Cocoon Cam Plus Baby Monitor With Breathing Monitoring

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IMPORTANT Notation: AS OF MAY 31 2020, COCOON CAM IS ENDING SUPPORT FOR THEIR MOBILE APP. So, probably time to choose another infant monitor, not this i—to cheque out our top picks for all-time baby monitor of 2020 here.
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The Cocoon Cam exists in a family of babe monitors that apply a combination of wifi, your smartphone or tablet as the 'parent unit', and computer vision to provide information nearly your child. Other examples include the Nanit (our review hither) and the Arlo Infant (our review hither). At $149, the Cocoon Cam is the most inexpensive of the bunch.

To find out how the Cocoon Cam stacks up confronting other options, we spent some fourth dimension testing it ourselves and then shipped it off to a friend of Fathercraft who has a new baby, built-in prematurely, to exam its performance equally a monitor for very young infants and premature babies. We'll exist adding information to this review equally office of that testing as information technology arrives. What follows now is a review based on our own testing.

Please note: we received a gratis Cocoon Cam from the manufacturer equally they noticed we reviewed baby monitors and were interested in our review. We do not guarantee positive reviews in exchange for free products, and e'er disclose free products received. You can read more about our policies here. Also, we are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

A review of the Cocoon Cam Plus Baby Monitor

A few years ago, my brother and his wife came to babysit our daughter Kenzie while we went to a concert. They stayed overnight at our apartment with Kenzie, who was around 18 months former at the time. When nosotros got back and asked how it went, they both remarked on how tired they were. "Yeah, kids tin can do that to you," we said. "No, it wasn't that," my brother said, "Marian [his married woman] was up about of the night because she kept thinking Kenzie might stop breathing. I was up most of the night too considering she kept talking to me nearly information technology and making me go into Kenzie'due south room to check on her."

If y'all're a parent, y'all tin can chronicle to this story. If you're near to be a parent and this sounds kinda ridiculous, we can nearly guarantee you'll accept moments like this. I practice it from time to time with our youngest daughter, who's 19 months old as I'thousand writing this. I did information technology with Kenzie (though non all night, every nighttime!). I was talking to my dad the other day and he said he used to practice information technology when we were kids.

Making sure your child is still breathing is one of those nearly universal parenting things that just parents (or aunts and uncles who are babysitting a young child) can really relate to. It's as well not a completely unfounded business concern – according to the CDC, 3,600 infants died of SUID (Sudden Unexplained Infant Death) and related causes in 2016. However, as we discuss in this article, none of the American Academy of Pediatrics' recommendations for SIDS and SUID risk reduction involve using a device to monitor your child.

This is exactly what the Cocoon Cam tries to solve. Using a combination of a straight over the crib mounting, an HD camera with dark vision, and computer-vision technology with some algorithms designed to observe and clarify breathing rates & patterns, the Cocoon Cam (according to the company'south site) purports to allow yous to, "know your infant is sleeping safely so you can get the rest you deserve." And does this without the use of wearables (other babe monitors may include a component worn by your babe while she's sleeping).

This is quite a promise. It also, for us, raised questions like: volition this matter produce fake alarms that freak you out? Does the act of measuring your child'south breathing make youmore worried, notless?

Let's dig in. Nosotros'll start with how the Cocoon Cam works, how information technology's installed and ready, talk over the private components of the Cocoon Cam, and so discuss the awesome, the wish it were unlike, and provide our final verdict.

What, exactly, is a Cocoon Cam?

The Cocoon Cam above Ruby'south crib. Obligatory annotation most why there are stuffed animals and a blanket in there – she was 19 months old at the time.

The company behind Cocoon Cam is based in Silicon Valley, and proud of it. They tout a team of PhDs & parents backside the product, working to use the top minds in tech to improve the baby monitor. (Interestingly, iBaby labs, some other company whose monitors we've reviewed, uses nearly the exact same Silicon Valley marketing linguistic communication.) Like almost every baby monitor founding story we've read, theirs starts with a parent who was frustrated by the lack of skilful baby monitors out there. Having used many baby monitors ourselves, we can definitely relate – at that place are a lot of bad ones out in that location. (You can find all of our baby monitor reviews hither.)

