Product:
Motorola Halo+ Video Baby Monitor – $265
Motorola Halo+ Over-the-crib baby monitor is Motorola’s take on an overhead camera view with smart features that can track your baby’s sleep habits as well as soothe your baby.
It consists of 3 parts. Part 1 gives you a 1080p full HD camera with night vision, 2-way motion & sound-activated audio and lullabies. Part 2 consists of an overhead mount with a night light and light show projector. Lastly, part number 3 gives you a parent unit with a 4.3-inch full-color screen.
Halo+ works on Motorola’s Hubble Connected Platform. Use Halo+ with the Hubble app to monitor your baby when you are away from home, track your baby’s sleep activities, and get notified with activity alerts.
Setting up Halo+
The good thing about Motorola Halo+ baby monitor is the ease in setting up. The overhead mount is secured through fastening itself to the crib bars with a screw and mounting knob. It then extends itself further to the floor for added stability.
Once this is done, you can then attach the camera to the overhead mount. Then, plug in both the camera and parent unit. Turn both devices on and you will start to get visuals. It shouldn’t take longer than 20 minutes to get it all set up.
The parent unit display has a slight purple overtone to it. It has multiple buttons on each side of the display. You are able to access functions like push-to-talk, sleep activity, optical zoom, brightness, lullabies list, night-light control, and multi-camera views.
The parent unit displays a clear image coupled with information like signal strength, current temperature in your baby’s crib, and the battery level. Whenever the camera is unplugged or if the parent unit loses connection to the camera, you will get an alert in the form of a continuous beeping sound. You will get a low battery alert as well to inform you to charge its batteries.
Do note that you can remove your camera from the overhead mount when your baby is older and simply place it on the table. You can still use it as a baby monitor.
Night Light, Light Show and Light Vision Features
The night light function gives you a soft and gentle glow that is meant to soothe your baby to sleep and does not wake up babies who drifted into sleep when you on the night light. Halo+ gives you 3 brightness levels and 7 color variations for you to see which combination works for your baby.
The light show option projects a fairy like scene of planets, stars, spaceships and a baby astronaut on the ceiling. This option can be used separately or in conjunction with the night light depending on what soothes your little one.
For the night vision function, the Halo+ camera has 8 infrared LEDs. These LEDs are virtually invisible to your baby’s eye so you don’t have to worry about it waking them up. It provides just enough illumination to see your baby in the dark. The camera has built-in sensors to detect dim lighting in order to be activated automatically.
Playlist for Lullabies & Audio Books
There are 10 lullabies and 10 audiobooks available for you to choose from. There are classic lullabies, soothing sea waves, and calming nature-like sounds to soothe your baby to sleep. For the audiobooks, there are both female and male narrator versions for you to select. They are animated and specially tailored to babies.
Hubble Connected Platform
As you can see, you can do quite a number of things using the Halo+ camera and parent unit out of the box. But to unlock all the features of Halo+, it requires you to download the Hubble App and get a Hubble Connect Subscription.
The Hubble App acts as a nice complement to the parent unit as it gives you the exact same access and control to the camera and its functions. But where it differs is in addition to live video, it allows you to take snapshots triggered by your baby’s sound and movement. This allows you to capture and review what happened by giving you an alert notification.
The App allows you to manage some of the modes for event detection as you do not want to be triggered with alert notifications on things that don’t matter. You are able to schedule timings for the motion detection to be turned on, make adjustments on both audio and movement detection.
You are also able to set your desired temperature range in your baby’s room so that you will get an alert whenever the temperature falls out of it.
There are 4 Hubble Connect subscription plans available: Free, Basic ($29 yearly), Standard ($99 yearly), and Premium ($299 yearly).
So let me explain to you how it works.
For the Free plan, it gives you unlimited live video streaming and real-time sound, motion and temperature alerts. You are able to download manually the images and video snapshots.
If you need video recording functionalities, you will need to go for the Basic plan as it gives you access to 5-day video history on 1 connected camera.
The standard plan gives you access to 14-day video history on up to 10 connected cameras. You get functions like a daily video summary and baby video sleep diary. The premium plan gives you access to 30-day video history on up to 15 connected cameras. You will also get the daily video summary and baby video sleep diary.
Both Standard and Premium plan gives you access to a Smartzone feature. This allows you to set a custom area within your cameras field of view for motion-activated video capture and notifications. And only these 2 plans give you access to your baby’s sleep analytics, which gives you visual data on movements, sleep patterns, and sleep quality.
Personally, I think that the basic plan would suffice if you are currently set up for 1 camera. You will get 5-day video history for you to review. The Standard and Premium plan gives you sleep analytics and baby video sleep diary, so if you are looking for that you can consider those plans.
I do think that if you are interested in knowing more about your baby’s sleep patterns and analytics, you can try taking a look at Nanit Plus as they go really deep into baby’s sleep analytics.
The Verdict
The Halo+ has a lot of functions packed into its baby monitor and if you include the Hubble App and its subscriptions, you get even more with their sleep analytics. However, there are many other baby monitors that have similar functions like the Arlo baby monitor and cost lesser.
For example, Arlo baby monitor free subscription plan gives you access to 7 days of event-triggered cloud recordings in comparison to Hubble’s 24 hours access. Other than that, you are essentially getting the same features.
Consider Halo+ if you don’t mind the price or if you have been getting good results using Motorola’s product or other baby monitors. What is telling is Motorola’s long history in electronics and the mature and robust track record.