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13 of 13 found the following review helpful:
 Awesome & High Tech Jun 26, 2011
By owlmommy
Love this monitor and so happy I signed up to get it as soon as Amazon had it for sale. It is amazing. Nice big LCD, very sensitive- I can hear everything, crystal clear sound and image including night vision, easy to set up, very adjustable, etc. The pan and zoom are awesome. Skype works great too. My only complaint would be that it was not made clear before buying that this is only PC compatible - not Mac friendly. Doesn't matter if you only plan to use it as a monitor, but if you want to link it to your computer and use Skype, etc. then you have to have a PC. We have both but are a Mac preferred home. We still kept the monitor because it is so nice in spite of not being Mac friendly.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
 Works as advertised except for range! Jul 18, 2011
By engineer_dad
My wife and I are looking for a baby video monitor for our 6-month old daughter - our requirements are digital transmission, 5GHz (to minimize interference), 3.5" screen, good day and night video quality, easy pan/zoom controls and range (our bedroom is 50ft away down the corridor from the nursery). We don't need a temperature sensor since another unit does a good job.
The First Years Home and Away Portable Video Monitor met most of these needs except for 5GHz transmission (works at 2.4 GHz). The key feature that attracted us to this monitor is their claim of 650 ft range, clear transmission.
Installation, use, etc. were quite easy and we were happy with the video quality (both day and night). We found the skype feature interesting but somewhat cumbersome to use (since the monitor has to be plugged into an available laptop via USB cable, for skype to recognize the unit as an additional video cam).
The biggest drawback is range. The monitor loses connection at ~40 ft, from nursery and then straight across the hallway. We turned off every 2.4 GHz device (WiFi, Phone, Bluetooth, etc.) to see if any of these devices caused interference, to no avail.
Just to see if transmission strength was an issue, I used a homemade parabolic antenna (http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template/) and voila! The range improved considerably, but the next challenge became that of keeping the antenna either vertical or horizontal (it can only move 180 degrees along one plane), while still capturing a decent picture of my daughter in her crib. Unfortunately this didn't work.
Lack of range (10% of what is advertised!!) is unacceptable; renders the product unusable in our bedroom. We are returning this product.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Love this monitor Feb 04, 2012
By Sam
I have tried others but this monitor is great you can set it up to Skype somy traveling husband or grandma can check on them but the best is the two way speaker! Love being able to talk to my 3 yr old and let him know I am on my way or I can see he is not in bed!!!! It scans seamlessly between the two monitors I have setup so I can watch both kids at night. I had some problems setting it up early ( totally my fault) support was incredible!!!! They worked me through it and it set up so easy! Plug and go...as long as you have a Skype account it is easy to check in on them. And even the skyper can talk to them with this monitor! Really can not say enough good things about this!
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Not bad, but not worth the $$$ Jul 22, 2011
By T. G.
We have used the monitor for three days now and it works as it says it does. The range says 650 feet, but there is no way it will reach that far unless you were in an open field with no other electronics nearby. The picture is not bad (not great) and works for the intended purpose.
However, the advertising oversells the monitor considerably. The camera can only talk directly to the monitor and you HAVE to plug in the monitor to a computer to use the "skype ready" feature. It seems like you should be able to hook this up to wireless network, but you cannot. You cannot turn off the monitor when it is plugged in so it is not good to put on the nightstand while sleeping. The monitor is designed to be plugged in while in use and the battery backup is a non-standard battery that cannot be replaced with AAA, must be reordered from the company. There is also a light on the camera that is very bright and has distracted our child from sleeping twice.
Overall, this camera is not worth the price and the seemingly high-tech features are not worth the hassle of using them.
 The Home & Away would be a strong product, if only it were Mac, iphone or ipad compatible May 21, 2012
By Drake J.
The Home & Away would be a strong product, if only it were Mac, iPhone or iPad compatible.
As the manufacture clams, the camera-to-base signal is indeed very strong, and the picture is serviceable. The rangy articulation of the camera head makes up some for the lack of an automated pan, tilt or vertical flip feature.
I only have one legitimate disappointment in this product, but unfortunately, it's a big one. The Baby Viewer program only allows PC users to access the camera's signal, not Mac, therefore effectively disabling the frequently touted feature to all Mac, iPhone and iPad customers, including Grandma and Grandpa. This deficiency is clearly stated on Amazon, but is strangely omitted on advertisements in many stores, and on the company web site which feels a bit... odd. I had to call a technician at The First Years to confirm the deficiency. The technician was surprised, as was I, to learn The First Years website didn't explicitly warn the 22 million Mac users and the 50 Million iphone users that their technology is incompatible with this product.
Tec savvy on-line shoppers are safe, but a kind Grand parent looking to buy this product for a child, may forget to ask the new baby in the family, are you a Mac or a PC?
With so many other brands offering a fully compatible experience (both PC and Mac, iPhone, iPad) at a relatively similar price point, The Home and Away seems more than a little behind the times.
I have confidence the good people at The First Years could fix this issue, but if you are a Mac or iPhone user, I would invest in another system until they do.
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