The Cocoon Cam Plus, like every video monitor, consists of the Kid Unit of measurement (photographic camera + microphone + speaker), a Parent Unit (in this case, your smartphone or tablet + a complimentary app), plus some mounting hardware for the Kid Unit.

Note: in 2018, the Cocoon Cam got an upgrade and is now chosen the Cocoon Cam Plus (or Cocoon Cam +). We reviewed this newer model.

Here's everything that came in the box:

Let's discuss each of these pieces of equipment individually.

The camera (child unit of measurement)

The Cocoon Cam's child unit of measurement features a 720p HD camera, a microphone to detect crying or other noises from your kid, a speaker that allows you to communicate with your kid through the monitor, and the wifi gear necessary to transmit and receive signals from the parent unit via wifi.

Camera positioning

The Cocoon Cam is designed to be mounted straight above your child's crib to provide a bird's heart view of what's going on in there. As we discussed in our Nanit review, we've actually come to appreciate this vs the traditional 'put it on a nearby tabular array/dresser' view we were used to with older monitors. It allows an unobstructed view of your kid without crib bars in the way and avoids the bullheaded spots that've frustrated u.s. with other monitors nosotros've used. In improver to providing a amend view, this positioning is also necessary for Cocoon Cam'south breathing monitoring feature to function (the photographic camera volition still work non mounted in this way, you just won't go breathing monitoring).

Epitome quality

At 720p, the Cocoon Cam'due south camera isn't equally loftier-resolution as others nosotros've tested – you can find 1080p on a number of different monitors these days, and we suspect it's only a matter of fourth dimension before someone comes out with a 4K monitor. The existent question is, does this thing? Do yous really need to see your kid in pixel-perfect perfection? And, perhaps most importantly in our feel – how's the night vision? (Your kid volition – and should – sleep in the dark a lot of the time, so nighttime vision quality can be more important than how high-res a camera is.

And so you can judge for yourself, here are screenshots from the Cocoon Cam app.

Ruby, brushing her teeth with the lights on, and snoozing abroad with Mr. Puppy in near-complete darkness.

What do we think? Nosotros've seen amend. But, we wouldn't call Cocoon Cam'south image quality or dark vision bad, and we'd reiterate that we don't believe image quality to be the cease-all in infant monitors.

Sound quality

Sound quality from the Cocoon Cam is but ok, based on our testing. Information technology just sounds a bit off, and we experienced a bit of an repeat. Again, we've heard way better audio quality in other monitors nosotros've tested like the Nanit. Audio sensitivity, on the other paw, was quite good – the microphone seemed able to choice upwards fifty-fifty quiet noises Ruby made, even when a fan was on in her room for white racket. Like all wifi-based monitors, there was a half-second delay between actual sounds and sounds through the app, merely this isn't plenty to be meaningful.

A annotation nigh background sound. Like all monitors that use a smartphone or tablet equally a parent unit, the Cocoon Cam is reliant on your device to provide audio,even when the app isn't open up. This can be a trouble if you forget to open up the app, or if a monitor doesn't have a good fashion to provide groundwork audio. Fortunately, groundwork sound seems to happen automatically and office well with the Cocoon Camas long as you remember to plough on audio, which is off by default. Assuming you practice, and assuming your device is turned on, with the sound up, no other apps are competing for background audio, and the device is kept nearby, you'll be able to hear your child's sounds.

Sound quality

The Cocoon Cam as well has a speaker that allows you to talk to your child by un-muting the microphone on your app and speaking into your phone'due south microphone. In practice, both of us here at Fathercraft have found success in calming kids through a monitor this way. The Cocoon Cam'south speaker & two-mode communication works fine. If you sing to your kid through it, you aren't going to sound like you're in a concert hall, but that'due south ok.

Real-time breathing monitoring

Breathing monitoring equally displayed by the Cocoon Cam App.

Every bit it'due south the central feature of the Cocoon Cam, we were quite curious to see how well the existent-time breathing monitoring feature would perform. And, during our testing, it seemed to perform quite well.

