Evoz Baby Monitor Monitors Baby So You Don’t Have To

Babies cry. You need to know about it when they do. This new app from Evoz turns your iPhone into a monitor, lets you listen in on your tyke from anywhere, and keep tabs on sleep patterns.

What’s it do?

The app turns almost any iOS device (other than a first-gen iPhone) with a microphone into a baby monitor. You can use a second iOS device to listen in. Even better, it allows you to set up alerts to have the monitor email, text message, or call you when it detects crying after a certain amount of time. (30 seconds, two minutes, five minutes or eight minutes.) And because the audio is routed via a central server, rather than radio frequency or your local network like most baby monitors, you can listen in from anywhere. Like, from the backyard, or better yet, the bar. Don’t have two iOS devices? You can still get alerts via SMS or email, and when it calls you, it broadcasts the audio over the phone.

Why do we like it?

I loved three things about this app: range, alerts and data tracking. It’s delightful to to listen in on my monitor while I’m in my garage, which wasn’t previously possible. But the alert function? Pure candy. Evoz developed an algorithm that detects not just noise, but actual crying. It looks for a particular audio waveform, so your kid’s chattering won’t set it off. This frees me up to not have to listen in. If she’s OK, I don’t actually need to know that. (I am a terrible father.) Finally, there’s the data that the app tracks. It charts the times when she cries which helps me make her naps and nighttime sleeping more efficient by looking for patterns of wakefulness. It costs extra, but is worth it.

The only thing I wasn’t crazy about was the interface, which I found a little confusing. (For example, the easiest way to turn the monitoring device on and off is with the remote listening device.) And there was a very weird moment when we distinctly heard someone else’s voice come through the speaker. Interference? Mis-routed audio? I still don’t know.