Cubo Ai Smart Baby Monitor Gen 1 (Discontinued by Manufacturer)

I had my eye on Cubo from the time I started looking at baby monitors, when it was still on IndieGoGo. When it finally was released on Amazon, I was excited to order it the moment it was available. My significant other and I were very happy with the Cubo, but were a little bothered by a lot of notifications, especially since our son rolls over onto his belly a lot and that notifies us often. We thought maybe one that monitors breathing would be better fit for us.We went ahead and tried the Nanit Plus with the floor stand, the Miku, and the SmartBeat. NONE of these compare to Cubo. The Nanit and Miku have great cameras, but have other issues. Here is what Cubo has that puts it above the rest:- Alerts: Cubo has alerts for crying, for rollover, and for face covered. The other cameras only alert if there is movement or sound- which almost any security camera, even the ones not made for babies, can do. When you have a baby, you want to know if something is wrong. Cubo has alerts that are relevant for things you need to know specifically related to a baby. Cubo doesn't have breathing monitoring, but we have used the Monbaby for breathing monitoring, which is tiny and reliable for that aspect that Cubo lacks. The Miku and SmartBeat claim breathing monitoring without wearables, but the connection and alerts were not reliable- they both were extremely delayed, did not connect, or didn't pick up our son except in bits and pieces for monitoring. Nanit claims breathing monitoring but only with a wearable band. We didn't even try that- our son wouldn't want that on him while he sleeps, and it looks like it would make a baby hot because it has to go around their belly/waist.All around, when all was compared, the Cubo alerts were much more relevant, reliable, and needed.-Flexibility of use: Cubo comes with a floor stand, a mount, and a multi stand, all included for the price. The floor stand is also lightweight and the base and tubing thin, as well as weighed down with water bags, so it's easy to fit places and move around. The camera can easily be moved from stand to stand.For Nanit Plus, if you want the floor stand, it's only available if ordered that way originally, and it only comes with the floor stand. You cannot order the floor stand separately. The multi stand can be ordered, but it's an extra $50. We tried it with the floor stand and it was HUGE. The tubing is large and has a tripod type base that is very long on the floor. It was incredibly inconvenient with space. You can take off part of the tubing but it has to be leaned against a wall at that point. It is nowhere near as easy to move around or place in various locations compared to Cubo.Miku and Smartbeat do not have any stand- they have a little base you can place on a surface or you can mount them to a wall. If you want it to actually monitor your baby, finding a place to place it if you don't mount it is challenging.-Connection: This is a big one. From day 1, Cubo has had no problem connecting. When it does happen to have a connection issue, the camera side button is purple so it's easy to know when it's not working. In addition to that, the app sends a notification to let you know. Even with that, Cubo disconnection is rare and when it happens, is short lived before it reconnects.Comparatively, the Miku and SmartBeat were extremely hard to connect, took a ton of time, and even then, only had a spotty connection at best. Nanit connection was fine.-Video Real Time vs Lag: Cubo is so real time that if there is a lag, it is barely noticeable. Even when our families talk through the app from across the country, the lag is short on that.Miku and SmartBeat had such a lag that we could not trust they were reliable to keep us up to speed with what was going on with our baby. Nanit was real time without a lag.-Video Quality: Cubo is fantastic. The video quality is great in day and night vision modes. It is so clear in night vision even that we can see our son breathing when we view the feed.The SmartBeat seemed ok when it actually worked, but just ok. The Miku quality wasn't that great- it seemed like the connection issues were making it fuzzy, but a few times it looked clear, but again not reliable. Nanit had a pretty good camera but in comparison to seeing the baby breathing on the feed, Cubo still wins as best picture.