Angelcare AC1300

Shocking – This was given to me as a gift and I wish I could give it back! It constantly drops out of range and wakes me up more than my newborn does! I do not recommend this product at all! Show details

Wish I had read the reviews – Straight out of the box the parent unit doesn’t hold charge. Looses connection 15 metres away in our bedroom. We spent a fortune on this thing and I’m really lost as to what to do!! Really disappointed!!! I was under the impression angel care was the rolls Royce of baby monitors!

Total piece of rubbish – Battery life is appalling. Constantly out of range. Don’t dare to use your wifi as it interrupts the signal. And then it just died. Apparently out of warranty. You’re better off with tin cans and string. Here are thirteen more words so that I meet the fifty word minimum. Word.

Should have been recalled – Angelcare fail! Do not buy one of these for your baby. Whilst the software is ok, the hardware on these things is rubbish. Five failures under wanrranty and now it’s dead again. Battery failure, battery failure, monitor failure, battery failure and now a camera failure. We were recommend this by baby village.

Faulty Monitor – I’ve got the angel care ac1300 - first started working fine but the monitors battery life doesn’t last a full night off charge so I need to leave it on charge while using it. Now occasionally it’s been known to turn its self off to the point that I am even not waking up to my own child!

Poor battery life faulty power cord – I have had the angelcare ac1300 and in the time I’ve had it the parent unit charger stopped working. I was able to charge it using a Samsung phone charger so that wasn’t too much of a problem but recently the main unit power cable is no longer working! I have rechargeable batteries in it and they don’t last more than an hour yet alone overnight which has now made the monitor useless.

Do Not Buy Angelcare!!! – We have an Angelcare Video, Movement and Sound Monitor and it’s absolute garbage!!! The battery life is terrible. We will have it charging all night and some days it won’t make it through my sons first nap without dying. It also trips out and will sometimes stop or turn off when it’s near my cell phone. It interferes with out internet… Read more

connection and makes it very slow. Unfortunately we live in an area where power outages are a common thing and it takes countless tries to get the monitor back on after a power outage. My son is currently napping with no monitor because I gave up trying after 20+ attempts at turning the monitor back on. I will NEVER buy another Angelcare product and I have told all my friends and family to do the same. Absolutely not worth the money and so much frustration!!!

Want to love it but – I did love this monitor and I had recommended it to friends as everything was working great until now....after 1 years use the battery wont hold charge

Parent unit, sound, screen and now battery failure – The breathing pads and baby unit work incredibly well. Unfortunately the parent unit keeps breaking down. I received the angelcare unit as a gift in December brand new and unopened. After the arrival of my son we installed the angelcare unit as per instructions. We noticed the sound was not very loud and a little crackling but otherwise it… Read more

worked well. About a month ago, for no reason the screen developed two lines, it was still usable, so while annoying we didn't think too much of it as the baby is still visible.

Now it appears the battery is failing to recharge! So the parent unit only works when plugged in, which I'm sure you will agree makes the hole point of a monitor useless and in the case of hearing the breathing alarm, dangerous.

Monitor battery terrible – I purchased this monitor a while ago and have been putting up with it since because I can’t justify spending Any more money on another one after spending so much on this one. It had only just been released when I bought it and reviews for it were few so I based my choice on the good reviews for other Angelcares monitors - thinking ‘yay a new… Read more

model this should be even better!’.

I was seriously disappointed.

I liked this monitor at first and was recommended this brand by lots of people but the battery on this monitor is terrible! It sometimes doesn’t charge even when plugged in and then when it says it’s fully charged if you don’t have it plugged in the alarm can go off after 5 minutes and freaks you out.

The image quality and sound quality aren’t too bad and the night light feature is really handy.

The leads between the base unit and sensor pads are pretty short which makes it difficult to set up with a good view of your Bub.

For what this monitor cost me i’m really disappointed and feel ripped off.

I really wish I could replace the monitor for it.

Good customer service good product – Been using AC1300 for 8 months. At 7 months monitor started to go flat (these things happen!) I emailed customer service and one was sent out within days - was easy and no hassle. Pocket size screen and visual is good and all works well. Great piece of mind and I have a product that does what it says it should do.

