Updated Version
This review is for an older version of the CuboAi baby monitor, click here to read our review of their latest model, the CuboAi Plus.
The CuboAi baby monitor was born out of a crowdfunding campaign online and you can immediately tell when unboxing the camera that it is indeed a crowd pleaser.
This is, without a doubt, the cutest baby monitor that we’ve ever reviewed. Only the Lollipop camera comes close.
It goes well beyond the camera’s design, however. CuboAi offers a beautiful picture quality and a clean interface. The installation is simple and easy while feeling safe and sturdy. It’s also very smartly designed with an ingenious floor stand that uses a water balloon as a stabilizer.
That said, CuboAi is up against a few very serious competitors in the high-end smart baby monitor market. Nanit continues to improve on its best selling camera and health tracking system (see our Nanit Plus review), and many more WiFi cameras are now available online.
Does it pack enough innovation and features to deserve a spot on our list of the best baby monitors of the year? The short answer is yes, but it’s probably not for everyone.
Keep reading to see if the CuboAi is the right baby monitor for you.
Our Rating: 9 / 10
Summary
We like:
- Excellent picture quality.
- The app is easy to navigate.
- CuboAi alerts you if your child’s face is covered.
- VOX, room temperature, humidity sensor, moonlight soother, and more.
We don’t like:
- There is no option to play lullabies.
- The AI capabilities within the app are not as advanced as the Nanit Plus at the moment.
Where to buy: check price on Amazon
Alternatives:
- The Nanit Plus Smart Camera if you want the best WiFi video baby monitor with high-resolution video quality and personalized smart insights to help improve your baby sleep (check price).
- The Eufy SpaceView is the best Plug & Play monitor on our list at the moment. It comes with a dedicated parent monitor, a high-resolution video quality, and the prettiest design (check price).
- The Lollipop camera if you want a budget-friendly WiFi monitor with great video quality. It’s one of our favorite monitor of the year as well (check price).
P.S. We received a review unit of this product from its manufacturer. We are, however, not paid or compensated for our review. To remain impartial in our tests, we use objective ranking factors and put each product in the hands of real parents for a few months before we publish our review. Read how we test to learn more.
Everything that we review is independently selected by our team. We only recommend products that we use ourselves with our kids. To support our website, we may receive a small commission if you buy something through our links. These commissions come at no extra costs for you. Read our earnings disclaimer to learn more.
Overview: CuboAi Baby Monitor
Health & Safety
9/10
Privacy
8/10
Range
10/10
Audio Quality
9/10
Video Quality
10/10
Battery
10/10
Features: CuboAi Baby Monitor
Infrared Night Vision
YES
VOX
YES
Multiple Camera
YES
Two-Way Talk
YES
Play Lullabies
NO
Room Temperature
YES
Humidity
YES
Remote Pan and Tilt
NO
Remote Zoom
YES
Nightlight
YES
Video Recording & Snapshot
YES
Our Hands-on Review of the CuboAi Baby Monitor
I had to take a minute after unpacking the CuboAi to clear my head and make sure that I remained objective with my review. The baby camera looks so pretty and the unpacking experience felt so good that I immediately knew I risked falling in love with the CuboAi and become biased.
There is indeed a lot to love with the CuboAi. The baby monitor was designed in collaboration with pediatricians. It packs one of the best video sensors on the market (more details in the next section). It comes with an ingenious floor stand, but can also be mounted with a crib base or a camera holder on a shelf. The app experience is clean and easy to use. And, more importantly, for a smart WiFi monitor, it offers extra features to help make sure that your baby is safe and sound.
The first such feature is a covered face alert. The camera constantly tracks your baby’s face and alerts you if your baby is buried under their bed cover or a teddy bear and risks lacking oxygen.
The second innovative feature is a danger zone alert that you can easily set up from the app. You can draw an area on the video and the CuboAi will immediately alert you if your baby tries to cross it. You can use it to set the border of your baby’s bed, but this is admittedly more useful once your baby starts walking and you use the camera on a shelf. A good example is to be alerted if your baby tries to enter the kitchen.
And then there are a lot of other small details that show how much care and attention were given when designing the CuboAi. For example, the USB cable is flattened to add a level of protection against strangulation. The floor stand uses a water balloon as a stabilizer, so it’s relatively small and easy to fit under a crib but also very stable and safe. You can easily turn off the camera during the day when you don’t need it without having to unplug it (this seems like a given, but many WiFi cameras don’t have that option). And the sound notification when you’re alerted on your phone is a gentle bird chipping sound that’s unique to CuboAi so you know it’s important.
