Kodak Cherish C525 Smart Video Baby Monitor Review

Our tester Alex Sexton, mum to five-month-old Oli, tried and tested the Kodak Cherish C525 Smart Video Baby Monitor. Read on to find out what makes it worth considering for your nursery.

The Kodak Cherish C525 Smart Video Baby Monitor is a smart-based design that features sound and motion alerts, as well as a talkback function and lullabies. Based on our parent reviews, it's the best baby monitor you can buy if you're after excellent image quality.

While its dual-viewing screen capability makes the Kodak Cherish C525 Smart Video Baby Monitor a versatile buy, it has the ability to do so much more. For a start, it delivers impressive picture quality. This is the best video baby monitor you can buy if you're after excellent image quality, a design made especially by photography experts Kodak, and it doesn’t disappoint.

‘The picture quality is very clear on this baby monitor both in light and dark and it’s the main reason we were keen to buy it,’ says Alex. ‘We instantly found the app easy to use, and you can check it from anywhere if it’s connected to WiFi, which makes it very convenient.’

Price & availability

Search for a smart baby monitor online and the Kodak Cherish C525 Video Baby Monitor will come up time and time again as a great buy, and this is for good reason.

At around £140, the Kodak Cherish C525 is at the more reasonable end of the price spectrum for baby video monitors. As you'd expect from a baby monitor made by camera company, it has a market-leading picture and lots of great extras such as a separate app, lullaby functions and motion alerts. 

Design & features

Type: Smart monitor | Sound alerts: Yes | Motion alerts: Yes | App control: Yes | Talkback function: Yes | Lullabies included: Yes | Nightlight: No

The design of the Kodak Cherish C525 Smart Video Baby Monitor is carefully thought through. From the easy-to-hold five-inch parent unit to the smooth form and stylish white finish of the camera. It comes with an HD camera that delivers a crystal clear 720p HD image of your child to its five-inch parent unit and your smart device. ‘The camera feels good quality and sits discreetly in our nursery and is also very portable,’ says Alex. ‘It’s light enough to move freely around the house, which comes in useful if I want to put Oli down for a nap in another room in the house during the day.’

Set up took a while for Alex due to a software patch, but when this was fixed with a little help from the Kodak support team, she could use it freely around the house. ‘It can work up to 4,000 square feet and that’s more than enough for our home,' says Alex. 'You do get a little feedback when the monitor is turned on in the same room as the camera, but this is easily avoidable and something we’re careful not to do.’

Compact in its design, it holds rechargeable batteries in both the camera and monitor, which is a nice touch as it means you can easily take it on your travels without having to worry about plug sockets. While it can stand neatly on the side, the camera can be mounted onto a wall if desired. Trying to achieve the perfect position required a little trial and error, however. 'We put the camera on the corner of Oli's crib and due to the angle, we sometimes can’t see his face, which is key when you’re looking for whether his eyes are open or if he’s just fussing in his sleep. We managed to fix this though by adjusting the position of the camera and mounting it further away on the wall.’ The nightlight on the parent unit is quite powerful, and Alex also found this a little annoying next to the bedside. 'I fixed the glare by putting a piece of Blu-tac over the light.'

How we tested

• Used the baby monitor for a minimum of two weeks for both naps and overnight sleeping.
• Downloaded the app and tested out all the features to see how the babies responded to them and which we used the most. 

Things you won't find on the box

‘The app notifications are very accurate and I could tell exactly what time Oli was crying through the night and it records automatically if motion is detected and displays it on a timeline, which is easy to read,’ says Alex.

Alex found the features on the app to be intuitive but had a little difficulty with the white noise option. ‘It was tricky to work out how to make the white noise constant, which I find helps soothe Oli and I seem to only be able to do this via the app,’ she says. ‘The Vox function is great though and turning the sensitivity down at night means we aren’t always disturbed when Oli makes noise – and he can be quite a noisy sleeper! There’s also two-way talk, which means that if he wakes and is crying I can comfort him with my voice before I get to the room. A temperature alert also means we don't need a separate temperature device to make sure Oli’s room doesn’t get too hot or too cold.’

Who's it best for?

This video baby monitor would suit parents who appreciate a clear image of their child while they are sleeping. ‘You can use it to take photos, which is sweet when Oli is doing funny things in his sleep and I want to capture the moment as a keepsake,’ says Alex. ‘As it comes with an SD card and cloud recording options, it’s easy to save photos and video too.’

If you’re keen to buy into the high-tech capabilities of a smart monitor, but want to have the option to turn your phone off at the end of the day then having a separate parent unit to view your child as they sleep is a very practical option. This means you can go offline and have a little peace and quiet. This is also highly practical as it means that if you have plans to go out and want to leave your child with a babysitter, there's a separate parent unit they can access while you can check in via your smartphone.

Need an alternative?

If you'd prefer a monitor with a mat and no app, have a look at the Tommee Tippee Dreamee review, or the Owlet Duo Smart Sock + Cam tracks baby's heart rate and oxygen levels as well as their sleeping routine.  You might also like our Nanit Plus Smart Baby Monitor and Floor Stand Review - we named this the best baby monitor in the premium category.

Looking for more? Discover our range of baby gear buying guides covering everything from the best prams to the best cot beds.