Terrible monitor. Wouldn't purchase brand again – Very disappointed with the angelcare monitor. Only after a few night of using it, the monitor had to remain plugged in to use as it had zero battery life. Now the monitor will not even charge. I have tried a number different plugs and outlets and nothing works. Extremely dissapointed as we were planning on having this monitor for use in the future... but not if we can't even turn it on

No battery life makes it useless – I bought this monitor after having an older model Angel Care which I loved. I have had this new model in use in my infants room for approx 2 months and it no longer holds a battery charge. As I write this review, my baby has been asleep for less than 5 minutes and the battery has already gone flat despite being on the charge all night. I’m so disappointed in the product, it was really expensive and doesn’t even work.

Bad visual quality – I bought this for my son after having an earlier model for my daughter. I was informed this was the new updated version, it was poor compared to our old one. No more touch screen and no option for talk back either. Also no option to switch on or off night vision. When we first started using this we noticed that the screen quality was awful, we… Read more

cannot see our son unless we tilt the screen at a very strange angle, we assumed this was just the poor quality, however my friend has since purchased this model and hers seems to be fine. As I was unaware that ours is indeed faulty until a few weeks ago when I saw my friends, I did not report it to angelcare. I am very dissatisfied with the product but with the assumption that since it was purchased in August last year they will not do anything about helping us with the issue. I am not resorting to trapsing through the net to see if there is a resolution to our issue.

Poor battery life. Live by the outlet – The unit itself works well enough for our needs. I especially like the night mode and being able to see my son in a dark room. However we’ve only been using the unit for 2 months and already the battery is not holding a charge. If this unit came with additional replacement batteries it would be worth the money.

Worst battery life! – I've had this product about four months and one of the main most important issue is with the monitor's charge last less than half an hour. You need to keep it on charge all the time, what's the meaning of having portable monitor if you can't take it with you. And it was one of the most expensive monitor. Not worth it!

Wish I went with another brand – Monitor was purchased this year but didn't use it for the first few months until we moved Bub into his own room. For the first month or so it was alright. Not the best sound quality but I managed. The battery life is appalling. It will only hold charge for about 10 mins even when it's been charging for hours. This is extremely inconvenient as… Read more

I wanted to be able to use the monitor when outside or not necessarily near a PowerPoint.

If I wanted something that had to sit next to my bed plugged in I would have opted for a different cheaper brand.

This definitely isn't worth the money. It was suggested in a mothers group I'm in to try this one as it's meant to be one of the best. I have since advised other mums in that group to stay away from this brand.

Really really disappointed.

Not perfect but Customer Service ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – I spent months reviewing baby monitors before purchasing the AC1300. No the battery life is not great and it is a little annoying having to turn off both the camera and screen as you can't pause the alarms long enough to change a nappy. But my review is based on the after sale customer service, at the 6 month mark my monitor had dropped a line… Read more

of pixels. I contacted angelcare via email and within 2 hours I had a reply with an apology and request for photos of my receipt and fault. The next morning I had an email stating a replacement monitor was on its way express post. As promised it arrived.

All brands will have lemons but angelcare customer support ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.

Very Disappointing! – Purchased in October 2016 but didn't start using until the end of November 2016. Am extremely disappointed with this product. After choosing this monitor over the Oricom one I wish I had of gone with it instead. Everything worked as it should for the 1st 2-3 weeks. From then on the parent unit has gradually got worse and worse and now won't turn… Read more

on at all without being plugged into a power source. Hardly practical when you are trying to get jobs done outside and want to have the parent unit in your pocket or on you. Only used the sensor pads for a week as my baby used to scream when I put her down. We tried everything until i finally took away the pads and she went straight down no worries (have no idea why). The only positive I have about this product is that the video picture quality is fairly good with minimal lighting from the camera. I paid $330 for this product and feel it has been a waste of money!

Does what it needs to, but just barely – My wife and I were given this as a gift. My wife had done a lot of research on different monitors and had heard good things about this model. The unit was simple and easy to set up and get working. One minor niggle was that the camera has to be roughly a meter away from baby. This doesn't sound like it will be an issue, but most bassinets and cots… Read more

are actually fairly deep, so the angle required to actually see baby means that you'll have to set the camera up fairly high. The camera does have a tilt function, but even at the steepest angle we couldn't see baby by sitting the monitor on a tall set of drawers by the bassinet. Pro Tip: the camera unit has a universal tripod attachment on the bottom. Grab yourself a cheap, tall camera tripod and attach it. This has the added advantage of making the unit easy to set up in multiple rooms if needed.

