Pros:
- Video quality is as good as it is peers. It won’t wow you, but it serves it is intentions At night it has beautiful good range and is more than adequate.
- small interference. We have cell phones, wi-fi, cordless phones, an audio baby monitor and such a heap of other wireless gadgets and we have not had any interference.
- Range. Pretty good. We had the camera at the front of the house and were capable to get a signal at the back. It was most likely 35 feet away and had 4 – 5 walls in between.
- Usability. The buttons are laid out well and intuitive. We like the form element – kind of like an old school candy-bar-style cell phone.
- Two-way communication. It works when you might get the ‘up’ button to work (see cons).
Cons:
- Build quality is subpar. The plastic is kind of cheap. The buttons are not responsive. The menu button and the up/talk button take multiple efforts to activate. It is as whether or not the plastic buttons do not align properly. It may take 4-5 attempts to activate the menu at times. Very annoying. When scrolling through the menu the down button works utterly but the up button works erratically. Often I just end up scrolling through the entire list using the down button. The other buttons, 1-4, left/right, power don’t seem to have a problem so it may just be this specifi unit. It makes me wonder whether or not we will get a full year of use out of the monitor before it goes belly up, though.
- VOX does not work. The monitor has a setting called VOX that only turns the monitor on after it detects a noise. It doesn’t work on ours. We have power save off as the instructions indicates We have put it in an empty room (i.e. quiet) and turned on the VOX to its lowest sensitivity (highest noise required to activate) and it just cycles on virtually without delay after turning off. It just cycles on/off continuously. When setting it to its highest sensitivity we see no deviations We have turned VOX off and just use the power save feature (video turns off after a preset quantity of time).
- Audio. It is ok. Without VOX there is a ceaseless light hum since the audio is perpetually on. It doesn’t get super piercing either (not a huge deal for us). No interference in the audio is a plus, though. The speaker is placed on the back of the unit. When you don’t have the receiver in the cradle, the speaker may be muffled when you set it down. It will not stand up on end, so you either set the monitor down on the speaker or on the lcd screen.
- Cradle. The cradle is a small annoying. The cradle has a male end of a mini-usb that the unit plugs into to charge. The slot the unit slides into on the cradle isn’t genuinely tight so it takes a little finesse to get the mini-usb to line up on the unit. Not a huge deal but isn’t as easy as we would like when checking out the monitor late at night.
The monitor is ok. Not great. I wish there was a high quality video monitor out theres I would definitely remunerate up for one instead of going through a new one each year.
So far I like this baby video monitor.
- The video quality is great
- Night imaginativeness works well
- It works even with my WiFi 802.11g, 2.4 GHz cordless phone, 2.4 GHz wireless speakers and a microwave oven.
- Battery life is good. I’ve had the receiver on for 5 hours and the battery indicator is down to 33%. This is with VOX and Power Save both off.
- I dropped this 2x on our (hard) floor and it still works (phew).
- I expecially like the 2-way communication. I don’t use it a lot to talk to our baby. I found it to be useful when my wife is with our baby and needs to tell me something. Not only may I listen her through the handheld monitor but I could reply! It’s like having a video walkie-talkie.
- Uses a micro-USB (I think) connector for power. This is the same connector utilized by some electronics (like my old Garmin nuvi 350, my Logitech Harmony 550 remote, etc). if you want an extra charger in another room you could likely use one you already have that came with another product.
- The camera has a rechargeable internal battery. I find this commodious when I want to temporarily move the camera (i.e., to keep an eye on our baby when in her swing) without fussing in regards to power cords. I don’t recognise how long the battery lasts as I only use it like this for a few tens of minutes.
Wish list:
- help multiple handheld receivers (so more than one parent may monitor the baby). I have not seen any digital video baby monitors aid this.
- It would be nice if the camera may be mounted on a tripod to make it more portable (i.e., fetch it to my home office when bring the baby’s bassinet there, etc).
- I wish the handheld had a flip-out stand so I may prop it up while away from the charging base. This would be nice to have but not that critical for me.
What I don’t like:
- The plastic looks and feels cheap
- The silver logo (not red and black as shown in product pictures) looks even fewer expensively — sort of like it was just spray painted on it (like an applied science project or a cheap Chinese knockoff… heck those even look better sometimes). I acknowledge this is fewer crucial than the technical features but still, appearance does matter. The monitor gives off a cheap vibe in my opinion.
- Volume on the handheld monitor is kinda low
- A crib mounting bracket would be nice to have. I considered mounting the camera on the wall but it was too far from our baby (and she does not quintessentially face the wall!). Instead, I strapped it onto the crib myself but will have to move it once the child gets older and may reach it.