We'd note a couple of things to beginning:

1. Information is express (so far). We tested over several nights and naps, but are currently waiting on more real-earth testing data (which will exist added to this review).
2. You need to manually plough on the breathing monitoring function. Nosotros'd assumed that animate monitoring happened automatically whenever you stuck your child into her crib. In reality, you take to manually turn information technology on each fourth dimension (though the app does prompt you to do so when it detects motion in the crib.
3. Animate monitoring only works when your child is sleeping soundly. If your child is awake and moving, or sleeping restlessly, Cocoon Cam can't accurately measure breathing, as information technology needs your child to be still to hone in on her breast/belly and 'see' the rise and fall, and and then the device doesn't attempt to monitor during these times, instead using motion detection to wait until your child is still.

Once Ruby was sleeping soundly, the animate monitoring wave (pictured above) began to display, and the purple circle gently contracted an expanded. The moving ridge indicates the rate of respiration, in real fourth dimension. The purple circle indicates the location where Cocoon Cam is measuring respiration. During testing, her breathing always looked normal and we didn't go whatever alerts that information technology wasn't working.

Since Ruby was older during testing (>18 months) and now sleeps with a lightweight blanket, we got the opportunity to test whether breathing monitoring worked while she was covered past the coating – and it seemed to piece of work just fine.

A final note on animate monitoring – the Cocoon Cam does this monitoring solely based on analyzing the video feed from the camera – no clothing is required. Nosotros're personally a bit squeamish virtually putting stuff on our kids, and so we appreciated its ability to monitor with no article of clothing.

The Cocoon Cam App (parent unit)

Any monitor relying on a tertiary-party device (probable your smartphone) to be the parent unit is only equally good as its app. And this tin can be the downfall of some monitors (we institute the iBaby app to exist frustratingly unintuitive). The Cocoon Cam App is quite good. Inside the app you'll find:

The app domicile screen & monitor's alive feed.When yous open the Cocoon Cam App, you'll see the app's home screen, which is where the alive feed from the monitor is displayed. There'due south a fair amount going on here, so permit's accept a look at the individual features:

1. The carte icon allows you lot to access other parts of the app.
2. The LIVE indicator reassures you that the app is, in fact, streaming a existent-fourth dimension view from your child's crib.
3. The sound level indicates how loud the sounds beingness picked upwards by the monitor are. In the higher up screenshot, you'll see there is some baseline audio, which is coming from the fan we were using for white noise. If your child were to start crying, you'd run into the green bar spike up.
4. The live video feed is beneath everything else by default, just by tapping on it you lot'll make all of the buttons disappear for an uninterrupted picture like in the screenshots in a higher place.
5. A notation on why breathing monitoring isn't currently working. If your child is moving effectually, you'll see a message similar this i, indicating that breathing monitoring isn't currently active and when it volition return.
6. The 'talk to your infant' push. If you want to talk to your babe, yous'll demand to tap on this get-go (information technology's muted past default to prevent you from accidentally waking your kid past making some racket while looking at the monitor app.)
7. The activity log shows recent events (your infant waking up, going to sleep, crying, etc.
8. Toggle sound on/off past borer on this button. As noted above regarding background sound, turning audio on will cause your monitor to play any sounds picked upward by the microphone in your kid'southward room through your phone, even when the app is closed.
9. Turn breathing monitoring on/off by tapping this button (if animate monitoring is on, it'll say, "Start Monitoring" instead).
10. Location of movement. These purple circles will bound around while your kid is moving, once she settles down, they'll settle down at the kid's breast/abdomen (at that place may be simply 1 circumvolve at this time) and grow larger and smaller to bespeak breathing.

Swaddle Stories

Swaddle Stories are a time-lapse summary of your kid's night, focusing on when your child is moving effectually. In practice with Ruby, this looked kinda like you'd await – a fast motion version of her rolling around in her crib. Swaddle Stories are set to the aforementioned upbeat music each time. It's unclear to me how this is especially helpful, especially after you've seen a few of them and get a feel for what your child does throughout the dark.

Action Log

The Activity Log shows a summary of the time your child went to sleep, when they woke up, etc.

