Angelcare AC327 Review

Angelcare began in 1997 as one of the first to create and market a baby movement monitor for parents to use at home. Angelcare hails from Canada and has a variety of different monitoring options that include audio and video solutions.

Performance Comparison

The Anglecare Monitor has limited range and fails to match the competition in tests for sound or video.

Range

The range on the AC327 in our tests was 4 walls and 65 feet. The manufacture claims of 820 ft is an open eyeliner test without the usual trappings of a standard home of walls and appliances that can create interference or limit connectivity. Our open field tests showed connectivity up to 700 feet before it stopped communicating. This is not the best in-home distance in the review and likely will not work in larger homes or homes with any significant distance between the camera and the parent unit.

Audio / Visual

Sound clarity for the AC327 is about average for the dedicated monitors and honestly, none of the units performed that well for sound. With a maximum level of 89 dB but the best clarity is closer to 81 dB. It offers a reasonable voice activation that shuts off at a respectable level but kicks on as it should for louder noises and crying. Overall, the sound is hollow and has an echo that means less clarity on what is happening in the room

The video quality (above left) of this monitor is nothing to write home about in our opinion compared to the competition. The daylight images are color and neither the color or the clarity of the image is great, especially when using the zoom feature (above right). It does not represent the color in the nursery.

Night images (above left) are worse than the day video with more fussiness and less detail. If you are hoping to see your baby's face to determine their level of upset, this is not the right monitor for you. This lack of clarity only gets worse when using the zoom feature (above right).

The parent device with the AC327 is relatively basic with few buttons and much toggling inside menus to find the features you want.

Ease of Use

Overall the AC327 is not as easy to use as some of the competition with a score below the average for the group.

Setup of the AC327 is fairly easy with a wireless sensor pad and components that automatically pair to one another. There is little to do here but determine a good place for the camera and the right sensitivity for the sensor pad. The pad will work with most mattresses but not foam or hollow-core options. For more information, you can read our movement monitor review.

The AC327 sensor pad requires a hard surface to rest on and not all mattresses are compatible. The pad is adjustable to help avoid false alarms from any nearby device that causes vibrations.

The AC327 could be easier to use on a daily basis. First, you'll need to remember to turn off the motion detection before removing your little one from the bed. Failure to do this ill result in ongoing alarms. The sensor pad has adjustability to find the right sensitivity for your baby and room to help prevent false alarms from occurring, but this will take some trial and error to get just right. The parent unit is not very intuitive, as it suffers from few buttons and a dated design similar to the competition that will result in toggling through menus to find what you want when you could avoid this with more buttons.

Battery Life

The parent unit battery life on the AC327 was about 10 hours in our tests under standard use conditions. This is ample time for a nap or even most overnight sleeping periods, but we recommend using it plugged in at night just to ensure you don't lose monitoring ability due to a low battery. The battery life of the sensor pad is approximately 8 months, but the parent unit will give you an alert when the batteries run low.

The parent unit of the AC327 has a kickstand for easy nighttime viewing.

Features

This monitor has the standard features you'll find on much of the competition without any of the bells and whistles like lullabies or nightlights. On the upside, it has voice activation and motion detection, but most of the remaining "features" are found on even the most bare-bones products.

• 2-way talk

• 4.3 inch viewing screen

• Add a sensor for two babies

• Add up to 2 extra cameras

• Wall or table mount camera

• Wireless and adjustable sensor pad

• Voice-activated (VOX)

• Temperature sensor and alert

• Low battery alarm for parent unit and sensor pad

• Digital zoom and pan

Electromagnetic Field (EMF) Levels

Each monitor in this review has been tested for its level of EMF emissions including this one. As there is always some level of ambient EMF we test them in the same location to ensure a one-to-one comparison between units. The AC327 had EMF levels of 1.2 V/m at 6 ft from the meter. While not the highest level in the group, it is more than some of the competition including several higher-ranking Wi-Fi options we tested. Depending on how you feel about EMF you can choose you may want to consider another option as the sensor pad also emits EMF.

Manufacturer Video