What I hate:
- Sales and client service is a joke! I have never seen live sales chat active and I’ve been checking for a month or longer. I sent an e-mail to client aid and not a single soul replied. I in addition left a voice mail for sales support and again no reply. 11/22/2011: Now tech support seems to be more responsive. I inquired regarding a replacement charging dock and obtained a immediate reply]
Recommended?
Sure! I still commend the product but all bets are off if you need technical support.
I felt that I had done the exploration and that I made a good choices I will have to have known that with all wireless technologies there are weaknesses. This unit operates on the 2.4-2.6 Ghz band the same as all the wireless routers and phones in my neighborhood. Lorex also stated that going through walls would be dissimilar for each application, This was the case for me, I am in the next room and only have drywall and doors but the signal was weak. It was so bad that I would only have intermittent reception at best. The video was clear when it did work but the audio was choppy.My old fisher price monitor was clearer. When I called Lorex, all they had to offer was to move the camera around which made no deviations Since this is a safety monitoring device I had to opt to return it and to do more research on video monitors. I also noticed persons mentioned in other reviews about the speaker being on the back. This is a problem when you set it down because you can only face it that way when out of the charging craddle.
After our second daughter was born September 14th, 2010 we decisive to buy a video monitor. After assorted hours of reading reviews and researching online I decisive to go with the Lorex LW2003. The primary component in resolving to go with the LW2003 were the good reviews of its predecessor, and the some features the product description touted, primarily the distance it advertised from the base unit.
Upon un-boxing it I felt as even though I had made the rectify choices It appeared to be well built and the design just seemed better than our neighbors various year older Summer “night and day.” The screen size was certainly much more spectacular at 2.4 inches and the display unit was more like a cell phone than the larger unit of the Summer night and day. Upon turning it on I encountered that the underside of the glass covering the screen either had a piece of something in it or the screen had dead pixels. It was difficult to tell which, but I think it was in all likelihood something underneath the glass. I could have lived with the display issue and had planned on it is However what I could not deal with was that the advertised 450 ft of distance capped out at closer to 15 feet out our back door, approximately 30 feet from the unit. I realize that the 450 ft is labeled as (clear-line-of-sight) notwithstanding this my neighbor’s much older, and much fewer expensive Summer “night and day” unit gets reception from various hundred feet away, across the street, through two houses and into our kitchen. Juxtaposing the performance of that unit with my newer Lorex2003 is very discouraging, peculiarly because the Lorex advertises a greater distance, and yet just a few feet beyond our back porch the monitor display reads, “searching for base unit.” I can only assume that the wireless engineering science utilized for its “interference free digital signal” does not transmit virtually as strong of a signal.
If distance outside your house is not primary this may be an ok unit for you. For my family with a new born and an active 3 year old who likes to play in the back yard it is not sufficient. For us it is nice to be capable to step out of the house and have our monitor with us in case the baby wakes up while we are looking at our older daughter play. This unit does not allow us to do that, while others, namely the Summer unit discussed above distinctly does.
So I boxed it up today and I will be dropping it off at a UPS drop off tomorrow. I am thankful for Amazons return policy, but I won’t be purchasing another Lorex. It looked like a good design, but when it comes to electronics function is constantly more crucial than form in my book. I will most likely go with a Summer unit, or perhaps the phillips unit.
LOVE this monitor. I have two boys ages 6 and 5 that percentage a room. They were misbehaving at night and had to be divided to dissimilar rooms. I told my husband I wished a baby monitor was made that I can see my boys, talk to my boys and they could talk back to me. This is an answer to my prayers! There is night visual sensation on this unit as well. I am thinking about becoming an add on camera for my baby. You can add on 3 additional cameras if you want. It is a need to have for children of all ages that you need to keep a closer eye on. Amazon has this priced lower than ANYONE else so don’t hesitate..buy today!
Update-had a problem with the charger and the manufacturer substituted the whole unit right away! We still love this after several months and just purchased the add on camera for another room! LOVE THIS!!
We upgraded our single camera monitor recently because we are expecting another baby soon. Unfortunately when we were buying our basi one this monitor was way too expensive. However, we just got a swell deal on Cyber Monday purchasing this monitor for less than our old one (without the extra camera).
That being said, I LOVE this monitor. Our former monitor was a Lorex as well but this has bettered a heap of of it’s flaws.
