INTERACTIVE LESSON & SIMULATOR
Interactive Simulator: Baby Monitors & Safe Crib Distance
Compare continuous 100 Hz DECT microwave pulses against VOX eco-modes and hardwired PoE cameras with our interactive crib distance calculator.
The frequencies in use
Baby monitors sold in North America typically operate on one of a handful of unlicensed radio bands — commonly around 49 MHz, 902 MHz, or 2.4 GHz — regulated under the FCC's Part 15 rules for unlicensed, low-power consumer devices. Which band a specific monitor uses mostly affects its range and susceptibility to interference from other household devices, not the underlying safety picture.
Analog vs. digital, and what that means for transmission
Older analog monitors transmit continuously while powered on. Many modern digital monitors use DECT (a technology also used in cordless phones) or frequency-hopping spread spectrum, and Wi-Fi-connected video monitors ride on the household Wi-Fi network. A monitor that only transmits audio when sound crosses a threshold, or a video model on standard Wi-Fi, isn't meaningfully different in kind from other low-power household radios already in the room.
How it compares to a Wi-Fi router
A Wi-Fi-based video baby monitor uses the same 2.4 GHz (or 5 GHz) band and similarly low transmit power as the household router — it doesn't add a new category of exposure, just another low-power transmitter on a band you likely already have several of (router, smart speaker, other Wi-Fi devices) in the home.
If you want to reduce transmitter proximity
The practical lever isn't the monitor's radio technology — it's placement. Keep the transmitter unit a reasonable distance from the crib rather than clipped to it, and if choosing between audio-only and video models, be aware video adds continuous data transmission where a voice-activated audio monitor may transmit only intermittently.