Picture quality was actually somewhat better than I had expected. With a very basic, relatively low-res LCD screen (especially if you're used to staring at a 1080p or UHD smartphone screen all day), I wasn't expecting much. However, I was pleasantly surprised. Baby is clearly visible and the refresh rate is smooth, even in night vision mode.

Sound quality is just awful, but does what it needs to do, namely alert you when baby is crying. even on the maximum volume setting, the noise and music from baby's room is very soft. Thankfully, baby has excellent lungs so I was always alerted when they started wailing. In this regard, the unit accomplishes its goal, though not spectacularly.

The monitor is very light and the range seems to be great. It worked flawlessly throughout my fairly large home and I was able to take it outside and even into the neighbour's house with no apparent loss of signal. This would seem to make the unit nice and reliable except that...

The battery on the first unit we were given failed after using it for 2 months. It would show as charging, but when unplugged would immediately drop down to low battery and then die after maybe a minute or two. Even after an entire day of charging, the battery couldn't last more than a minute before beeping the low battery warning and then shutting down. We returned the unit to the retail store where it was purchased and after a demonstration of the fault, we were sent a replacement unit. I noticed that, where the old unit was one solid piece of plastic, the new unit has a removable battery door on the rear. I'm guessing, judging by this and other users reporting similar issues, that battery problems were a fairly widespread problem and a new batch was released in which the battery could be more easily replaced. The new unit has been functioning just fine so far.

Finally, one issue you might want to consider is that whenever we used the unit, our wifi would be rendered practically unusable. I'm guessing the unit runs on a 2.4Ghz frequency, which would make sense given its great range. Unfortunately, this is the same frequency many routers and home phones operate at, which can cause conflicts. I've had people tell me that this doesn't happen, but when your internet consistently drops from 17Mbps to less than 1Mbps whenever the unit is switched on, it's not hard to draw a correlation between the two.

So, would I recommend this unit? No, frankly. It does the job it needs to, but at a level that's just "okay". It's decent, but not great, and certainly not worth the $300+ price tag. If I were to buy one for myself, I'd look for one with a better resolution (or even just one that I can stream to my UHD phone screen), superior sound and greater reliability. I hope this review helps someone.

UPDATE April 3rd, 2018

I thought it was worth writing a quick update to this review in light of some recent issues I've had with the monitor. Sadly, things have not improved. I am now on my 3rd monitor. The second one began to experience battery drain issues a few months ago. A call to Angelcare customer service resulted in a replacement being sent out. Unfortunately, the replacement is now also experiencing the same issue.

When left to charge overnight, the monitor displays a full battery meter, as you would expect. However, as soon as the charger is removed the indicator drops to half. The unit begins beeping the low battery warning soon after that. Unfortunately this makes the unit unreliable at best and unusable at worst. Which is a shame because:

Angelcare customer service have been really amazing. Each time I've contacted them regarding the issue they expressed dismay and apologised. They sent out a new unit very quickly and assured me of their continued support no matter what. Honestly I can't speak highly enough about their service. It's just a shame the product isn't up to the same standard.

Monitor has short battery life, no easy way to pause alarm when pickup baby, poor resolution on moni – Been using this for 7 weeks with our bub. It works... but not overly impressed with it as the monitor seems to have a very short battery life, the resolution on the monitor is pretty average and most importantly the alarm with the sensor pads cannot be easily paused when baby is picked up... so you need to turn off both the monitor and camera to… Read more

shut it up.

Wishing I had gone for a monitor that work via the by smartphone. Be warned, the picture on the box is in no way a true representation of the resolution.