What I love: 1. The VOX function, a outstanding deal of monitors didn’t have this function and I love that I don’t have to listen constant static in the background. We have a sound machine running and it only comes on when my child is genuinely talking or crying. I also love that you can adjust the sensitivity, I have a sentiment we will be making it more sensible when there is a newborn sleeping in the nursery. 2. Clear picture even in night mode my sleeping child is easy to see. huge improvement from older model. 3. Two-way communication. I kind of made fun of this one, but I have to say when I am moving my just turned two-year-old into a big bed in a month, I can see this being a great feature if he wonders out of bed. 4. Split-screen to view both cameras at the same time. 5. No vivid LED lights on the hand held. This was a big issue with the older model as well. 6. Light weight hand held. 7. Easy set up. 8. Knowing it is secure. 9. utterly no feedback from cell phones or other wireless devices!
What isn’t so great: 1. It is hard to get the hand kept just right into the cradle. 2. There is no way to set the hand kept upright without cradle. However, I didn’t love my last monitor’s option either, I always felt like I was going to break it off and it wouldn’t lay flat. I think I would rather have this monitor that lays flat than one that can’t stand unless you plug it in. 3. I think the camera function is kind of pointless. I don’t in truth know why you would want it but the camera isn’t good enough for something like this anyway.
Why we stuck with a Lorex: We loved the VOX feature. Secure monitors. No cell phone feedback.
We have had this monitor for about a week and I love its I purchased it to replace our Summer video monitor that we have been using for our nearly 3 year old son since his birth. We had gotten so used to the defects that we had with the Summer monitor that we actually had no idea what we were missing! The Summer had started losing sound a lot or only having static unless the volume dial was turned to exactly the right spot and had to be turned on and off most times to get the video to come back on. We had been sleeping to a lot of interference and static every night. We bought this monitor because of the split screen option with the second camera since we have another baby on the way. The Lorex monitor seems to be just what we were looking for! No interence or static – which has been soooooo nice. I love that it has a docking station. The video is good quality – a step up from our old monitor. It beeps if you get out of range which is nice too (I tested it while letting the dog out) and is better than the increasing level of static I got with the other monitor. The feature that I am most surprised to like is the intercom feature. I didn’t think we would use it and was afraid that if I did my voice would sound like Darth Vader and scare the mess out of my son. Well the other night he was supposed to be in bed and he got up and turned on his light and I decided to attempt its You have to talk softly because it is sensitive to volume – but my voice came by way of clear as a bell and he jumped back in bed. Yeah – perchance it’s a little “big brother”-ish but I in truth like this monitor. I can’t wait to see how it does with two cameras.
Oh – the one con and the reason I didn’t give it five stars – I wish it had more volume levels. It only has four volume levels and it would be nice for a baby monitor to have more.
To get started with, I have to admit that we do not use this unit to monitor babies as we have none…having gone through that `baby thing’ years and years ago. No, we use this unit to monitor dogs! Now before you go off on me, keep in mind that our dogs are treated far, far better than a lot of babies and children we see around us today. Our dogs are percentage of our family and treated as such.
As to this unit: It was everything we wanted in such a device and actually works for us better than we anticipated.
Set up was such that even a very low tech person such as myself had perfectly no difficultnesses what so every. The instructions were well written, very precise and I had absolutely no difficultnesses understanding them…a rarity for me. I was competent to perceive how to operate this contraption will little attempts Yes, it took a bit of figuring out, but that was a rather painless process.
We found the sound quality to be rather good for our needs. When the new Boston Terrier pup starts rearranging the kitchen trash when we are not in the room, we hear it instantly. Our bedroom is rather far from the kitchen so we were please with the range.
I love the ability to take snapshot with this unit! While the quality of the picture certainly is not that of my old Nikon FA or that of my wife’s imagination digital that I had to take out a second mortgage for, it is satisfactory and we are capable to get a lot of candid shots that we simply could get not other way.
The night vision on this unit works quite well and very little light is needed for it to be effective.
The camera part of the unit is a bit top heavy and you have to take care how you set it or it will tip over. For our aim the mounting bracket was not applicable. I got around this by using strips of removable Velcro on the surface the camera was to be attached and on the bottom of the camera. This works out well.
I was quite happy with the two-way communicating widgets A sharp voice command such NO! and or BAD DOG! was quite effective.
Overall, I am quite satisfied with this products If I were to use it to monitor babies, I feel I would like is for that function too. Could this device be better? Of course it could. In looking at the reviews here and on other such devices offered, it seems that there are flaws in all of them and dissimilar folks have different needs; indeed, different tolerance levels.
Don Blankenship
The Ozarks