That said, everything isn’t perfect…
The CuboAi doesn’t have the option to play lullabies, for example. Pretty much every other model on our list of the best baby monitors have that option and I’ve come to rely on it when putting my baby girl to bed. The soothing sound helps her fall asleep while I (try to) quietly step out of her room.
My second critique of the CuboAi has to do with the insights and health tracking features that you get in the app. While it’s reassuring to know that your baby isn’t buried under their cover, the app isn’t as complete as the best WiFi baby monitor that we’ve tested, the Nanit Plus.
After testing pretty much all the most popular baby monitors on the market today, I’ve come to classify them into three categories:
- Plug&Play baby monitors, that just work out of the box with a dedicated parent unit and alert you if your baby is awake.
- Basic WiFi baby monitors that are relatively affordable and replicate what the Plug&Play monitors offer.
- Smart WiFi baby monitors that give you insights and information to help improve your baby’s sleep quality.
The CuboAi falls into the third category. It’s certainly priced similarly to other high-end baby monitors (check price). But its app isn’t quite as smart as the Nanit Plus. It will alert you if your baby’s face is covered, and the app will show you key moments that were captured by the camera. But it’s not currently capable of giving you insights to help your baby sleep better through the night.
If that’s enough for you, the CuboAi is a great option. And we expect the app experience to only get better over time, so you might have access to more features as the product further develops.
Audio and Video Quality
The CuboAi packs one of the best video sensors on the market at the moment. And it shows. The picture quality is one of the best that we’ve seen.
CuboAi comes with a 1080p wide-angle lens produced by Sony. It’s beautiful in the day and offers great night vision too. It even managed to do without the red lights that other cameras have when switching to night mode.
If you bought your mobile phone or tablet in the past 4 years, the picture will look great on your screen.
You’ll get a smooth video streaming experience as long as your Wifi connection is reliable. And because it’s streaming on the Internet, you can access the video feed even if you’re not home. If you’re having dinner outside, you can just check on your baby with your phone to make sure the babysitter managed to put them to bed on time. You can also share it remotely with other family members if you want.
You can zoom in easily with your fingers on your phone, as with most of the other Wifi baby monitors in our tests. But unlike the other monitors, the quality of the picture with the CuboAi remains excellent thanks to its higher resolution camera.
Unlike most of the other baby monitors in our tests, however, the CuboAi camera doesn’t remotely pan or tilt. That’s because you should mount the CuboAi camera directly above your baby’s crib to make sure that it can track your baby’s accurately.
CuboAi Camera Installation
Installing the baby monitor is very easy. The CuboAi comes with a floor stand, a crib attachment, or a shelf stand. The floor stand and the crib attachment are the best options if you want the camera to track your baby.
The camera itself needs to be pointing directly at the center of the crib, so be careful when deciding where to place it. Especially since the orientation of the camera can’t be changed from landscape to portrait mode.
The power cable is safely hidden inside the floor stand and the crib attachment base so your baby doesn’t risk grabbing it.
Once the wall mount is fixed on your wall, you just need to clip the camera unit and you’re all set. You can then easily detach the camera to take it away when traveling.
The CuboAi Mobile App, the Parent Unit
The CuboAi app is as clean and pretty as its camera. Everything is intuitive and beautiful. You can download the CuboAi app for Android and iOS, register your account and you’re all set.
There are three tabs at the bottom of the app to help you navigate from the live view of your baby, the alerts, and the app settings.
The Live feed shows up in full screen and looks great thanks to the HD camera. You can take a photo, record a video, or speak to your baby with the dedicated buttons at the bottom. You can also scroll back to see what the camera recorded over the past few hours. And on the top right of the image, you can see the room temperature and humidity.
The CuboAi has a VOX mode, meaning that it works even if your screen is off. The app will run in the background and only notify you when needed. You can also have your screen off and just keep the audio to hear your baby. It’s a massive advantage as a continuous live video stream tends to empty a phone battery very quickly.
And if you have an old iPad lying around the house, it will make for the perfect dedicated parent unit to watch the video in full screen. Just make sure to keep it plugged in because it will drain the battery very quickly.
The Alerts tab is where you’ll find a chronological list of everything that the camera tracked while your baby was in bed. The app will tell you if your baby’s face was covered and when they were crying.
Finally, there is a Settings tab where you can configure the app. When you set up the camera for the first time, you’ll go there to identify the area of the image that needs to be tracked by the motion sensor (your baby’s crib).