Mounting instructions, My invitations, & My Business relationship

The Cocoon Cam app also features sections for mounting instructions (shows you how to mount the Cocoon Cam with drawings), My Invitations (if you've been invited to view other Cocoon Cams), My Account (modify email, password, add together a camera, invite some other caregiver to your Cocoon Cam), and Settings (

Settings

Within settings, yous can setup or modify your wifi, adapt your notification settings, or turn on 'low bandwidth mode', which decreases paradigm quality to save network bandwidth.

Notification settings allow you lot to adapt the notifications your phone gives you lot most Cocoon Cam, including whether you see or hear notifications at all, whether you get notifications for Breathing Monitoring, crying, falling asleep, waking upwardly, and swaddle stories.

Notifications

I plant Cocoon Cam notifications on my phone to exist pretty good, and comparable to other superlative wifi baby monitors I've used. The "fell comatose" and "woke up" notifications seemed pretty accurate, and included a short video of Ruby moving around when waking up.

Since, as noted above, I didn't observe the Swaddle Stories that useful, I turned off this notification as otherwise, I got a notification at a random fourth dimension in the morning that one was fix to view.

Setting upward the Cocoon Cam

To set up the Cocoon Cam, you lot demand to be prepared to do three things you might non expect:

1. connect the monitor directly to your router with an ethernet cable (provided, and temporary)
2. adjust the security settings on your router (if you've had your router for a while)
3. drill into your wall behind your child'south crib with drywall screws (possible workaround below)

Unlike other monitors nosotros've tested here at Fathercraft, Cocoon Cam needs to be plugged directly into your router during setup. It's non clear to me why yous need to do this. While it wasn't all that difficult, for me it involved getting an extension cord to plug the Cocoon Cam in, standing on an ottoman trying to meet the back of our router, which didn't want to come abroad from the wall (in other words, kind of a pain).

The network security thing surprised me, just we have had our router for about 2 years, so maybe this change was justified anyway. Cocoon Cam requires yous to exist using WPA-2 security for your wifi network, ours was not. I assumed updating this would exist some very painful process involving a 30-infinitesimal call to Comcast, but it was really pretty piece of cake – I merely logged into our Comcast business relationship, hunted effectually for some settings (Google was helpful), flipped some virtual switches, and had to update our wifi password (which involved updating passwords on every device we had.)

To install the Cocoon Cam, due to the birds-middle view discussed above, you lot're supposed to mount it exactly 3 anxiety higher up the mattress crib mattress, in the center of the long side of the crib. Since most people accept their cribs against the wall this way, this isn't a problem … except for the fact that you're supposed to drill two holes in the wall, insert drywall anchors and screw the camera in (screws and drywall anchors are provided.)

If you're handy, or the Cocoon Cam is going to be a long-term fixture in your child's room, this probably isn't a dealbreaker. And, to be fair, other birds-eye mount cameras like the Nanit do require screws (but non anchors.) I wasn't overly keen to put holes in our wall for testing, so [EDITOR'S NOTE – Nosotros DON'T Condone THIS, TALK TO COCOON CAM FIRST] nosotros used Command Strips (Amazon link) to put the camera up.

Mounting the Cocoon Cam, equally described by the app. Note toy/rattlesnake? on the left.

The awesome, the wish it were different, and a verdict

The awesome

Price.Equally we mentioned at the start of this review, Coocoon Cam is just $149, making it the well-nigh reasonably priced of the wifi monitors we've reviewed.

Simple, intuitive app user feel. When your phone is your parent unit, the app ameliorate be easy to use. Compared to other monitors we've reviewed, the Cocoon Cam app was nearly on par with the best (Nanit), and far better than the worst (iBaby).

Bird's eye view. Now that we've tried baby monitors with a bird'due south eye view mount, we're not sure we'd ever go back, at to the lowest degree with a young babe. The elimination of bullheaded spots is only too useful.

Slumber/wake alerts. Sometimes, your baby wakes up and is pretty quiet. With a traditional video monitor, yous might non know near it until you proactively check or your baby starts squawking or talking. With Cocoon Cam's wake alerts, you'll know about information technology pretty much right abroad. On the other side of the nap/night, it can be helpful to know when your child actually falls comatose.