-Can tell if other people are viewing: THIS IS A BIG ONE. Cubo makes this very easy. There is a round button on the side of the camera that will light up around the edges with different colors to easily tell what is happening. A dark blue light lets you know if someone is viewing the feed. I can't reiterate enough how much we appreciate this. Our families have access to the camera and it always turns blue whenever anyone anywhere is viewing it. This helps us to be aware if either of us are watching it from away, or if someone else has tuned in.NONE OF THE OTHER CAMERAS LET YOU KNOW IF ANYONE ELSE IS WATCHING, at least not any way that was easily able to notify you. My significant other got onto Nanit while I was at home alone with the baby and I had no idea he was watching. If someone were to watch, this is a very nice feature that Cubo has that none of the others do, that easily lets you see someone is viewing, very visibly on the camera within view by just glancing at the camera.-Look: Cubo is the only one that looks cute in a nursery. It is the shape of a bird.The others look like square cameras, not kid friendly looking. Our son loves looking at Cubo.-App Use: The Cubo app is easy to use. We have never had problems and everything is pretty easy to use.SmartBeat has an awful app that was very hard to use. Nanit was ok, but most of the elements are about sleep tracking and the insights (which is a paid subscription after a year), and Miku was ok, but none were as great as the Cubo app.-Cubo Community: Cubo is the only camera with a Facebook community that has employees of Cubo in it. This is great for finding answers to questions, asking things in a relaxed manner and for Cubo to get feedback from the users. None of the other cameras have anything like this.-Past Videos Accessibility: Cubo gives you access to the past 18 hours of videos and saves video clips and pictures throughout periods each day for the moments wall. You can save videos and pictures on your phone, delete things from the moments wall, and make the moments wall accessible to only select users.In comparison, the other cameras require subscriptions or paid options for the most part.-Camera in sleep mode: THIS IS A BIG ONE. You can hold down the side button until it turns green to put the camera in sleep mode for Cubo. This is great because you can tell when it is in sleep mode and you can turn off the feed without unplugging the camera if the plug is hard to reach.In comparison, the other cameras need to be unplugged or turned off for the feed to be off.-Price: Cubo is the least expensive of the cameras we tried, yet it offers the most benefits and reliability.Nanit and Miku do have the option of playing music or white noise through the camera, as well as very clear and not lagging audio. The speakers on them are great. However, we found that a simple $20 noise machine, or our phones playing white noise, was just as good if not better (because more options for sounds) than what either of these cameras offered. The sound quality was a little better with the 2 way talk on them, but Cubo works just fine and the speakers being better quality did not deter us from Cubo. It is still superior when viewing the systems in the bigger picture.Overall, Cubo is a win. I wish Cubo did monitor breathing, but I would rather have a reliable camera with alerts that matter, even if it lacks the breathing monitoring. This is something Cubo may even come out with in the future that can be monitored with the existing camera. In the meantime, the mix of Cubo plus the MonBaby has been great. But even without MonBaby, you can just look at the feed and see your baby breathing, it's that clear! Also, the company seems to care- not just with the Facebook group, but also with getting feedback from families and making sure the families who have purchased know they are appreciated. With what Cubo offers all around, I highly recommend this monitor over any of the other cameras on the market. It is a winner!