Security: CuboAi Hacking
Because the CuboAi camera is using your WiFi connection to stream the audio and video, it’s potentially more prone to hacking than radio monitors. Unlike an encrypted radio signal, such as FHSS or DECT, WiFi baby monitors do not require you to be in physical proximity of the camera to see what’s happening.
That means that if a hacker manages to breach your router security, they could tap into your baby monitor. You should read this article on baby monitor hacking to make sure that you understand the risk and learn how to appropriately protect yourself.
That said, CuboAi went the extra mile to ensure that safety and security were improved with their baby monitor. All data and communications are encrypted and unidentifiable, using a 256-bit symmetric-key encryption that is only accessible via your authenticated device.
CuboAi Health and Safety
Because the CuboAi baby monitor uses your existing WiFi network to stream its audio and video signals, it reduces the total number of electromagnetic exposure to your baby. Which is a good thing, of course. Baby monitors that use FHSS or DECT signals need to emit their own radio signals on top of your WiFi connection, which might rapidly exceed the Environmental Protection Agency’s recommendation. Read our article on electromagnetic field if you want to understand what it means in terms of health and safety for your baby.
CuboAi is FCC Certified, meaning that its electromagnetic interference is kept under limits approved by the Federal Communications Commission.
CuboAi camera: What’s in the box
Wondering what’s in the box? Here’s everything that will be included in the standard package:
- 1 x Baby monitor unit (the camera)
- 2 x USB Wall Plugs
- 1 x U-shaped camera holder (if you want to place it on a shelf)
- 1 x Mobile Stand
- 1 x Floor Stand with its base
- 1 x Crib Stand (an attachment base to securely attach the camera to your baby’s crib)
CuboAi Baby Monitor Price
You can buy the CuboAi camera on Amazon (check price).
CuboAi Baby Monitor iOS and Android Mobile App
You can download the CuboAi mobile app on the iOS App Store and Android Play Store..
Alternative Options
- The Nanit Plus Smart Camera if you want the best WiFi video baby monitor with high-resolution video quality and personalized smart insights to help improve your baby sleep (check price).
- The Eufy SpaceView is the best Plug & Play monitor on our list at the moment. It comes with a dedicated parent monitor, a high-resolution video quality, and the prettiest design (check price).
- The Lollipop camera if you want a budget-friendly WiFi monitor with great video quality. It’s one of our favorite monitor of the year as well (check price).
CuboAi Baby Monitor: Most Frequently Asked Questions
-
CuboAi vs Nanit: Which baby monitor is better?
CuboAi and the Nanit are both smart WiFi baby monitors. CuboAi has a slightly better picture quality and a few helpful safety features, but for the same price, the Nanit Plus comes with more insights and tips to help you improve your baby’s sleep quality. Overall, we think the Nanit app is superior at the moment.
-
Can I still participate in CuboAi Indiegogo crowdfunding?
No, you cannot participate in the CuboAi Indiegogo crowdfunding as it is now closed. CuboAi launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo and rapidly received the $50,000 needed to begin production.
-
Can I use multiple cameras with CuboAi?
Yes, the CuboAi works with multiple cameras. You can quickly switch between two or more CuboAi cams to check on your baby.
-
Does CuboAi work with Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri?
No, the CuboAi does not work with Alexa, Google Assistant, or Siri at the moment.
-
Does CuboAi have an iPhone App?
Yes, CuboAi has an iPhone App and an Android app as well. See the section at the bottom of this page for the links to download either mobile app.
-
Can the CuboAi be voice-activated?
Yes, the CuboAi can be voice-activated with the VOX mode that allows you to turn off your phone screen and still hear the audio. The CuboAi app will also alert you of movement and sounds through phone notifications.
-
Can I speak to my child through the CuboAi camera?
Yes, you can speak to your child through the Cubo Ai camera with the baby monitor’s talk-back feature.
-
Is the CuboAi floor stand included in the box?
Yes, the CuboAi floor stand is included in the box if you purchase the CuboAi on Amazon. The package also includes a crib mount and a shelf stand.
-
What is the CuboAi warranty?
The CuboAi camera comes with a standard one year warranty. We recommend you contact Cubo if you experience any issue with your model after purchase. You can call them during normal office hours or email their customer support team. Their response time is relatively quick.
-
What is CuboAi’s customer service number?
You can contact CuboAi’s support team via their email address [email protected] or chat with them on their website.
CuboAi User Manual
You can download the CuboAi baby monitor user manual and quick start guide here.
Samantha is a busy mother of four, who loves finding the best products to help in raising children. She graduated from BYU in Marriage and Family Studies. When she isn’t writing or testing new products, you can find her playing board games with her kids and teaching them creative strategies.
