Infant Optics DXR-8 PRO Baby Monitor Review

A look at the DXR-8 PRO by Infant Optics. Do you really need a Wi-Fi baby monitor — or is the old-school kind the smarter buy?

The Short Version

If you’re looking for a quality non-Wi-Fi baby monitor, start here. After trying multiple “smart” baby monitors and a string of budget non-Wi-Fi monitors, we finally landed on the Infant Optics DXR-8 PRO — and it’s the one we still use years later.

The video resolution is great, the active noise reduction (ANR) cut down on background noise, and we had no connectivity issues.

The Pastello Scale: 🖍️🖍️🖍️🖍️🖍️ (5/5)

Why We Brought It Home

We ended up buying the Infant Optics DXR-8 PRO after trying the Miku, the Eufy baby monitor, and a string of cheaper non-Wi-Fi monitors. The Miku was decent, but the company sold to new owners, moved free features behind paid subscriptions, and stopped updating the software — until it was practically unusable. The Eufy cost less and worked well, but then we had a hacking incident, and that was the end of Wi-Fi monitors for us. The cheaper non-Wi-Fi monitors all had issues of their own, too.

After all these failed attempts, we decided to give the Infant Optics DXR-8 PRO a shot, and it didn’t disappoint.

The Everyday Feel

The Infant Optics DXR-8 PRO comes with a camera, a long extension cord, and a monitor. You can mount the camera on the wall or place it on a table, and a light indicator shows it’s on. You can pan, tilt, and zoom the camera right from the parent unit — we found that useful because our kid would move around a lot at night.

The monitor has a 5” screen with good video quality and controls to zoom, rotate the camera, and speak through the camera to your child. The ANR feature works and cuts out all background noise, which was a pleasant change from other baby monitors we tried where the background noise would play through the monitor the entire evening.

It’s easy to set up and use. Frankly, we didn’t miss having an app on our phones to check on the baby. A physical monitor worked great and the signal was good throughout our home.

A Few Quiet Details

  • Non-Wi-Fi: After our “smart” baby monitor was hacked, we switched to the non-Wi-Fi Infant Optics DXR-8 PRO — and we haven’t had a single incident since.
  • Quality: The video quality, connection signal, zoom, noise reduction, microphone, etc. all work great and the camera/monitor still operates like Day 1 after owning it for a few years.
  • Active Noise Reduction: This wasn’t a feature we were looking for and didn’t even realize we wanted. But after using it on the first night, it was obvious that it cut out unwanted noise and only alerted us about the noises that mattered.

The Low Lights

The only low light is the price. At around $200, the Infant Optics DXR-8 PRO costs more than double many non-Wi-Fi baby monitors — though it’s still cheaper than most smart monitors, and there are no subscription fees to pay later. I wish it were $50–100 cheaper, but it still beat out every monitor we tried.

Also worth knowing: it doesn’t have smart features like breathing detection or health tracking. If your baby has health needs that require those, this isn’t the monitor for you.

Is It Worth the Space?

It’s more or less the same size as all the baby monitors we tried, so if you’re in the market for a baby monitor, it’s definitely worth the space. No app, no account, no subscription fees — you pay once and it just works, especially if you don’t need the smart features of modern baby monitors.

Shop the Notes

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