**UPDATE: 2020-06-02 - We've been using this now for 7+ months, and I stand by my initial rating and still recommend. I've transitioned from floor mount to crib stand, and it was pretty straight forward. There was a brief outage last week (we were only impacted for like 15 minutes), but apparently it impacted a lot of people who are way more passionate in their anger than I would expect for a baby monitor. Be advised that if you purchase, it's still a relatively new to market and there will be bumps as they figure things out. That said, my Owlet sock is MUCH worse from a reliability standpoint. It's just the nature of software.**This is a solid 4.5 star monitor. Tl;dr - Get this monitor. You won't be disappointed. Great performance. High quality. Room for improvement on inconsequential items.The monitor itself does everything I expected it to do, so I'd be remiss to give it anything less than 5-stars, but the rest of the experience has some room for improvement (which is to be expected with a product that's relatively new to market.) I already have the Owlet sock (not the cam), so the three key things I wanted: 1. Access via phone/smart device - I didn't want to have to carry around a separate monitor that would have limited range. Yes, this has the security implications of someone hacking your data, but welcome to the 21st century. 2. "Environment info", e.g. temperature - We live in the Pacific Northwest, so winters are cold enough that we need to run the furnace, which has variable performance in different rooms. Even though the thermostat might be set to 72, I want to know that the room is safe/comfy for my baby. 3. Notifications - I figured this would be a no-brainer with any smart-device enable monitor. Apparently not.Cubo hits all of these areas, so there is my 5-star satisfaction. Now, more details on the good: - Video quality: I'm able to zoom in and get all the details I'd expect. - App performance: I typically only have a .5 second lag on the live video stream, and notifications (baby crying, potential face cover) are within 1-2 seconds. Given I'm getting this for safety reasons (knowing if something is wrong), this is crucial. Other smart devices I have in my house have a 5-20 second delay, so I'm impressed by how seamless Cubo's notifications are. - Versatility: The fact that this comes with three different "mounting" options (floor stand, crib mount, mobile stand) was one of the contributing factors of me getting a Cubo over the Nanit. More on that below. I love the idea that I can use this well after my child is out of their crib. - Covered face/rollover detection: From what I understand, this is the only unit that does this. I've only receive a couple of these notifications, and while the baby wasn't actually in direct harm, they definitely had turned over enough that I was glad to be alerted. - Customer service: I ordered this on Amazon before their big "US Amazon launch", which had a coupon associated with it. A little disappointed that I purchased while the coupon was being advertised, but before it was active, I reached out and they were very responsive and made sure to do right by me as a customer. Very impressed. Also, there is a good community on Facebook where other users discuss success stories/questions, which is nice.Neither good nor bad: - Number of notifications: Again, comparing to other smart devices I have in my house (e.g. Ring doorbell, Wyze cam, etc), I'm used to "false positives", i.e. alerts that are technically accurate but don't require my attention. So far, all the alerts I get from Cubo are accurate (baby is crying, baby's face might be covered, can't detect baby). However, more often than not, I'm aware because I'm in the room. The alerts are customizable (you can set what you want to be alerted for), but I'd rather be able to toggle notifications on/off entirely. If the baby is in the crib and I'm in the room folding laundry, I don't want notifications. If I'm watching a movie, I want all the notifications. For context, I've received 83 notifications in the past 36 hours.To improve: - The physical setup: Specifically, setting up the floor stand required using more force to get the pieces together than I'd like (it made me feel like I was doing something wrong or was about to break something). You have to feed the cord through each piece a little bit at a time in order for the pieces to fit together, and the cord didn't really slide well, making me think it wasn't supposed to move. The unit felt sturdy afterwards. - Packaging: Admittedly I've become a little spoiled in this area with other hi-tech gadgets and their clean unpacking experience. This wasn't terrible, but my biggest complaint is that there are three mounting options (crib mount, floor stand, mobile mount - which is actually a great thing!), but there isn't a nice way to store the other two while not in use. The initial box is far too large to just tuck away in a closet. I'd love some way to either nest the yet-to-be-used pieces and/or a simple holding case that you can tuck away until you need them. - UX of the app: As stated above, the performance of the app is incredible. However, the layout (UI) is not intuitive, and the overall UX has too much going on when you first open the app. The random photos it takes are fun, but are just that...random. Maybe 1 in 10 is one I'd like to keep. Several are just the back of my wife's head as she's either getting baby out of the bassinet or putting him down.Overall, I would still recommend this over other monitors I've researched (e.g. Owlet cam, nanit plus, miku, etc). This doesn't have the baby health vitals, which would be a huge plus (I also use the Owlet sock to get heart rate and O2), and between those two I have total peace of mind.I opted for Cubo over Nanit plus (which gives the breathing rate) mainly because of cost and versatility. Cubo was nearly half as much as the Nanit plus, and the Nanit was not as versatile as the Cubo (i.e. you're not able to move the Nanit around after you mount it).I opted for Cubo over the Owlet cam (despite having the sock) because Owlet cam didn't give notifications on the phone (and also, cost).

