Review of the Hello Baby HB178 Audio Baby Monitor
By: Thomas Smith
Tags: Nursery, Product Review, Parenting, Baby Monitor, Electronics

Review of the Hello Baby HB178 Audio Baby Monitor

Image courtesy the author.

Lots of people looking for a baby monitor for their nursery look at devices with built-in video-or try to repurpose an IP camera, like the Nest Camera from Google. The issue with standalone video monitors, though, is that they’re relatively easy to hack, the video is usually low quality, and you often have to charge the devices’ portable screens every night. With a Nest camera, you usually have to pull up the video feed on your phone to check in on your nursery.

In many cases, though, you don’t actually need video from your nursery-you just need to be able to hear what’s happening there, so you tell if your baby is crying, your toddler has gotten up and needs help, etc. If you just need a live audio feed from your nursery (or another room in your house), the Hello Baby HB178 is a great option.

The HB178 comes with two units-a transmitter and receiver. You install the transmitter in your child’s room or nursey, and plug it into the wall. It then pairs with a receiver, which you place in your room (plugged into the wall) or carry around the house (with an optional battery). The receiver has a volume setting, as well as an indicator light to show how much sound is coming from your nursery (the device indicates five levels of sound with color-coded LEDs).

From a technical perspective, the HB178 works like a traditional audio baby monitor, but with some major upgrades over the ubiquitous walkie-talkie like devices from the 1980s and 1990s. For starters, the device uses digital audio, so the sound is crystal clear-there’s no crackly static in the background to deal with, or weird phenomena like hearing audio from passing aircraft (which sometimes happened with 1990s-era audio monitors). The audio feed is also encrypted, so people outside your home can’t spy on the sound in your nursery (or so Hello Baby claims).

The HB178 also does a great job of suppressing sound when nothing’s actually happening in your nursery. That means you can have the volume turned up to max, and you won’t hear a lot of background noise or static. I usually set my B178 to nearly full volume. That way, when there actually is sound coming in, it’s quite loud and will definitely wake you up if you’re sleeping. But if all is quiet, there won’t be any crackling or other background sound to disrupt your sleep.

The HB178 is also economical, at around $25 on Amazon as of press time. Another advantage of audio-only transmission is an increased range-the HB178 has an advertised range of 1,000 feet. In practice, I find it’s a bit less than this, but it still has plenty of range to monitor your nursery from across a big house, or even outside in the backyard if you use a battery in the receiver.

If you really want to see what’s happening in your nursery, a video monitor is probably a better bet. I find the best overall solution is to pair the HB178 with a Nest camera. I can then immediately hear if anything is happening in the nursery without having to load up my phone to view the Nest cam. But if I hear something I want to see further, I can always pull up the Nest video feed on my phone or Alexa device and take a closer look.

If you’re looking for a modern take on the traditional audio baby monitor-or if you’re concerned about security and convenience with video monitors-the Hello Baby HB178 could be a great fit.