The wish information technology were different

Setup. Every bit described higher up, the 1-ii-3 punch of needing to connect directly to the router, the potential need to update network security options, and the demand to utilise drywall screws to mountain the camera fabricated the setup kinda frustrating.

Audio quality. While functional, audio quality wasn't cracking, and produced a tinny echo sometimes during testing.

Summit from the crib (for older toddlers). Since Cocoon Cam is but positioned three anxiety from the mattress of the crib, older toddlers may go tall enough to attain up and grab it. Our daughter (nineteen months, 90+ percentile for height, grabbed information technology off the wall (again, we were using Command Strips instead of the recommended setup).

The we're not sure yet

Since this was a quicker review of the Cocoon Cam (more to be added when nosotros have the information), in that location are a few things we didn't make our heed up on nonetheless.

Paradigm quality. Above, we discussed the fact that Cocoon Cam'due south image isn't bad, merely information technology's outpaced past other monitors on the market today. While we don't recollect this is a huge deal, and we may have just been biased because we'd tried higher-res monitors start, we're non sure whether, over the long term, we might've craved better resolution & dark vision.

Breathing Monitoring. Breathing Monitoring seemed to role well, but nosotros're not certain whether (again, over the long-term, this feature would prove valuable, or continue to provide the comforting feeling that the monitor was constantly watching over your child. Again, this might be unlike for very young babies, which is why we're currently testing the Cocoon Cam with friends of Fathercraft who have a brand new babe.

A verdict

Overall, Cocoon Cam is a very solid monitor at a very reasonable price, with a couple of features that could bear witness really useful. if you're not equally budget conscious and aren't all most the animate monitoring feature, y'all might consider exploring other monitors in the same category, like the Nanit or the Arlo Infant.

But, if budget or breathing monitoring is at the top of your list, we think you'll be happy with the Cocoon Cam, equally long every bit y'all tin look past the setup. Which, we suppose, if you're in it for the long haul with this monitor isn't the end of the earth.

Cocoon Cam + Pricing & Options

COCOON CAM IS NO LONGER Bachelor. Check out our top picks for babe monitors here.

How does it stack up against other monitors?

Cocoon Cam vs Nanit

Having now tested both the Cocoon Cam and the Nanit (you lot can find our total review here), in that location are a few important differences to notation.

Slumber analysis – Nanit has far more advanced slumber analysis features than the Cocoon Cam.

Breathing monitoring – Nanit does not feature breathing monitoring

Portability – the Nanit makes it easy to unclip your camera and accept it with you when traveling, Cocoon Cam Plus literally gets screwed into the wall.

Epitome & sound quality – the Nanit'south image and audio quality are better than Cocoon Cam'due south.

Price – Cocoon Cam is $149, Nanit starts at $279, just you can definitely spend more than that, and there is a subscription service to unlock all of the sleep analysis features of the Nanit.

Cocoon Cam vs Owlet

In addition to the Cocoon Cam, we've spent a few days testing the Owlet (Amazon) (and currently are doing more than testing). The Cocoon Cam and the Owlet are quite different in what they practise. Hither are a few key differences.

Owlet is non a video or audio monitor – the Owlet only monitors two things – heart rate an oxygen levels. There'due south no video or sound component to it, which can exit many parents feeling similar they need to purchase an additional video monitor.

Owlet doesn't measure respiration rate – Cocoon Cam and Owlet both purport to monitor your baby is doing ok in the crib, they just use different methods.

Cocoon Cam doesn't measure pulse or oxygen levels – see higher up.

Owlet is a wearable device, Cocoon Cam doesn't accept a clothing component.

Whew! Ok, that was nearly 4,000 words nigh the Cocoon Cam. Hopefully, it was helpful. If somehow we didn't reply your question, nosotros'd love to know – paul[at]fathercraft.com. If you're curious to hear what our friends testing both Cocoon Cam and Owlet accept to say, head to the homepage (fathercraft.com), scroll down and subscribe to our updates – we'll permit you know.

Cocoon Cam Plus Baby Monitor With Breathing Monitoring

Source: https://fathercraft.com/cocoon-cam-review/

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