I've purchased and have been using the Cubo AI for almost 2 months. In the beginning the camera always needed to be reconnected to our home wifi. Ever since the update and tuning our router, we have not had a disconnect or reset.Pros:Great picture quality.Night vision is clear.The app has a sleep quality tracking function.You can share the feed with others like grand parents.You can turn off the video and still have background sound.Easy to setupCubo records video and photo captureRelatively low latency, a little more than 1 sec delay.Regular app releases tobfix bugs and improve.You can have more than 1 cameraConsBuild quality is ok. Just don't drop it.The app drains the battery of your phone pretty quicklyThe app is a data hogInitially frequent disconnectpremium pricing

Update 5:Get used to seeing the attached screen shot where Cubo can’t connect to the network despite the network being fine. Please avoid this product at all costs. I wish I could refund what I paid for it (several hundred dollars) but I can’t. I suppose the Cubo folks are quite content being that they don’t need to refund at this point. All I can do is try to save others from wasting their money on this cheap piece of non working garbage.Update 4:I can't return this garbage product as the return window is only 30 days. Likely because they know it's not reliable much beyond that. I can picture them laughing and running all the way to the bank with our money, singing "thanks for your cash, suckers!"We've disconnected this thing and it now sits upon our mantle with the appropriately given award of "worst Amazon purchase ever". Will it be dethroned? Unlikely.Update 3:We're back home now after taking Cubo with us to family for a visit. As seen in previous updates, we experienced many issues that were never resolved and therefore either my wife or I needed to lay with our son while he slept to ensure he did not have a seizure while we weren't in the room.We're back home now and then problems persist. It doesn't matter was wifi we connect to, Cubo is perpetually in set up/error mode.Let me be plainly clear. This thing is an unreliable piece of junk.It's caused us more frustration and annoyance than anything. It's too bad, because the picture quality, when it did work, was great.We needed something we could rely on but instead ended up with garbage. You've been warned!Update 2:I'll be returning this monitor as it's completely unreliable. Worked well initially and then stopped. Can no longer connect to WiFi, even when placed in the same room as our modem. Monitor had always been well cared for, it just stopped working. When it comes olto our kids, we need something that we can count on and we can't count on this, even though it sells for several hundred dollars. Of I'd spent $30 on this thing, I'd almost expect something like this to happen eventually, but for the price we paid it should be much better. It's a waste of time and money and I sincerely hope you choose a different, better monitor for your child. I'll be attempting to return this and get something better.Update:After having the Cubo for a few months, I decided to come back here and update my review.For the price of this monitor, I expected much better reliability. The video feed often disconnects and you need to relaunch the app in order to get a live feed again. Also, this evening the video just stopped working despite a solid, high speed network connection.If I'd known before hand how prevelant these issues were I'd have maybe looked elsewhere for something else. Now we're stuck without a monitor until we can get to the store and find one.When it comes to your kid, you want something you'll be able to rely on without fail for years, that's why we invested $400 in this monitor. It's definitely not living up to our expectatins (which we don't think are unreasonable).****Original review:We were really surprised with how good of quality the video is, even the night vision is excellent. It's so good you can see subtle movements like breathing. I also like how you can zoom in to specific locations of the video in case you're looking for something in particular.The set up was easy and the packaging was good. It arrived on time.One thing I think should be much better considering the price of this unit is the quality of the microphone when you're attempting to talk to baby from the Cubo app. It often comes through jarbled or it cuts off part of what you're saying unless you're talking really loud, which sort of defeats the purpose of ensuring baby goes back to sleep, even with very fast internet. Otherwise, it does what we need it to do which is allows us to see baby who experiences seizures.

It captures lots of cute baby moments. Very smart. The baby face cover alert is very sensitive. By the time baby was able to roll over and pull himself up, it wasn’t so concerning anymore. We had a connection issue after 4 months of use and contacted the team. They were helpful and sent over a replacement. Ever since no more issue and we are very happy with it. Highly recommended. Can’t live without it!

I really wanted to like this product but the constant problems and unreliable notifications kill it for me. So, I got the camera about 5 months ago just before the little one was born, set it up, quickly tested it and all seemed ok. The little one was born and, in the beginning, everything seemed to be working fine (with a little snag here and there but nothing major). A month or so goes by and the camera starts having trouble connecting; I restart it several times, change the resolution back and forth, and there really is no consistency, sometimes it works fine and sometimes it doesn't. I get in touch with support, explain I have 2 recent phones and they're both seeing the same problem, internet connection is good and been tested when I experience the problems as well and there's no problem there. I suggest there must a problem with their servers as either the software is not efficient or they're overloaded. Kept getting default responses about restarting the camera, making sure it's connected properly, etc, completely ignoring my assessment. Another month or so of complete garbage (now I'm out of the return period so I just try to work with it), then they send a message to everyone that they were having problems with overloading in the servers and also needed to update their firmware... really!? The next few weeks I kept getting firmware updates, during which time the camera is unusable and some of which would take several hours and I would have to restart the camera manually (without knowing if it would turn on again as the updates were obviously buggy). Lately, it seems to be finally working ok again but for how long... Also, the AI notifications are not very reliable (you take the kid out of the crib and keeps saying the baby might be covered for the next hour for example) and sometimes they come in delayed by several minutes, which deems them useless. All in all, would I buy this product again? No, I wouldn't. The concept is interesting but it's been poorly executed so far.

My wife and I did lots of research on baby monitors and the Cubo ai was the best value for quality. Picture is great, super quick to set up and the features with the ai system work well. A benefit is you do not have to pay for a subscription like some others in this class