Why Baby Monitors Can Pick Up Other Signals

Since most baby monitors are wireless, I was wondering if my baby monitor can pick up other signals. The answer begins to become pretty obvious right at the beginning of my research.

Your baby monitor can pick up other signals, since most wireless baby monitor broadcast on the same frequency. It could even pick other people conversation on the phone, taxi radio and any signal transmitted through the air. But don’t worry too much, we will go through the solutions.

If you’re seeking for the best baby monitor and hoping to find real reviews from real parents. You should check out this list I created of the top baby monitors.

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Why is a baby monitor picking up other sounds?

Wireless baby monitors send the signal in the air. A baby monitor is mostly a radio transmitter on a set frequency that puts out an FM signal. Many baby monitors work on the same frequency.

Most baby monitors broadcast on a set frequency of:

• 49.300 MHz
• 49.830 MHz
• 49.845 MHz
• 49.860 MHz
• 49.875 MHz
• 49.890 MHz

So it’s possible that someone outside of your home can pick up your signal.

They are also known to interfere with cell phones, cordless phones, radios, police scanners, and electric garage doors. The frequency on baby monitors is much stronger than the garage door remotes. This is why they can cause them not to work well.

Can a baby monitor pick up other voices from other houses?

If you have heard other people voices in your baby monitor, you are not alone. This happens to many. Just a quick visit to different parents website and you can find a dozen weird stories.

This mom forgot to turn the baby monitor off, and weirdly was picking up a different signal. She could hear a baby and his mom talking.

Even with a secure signal, a feature that is supposed to eliminate interference, four neighbors with baby monitors where randomly earning each other.

Another woman, one night, put her baby in his crib and went to another room to watch television. The husband wasn’t home yet. She turned on the monitor in the living room and overheard tapping on the monitor. She believed here baby was maybe kicking, so she looked back into the bedroom, and he was reticent. She walks back to the monitor and this time she heard what sounded like a voice. She stood by it and listened to a child counting. She was so freaked. At first, she thought it’s a ghost! But It was the new neighbour with a young child.

They simply changed channels on the monitor, and it was back to normal.

Also, some parents heard disturbing voices and people fighting in their monitor. Some even lead to calling social services.

Remember that if you can hear other people voices into your baby monitor, it’s very probable that other parents can listen to YOU too.

Can baby monitors pick up phone conversations?

Some baby monitors utilize the same frequencies as older cordless phones. It’s not rare that someone picks up their neighbor phone conversation with their baby monitor.

Theirs is two kind of reaction when people are in this situation: They tell the neighbors, and they change the channel. Or they make them self a popcorn and listen. It’s an excellent way to ear the gossips. Many people find out their neighbour wife were having an affair or the husband was into lots of trouble.

In both case, picking up phone conversations can be really annoying.

Do baby monitors pick up radio signals?

A baby monitor is mostly a radio transmitter on a set frequency that puts out an FM signal. The receiver in a radio scanner is often more sensitive than the receiver part of your baby monitor. The scanner radio could pick up the transmission from a mile away.

Some families had to fall asleep listening to politicians or music. Some say that it sounded like a live concert and they could catch the audience in the background cheering.

Even a two frequencies monitor, was not useful. Because they change the channel and it was picking up some kind of radio station.

When a baby monitor uses frequencies near the High-Frequency radio band. Whose function is significantly impacted by the condition of the ionosphere. The ionosphere is the ionized part of the planet Earth’s upper atmosphere. At about 60 km to 1,000 km in altitude. The ionosphere is ionized by solar radiation. A charged group of layers in the earth’s atmosphere.

Some levels of the ionosphere are more massively charged in winter season than in summer time. This implies they can reflect radio waves from faraway locations. When this happens, you could be catching radio stations or two-way transmissions from a far distance.

Depending on your location and/or the season, this problem could be unusual.

Does your video baby monitor picking up neighbour?

Wireless baby monitors are never 100% secure.

Several parents have different stories with picking up video stream from their neighbor video baby monitor.

One family were using a transmitter gadget to send the television signal to the bedroom screen. On a specific frequency, they picked up the video stream of a sleeping baby from someone’s video baby monitor!

Other used to pick up the shop across the street’s security camera on their television.

Some even could see their neighbors’ living room as clear as day.

Are you currently in a densely populated region. If yes, there’s a big chance that if your neighbour has a comparable wireless baby monitor, they may be able to pick up the signal of yours. An analog baby monitor will be more susceptible to interference of all the wireless signals nearby. Because of the way wireless signals tend to operate, it’s not unusual for them to cross paths. If you are in a rural region or a place where you don’t have any close neighbours, you’ll probably be fine with an analog baby monitor.

Could a police scanner pick up a baby monitor?

Yes, with an old portable scanner, you could ride around the neighborhood scanning for baby monitors and pick them up. You can listen to everything that is going on into their house.

Some baby monitor has an A/B switch that gives you the options of two of these channels. If the monitor is in an upstairs room, in an average home, even the most straightforward radio scanner can surely hear all the noise from that room. The receiver in a radio scanner is typically quite a bit more sensitive than the receiver part of your baby monitor. So the scanner can pick up the transmission from half a mile away.

Nothing that transmits over the air in your home is secure. Digitally encrypted systems help a bit, but eventually, technology will catch up. There are even some scanners that are designed to catch video feeds.

If you want something fully secure, you will have to run wires into your walls and buy wired cameras and monitors.

Try this If your baby monitor picks up other signals

Changing channels should work. If your baby monitor has this functionality, then you can change yours. If not, tell the neighbors so that they can change the channel on their phone.

You could buy fancy equipment you can use to disrupt the signals from others.

Or get a baby monitor that works on higher frequencies band, either 900MHz or 2.4GHz. Be sure you don’t have a cordless phone that works at these frequencies. Because they will get more interference. The frequency-hopping algorithms in many new cordless telephones will decrease the interference risk. But it is still present to some degree.

You can get DECT technology baby monitors. They work on the same way as cordless phones. The cheaper baby monitors are mostly not DECT.

DECT encryption technologies are considered more secure. But some hackers have accomplished to find a break in some DECT portable phones that broadcast without encryption.

The more expensive monitor with DECT technology doesn’t work on a channel system so they don’t have this problem.

Yes, your baby monitor can pick up other, but there’s a solution.

Baby monitors do sometimes pick up neighbor’s conversations. Try to talk to them, ask them if they are using a monitor as well?

If you buy a digital monitor, you won’t have this problem. Digital baby monitors are way more secure when it comes to this specific problem. It’s more of a problem with the analog monitors. The latest digital baby monitors will use encryption with their wireless signal. Making them way more secure than the one without this type of encryption.

Digital monitors encode signals so that no one else can listen in. While baby monitors that use wireless analog transmission aren’t secure. Anyone with a scanner can catch the signal and hear.

I would recommend you look for digital baby monitors.

P.S. If you’re seeking for the best baby monitor and hoping to find real reviews from real parents. You should check out this list I created of the top baby monitors.

To get the best insights and tips to find the best baby monitor, I read more than 300 reviews online and ask my friends or others parents. From all their insights and my own experience, I’ve built this list of the best baby monitors.