Project Nursery 4.3 Review

The Project Nursery 4.3 "mini" monitor felt more like a gimmicky addition than a useful monitor, and the fact that it cannot be used in conjunction with the larger parent unit is frustrating.

With the camera placed at least 6 ft from baby, the Nursery 4.3 has the lowest EMF reading for dedicated monitor (non-Wifi) in the group.

Performance Comparison

A quick look at the chart below clearly shows why the Project Nursery 4.3 did not win an award.

The sections below further illustrate how the Nursery Project fared in our side-by-side comparisons.

Range

The Project Nursery monitor earned a score of 3 of 10 for the range. This score is the lowest in the review, barely working through 3 walls and 54 ft in our indoor house test. By contrast, the Philips Avent SCD630, works up to 5 walls and 92 ft. Project Nursery claims a line of sight range of 800 ft, which is different than indoor testing, but our field test results only show 700 ft, and that was touch and go coverage.

This daytime image on the Project Nursery 4.3 parent unit doesn't look bad at first, but the details of the eye chart , crib sheet, and baby's face are blurry and hard to decipher.

Audio / Visual

This monitor earned a 4 of 10 for sound clarity. The Project Nursery has a bright and somewhat echoey sound. It is not super clear at any volume, and it isn't as loud as the competition. It does offer sound sensitivity adjustment and background noise reduction, but it doesn't do either very well.

The night vision on the Project Nursery 4.3 is worse than the daytime images. The details are now completely washed out and some are gone altogether.

The Nursery earned a 5 of 10 for video quality with sub-par picture quality. It looks washed out and strangely stretched like it is trying to fit a screen wider than it needs. The daytime colors look muted, and the zoom makes the image fuzzy. For night vision, things don't get better. The picture is washed out, and the bottom part of the eye chart disappears. The clarity it has during the day disappears in the dark.

While the Project Nursery 4.3 comes with a "mini" monitor, it is small and the buttons are not that useful. This 2nd unit feels more like a marketing ploy than a useful addition.

Ease of Use

The Project Nursery earned a 4 of 10 for ease of use, the lowest score in this metric. It comes in a cool box, and the presentation makes you feel special like you've purchased something akin to an iPhone. Setup is easy with pre-paired components. However, after setup is where things take a turn. The overall usability and day-to-day experience are challenging compared to the competition.

The Menu options on the Project Nursery 4.3 are not as intuitive as they appear at first blush. With several features being 2 or more button pushes deep, it can be frustrating to mess with when you are sleep deprived in the middle of the night.

The buttons and menus are not intuitive, and you need to select options inside options inside options to accomplish the simplest of tasks. This design means a lot of button pushing in a sleepy haze. You also have to repeat your steps to get back out of the menu, which is annoying if your baby is crying. The zoom button is the only easy button to use, and it works the camera movement as well. Pan and tilt for the camera require holding down the zoom button until the arrows appear, but movement can be herky-jerky and slow.

Battery Life

The Nursery earned a 6 of 10 for battery life, its highest-rated metric in our tests. This monitor has a lithium-ion battery in the parent unit that lasted 10 hours in our tests. The manufacturer claims 8 hours for the mini monitor and 16 hours for the larger parent unit when using the sound activated power saving mode. While our results don't match the claim, they should get you through a regular night's sleep.

The Project Nursery 4.3 comes with a variety of accessories that include 4 ways of carrying the parent units.

Features

The Project Nursery earned a 4 of 10 for features, which is below the average. This monitor comes with everything you need including a mini parent unit you can wear as a watch or clip on with a carabiner or belt clip. Unfortunately, you can NOT use both parent units at the same time, so mom and dad can't watch baby from different rooms. The Nursery standard parent unit has a 4.3 in screen and will work with up to 4 Project cameras.

While the idea of the mini monitor is fun, it isn't easy to use, and the smaller size isn't worth sacrificing image quality. During daylight (above left) the baby all but loses his face, and when using the zoom at night (above right) his mouth is missing, and you won't be able to tell if he has his eyes open or not.

This camera offers a temperature sensor, but in our tests, it reported a temperature 4 degrees cooler than the room, which is misleading if you are trying to create the optimum temperature suggested to avoid SIDS.

The mic on the nursery 4.3 is on the back of the camera facing away from baby, which may be part of the reason it is hard to hear baby's cries clearly. The speaker is on the front, so hopefully baby can hear you better than you can hear her.

• Two-way talk to baby

• Sound / motion activation

• Auto screen wake up / sleep

• 2X zoom

• True camera pan and tilt

• Night vision

• Recording on micro SD

• Three lullabies

Electromagnetic Field (EMF) Levels

The Project Nursery has the lowest average EMF readings for a dedicated monitor, but the readings were not as good as the Wi-Fi monitors. With the camera 6 ft from the baby, the readout is 1.93. The parent unit will be closer, as most parents set this by their bed, but many parents have fewer concerns for themselves than the baby. With the parent unit 3 ft from the reader the average EMF was 1.24, and over 6 with the unit within 6 inches.

Manufacturer Video