Terrible battery – Update Feb 2017 - we have now been using the unit for 3.5 months and the battery no longer shows as fully charged and has lost most of its capacity (which wasn't great to start with). It will now run low on battery during a single short sleep, 2 hours or so. Most annoyingly, if you turn the monitor off to pick up the baby, it will usually fire… Read more

back up beeping at you every few seconds that the battery is low. This experience seems consistent with other reviews out there and I think it's more likely a design flaw than a bad batch of batteries or something. We now have to carry it round dongled to a portable USB charger. I've dropped my review from four to two stars - sort out this flaw Angelcare!!! My original review follows:

We started out using only the sensor then everything once the little man moved into his own room. I cut a hardboard base for the bassinet as they recommend for the sensor. The sensor wires have anti-strangle stiffeners which is of course good but I'm sure there must be a smarter way to acheive this. From day 1 the sensor seems to have worked great - it went off once and the little man had his face covered by a blanket, we picked him up and he took a deep breath. Every other time it's been because we forgot to turn it off. The range is great - matching or exceeding that of our brand new AC1300 wifi. We turn down the volume at night and turn it back up during the day - great having a few simple volume levels to return to. We tend to turn on the video for a bit to check on him and generally leave it off. A good idea is that one volume LED will linger after bubba makes a noise - if you thought you heard him stir, the LED will tell the truth. The video just works, and switching to infrared is seamless, image is clear and good size despite not a massive screen resolution - perfectly good enough. I've found the sound volume fine, and full volume is only for outside doing noisier things so I guess the other reviewer here had a faulty one. The LED's at night - yes a little bright but you want to know it's going when you're braindead from sleep deprivation.

Room for improvement - the battery in the parent unit would be good if it was larger capacity - double please!. We regularly run it out during daytime ops and have to find some power for it (NOW FAR WORSE AFTER 3 MONTHS). Night is fine as it's plugged in next to bed. The angelcare logo is a bit bright at night when you first turn it on. The screen is plastic and way easier to scratch than a phone - we've cut up a phone screen protector to put on it but would be good if it came with something. We've only been using it 2 months now so hopefully reliability stays good.

Notes for newbies - Read the setup guide carefully and take some time to set it up and test it, particularly the sensor. Takes a while before it's working how you want it. You may want a mini tripod to mount the camera unit to something - we literally had nowhere good to mount it without one. Do cut the hardwood or ply base for the sensor that they talk about I guess - this will require tools and material. Turn the volume up for day and down when you're sleeping. We've found that the sound is the primary cue, and you then turn the video on to check things further (ie. has he actually woken or was that just a 45 minute stir?). Also this was $700 in NZ (if you can even find this flash-as model at all). We bought it for NZ$210 delivered from the USA.

Very disappointed: Terrible battery, poor sound and bad design – We have had this unit for the first 6 weeks of our newborns life and unfortunately we are not happy with this unit at all. Three main reasons: - battery - sound - unit design Battery: The battery on the parent unit does not charge properly and lasts less than 20 mins in sound mode only. It is even less with video activated. It claims to (and I… Read more

would expect it to) last much longer.

Sound: The sound volume is barely audible and we need to monitor the lights to ensure we are alerted when baby makes noise. The volume button hardly makes a difference (goes from quiet to barely audible). We thought this was a fault but have since been told that it is a 'quiet' model... seems counterintuitive to have a monitor that doesn't really alert you (or at least doesn't give me the option to have it louder if needed).

Unit design: Haven't had a chance to use the sensors because our bassinet is too small. The setup for the sensors is very specific and requires a cot of a particular size and shape. This was not explained anywhere. Also, the green power light on the camera is very bright (particularly at night) and when covered up it actually causes the camera to glow. The camera comes with no mounting ability but is required to be about 40cms above the bassinet to see baby.

Nevertheless the picture quality is fine and when the parent unit is pressed to an ear the sound quality is fine.

Overall, extremely disappointed in this unit. It is the most expensive on the market and for some reason it is recommended by baby shops in Australia... Anyway for a high price it is not even doing the basics so really really lower your expectations (aka not worth the money at all) if you're considering purchasing.

February 19th 2017 Update: Battery continues to be poor

Update: We continue to experience the same issues with the battery life. It never shows fully charged and lasts about 10mins off the power cord. This is an Australian product model bought in Australia. The sound quality continues to be very poor. And the overall design is not well thought out.

We didn't have any luck with contacting customer care although this is clearly a fundamental fault. Glad to see Customer Care being responsive to others in this forum though.

We have since purchased another camera (wifi to work with phone) and whilst not only cheaper the quality is far better.