The Panasonic Long-Range KX-HN3001 ($149.95) is a two-piece baby monitor that uses DECT wireless technology to transmit video from its camera to a handheld color display.
It's equipped with multiple sensors and will send alerts to the display when motion or sound is detected, or when your baby's room temperature gets too cold or too warm, but it's a low-resolution camera that doesn't record video or offer Wi-Fi connectivity like our top pick for baby monitors, the iBaby Monitor M6S.
Design and Features
The KX-HN3001 consists of a camera and a handheld monitor.
The white pill-shaped camera enclosure stands 4.0 by 3.1 by 2.9 inches (HWD).
It has a black-and-white panel attached to its upper half that makes it look like something out of Pixar's Wall-E.
The front of the panel holds the 0.3-megapixel CMOS sensor, which provides a relatively low 640-by-480-pixel video resolution at 10fps.
It also has a light sensor and a microphone, and the back of the panel has a speaker, an LED indicator, and a pairing button used to connect the camera to the display.
The camera uses an infrared LED to deliver black-and-white night video up to 13 feet and has a 37-degree field of view.
The panel is attached to the top half of the camera enclosure using a mechanical hinge that provides 72 degrees of tilt maneuverability, which is controlled using a four-way dial on the handheld display.
Right behind it is a rigid 2-inch antenna.
The top and bottom of the enclosure are separated by a mechanical swivel device that offers 309 degrees of panning movement, which is also controlled on the handheld device.
The bottom half of the camera enclosure has a round black base, a power jack, and a temperature sensor.
The camera is not equipped with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth radios.
Instead, it communicates exclusively with the handheld monitor using the same DECT (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications) wireless technology used in most cordless phone systems.
As such, it can't be accessed and controlled remotely using a phone like the iBaby Monitor M6S and the Netgear Arlo Baby 1080p HD Monitoring Camera.
All controls are accessed using the handheld monitor.
The monitor measures 1.5 by 4.9 by 3.3 inches (HWD) and has a 3.5-inch color screen with a low 320-by-240 resolution.
It has a built-in microphone and speaker for two-way audio communication with the camera, and along the top edge are a flip-up antenna and a power button.
To the right of the screen are Menu and OK buttons, a four-way dial for pan and tilt, a Volume and Brightness button, and a Microphone button.
The right side has a power jack, and around back are a battery compartment and a pull-out easel-style desktop stand.
The monitor uses a lithium-ion battery pack to provide up to five hours of untethered monitoring time and 13 hours of standby time.
In the upper left corner of the screen is the current room temperature, and over on the right are signal strength and battery level indicators.
Above the screen is an LED bar that glows green when low-level sounds or motion is detected, and amber when louder sounds and more pronounced movement is detected or when a temperature threshold has been reached.
The monitor also emits a chime when an alert is triggered.
Tap the Menu button to access settings where you can enable sound and motion notifications, enable the 2X zoom feature, set motion and sound sensitivity levels and temperature alert thresholds, set monitor sleep times and speaker volume, and configure lullaby settings.
There's a choice of five different lullabies, or you can select one of five background noises including White Noise, Ocean/Wave, Rain, Vacuum, and Heart Beat.
You can set a playback time of between 5 and 120 minutes and have lullabies play automatically when sound or motion is detected.
The KX-HN3001 comes with the camera and monitor, a lithium-ion battery pack for the monitor, two AC adapters, a wall mounting bracket, and an operating guide.
Installation and Performance
Setting up the KX-HN3001 is very quick and easy.
Start by installing the battery pack into the monitor by removing a screw on the back panel.
The monitor will power up and display the meaning of the LED bar.
Once you power up the camera, a live stream will appear on the display and you're ready to go.
The KX-HN3001 camera and display is a low-res monitoring solution and it showed in our tests.
Daytime video provides decent color, but the 640-by-480 image is not very sharp.
Night video is extremely dark as well.
The camera's 37-degree field of view is relatively narrow compared with other baby monitors, but the responsive pan and tilt feature compensates for this by allowing you to see other parts of the room quickly and quietly.
As we saw with the Baby Delight 5" Video, Movement and Positioning Monitor, the display viewing angle performance here is weak—the image appears way too dark when viewed from an angle, particularly a bottom angle.
That said, the sound, motion, and temperature sensors work well: In testing, events arrived immediately, accompanied by the appropriate LED bar indicator.
Two-way audio is clean and uninterrupted by background noise, and the camera maintained a strong signal with the monitor throughout my home and in the backyard.
Conclusions
With the Panasonic Long-Range Baby Monitor KX-HN3001, you can keep a watchful eye and ear on your baby and receive alerts when they move or cry.
It offers mechanical pan and tilt and will send an alert if the baby's room becomes too hot or too cold, and it plays lullabies or background noise such as rainfall to help put your baby to sleep.
However, this monitoring system lacks Wi-Fi connectivity, which means you can't monitor things from your phone or while you're away from home, and the camera's low-resolution video lacks detail.
Moreover, it lacks recording capabilities.
For that, you'll have to pick up the iBaby Monitor M6S.
It too offers mechanical pan and tilt, but it captures and records high-quality video at 1080p, offers free cloud storage, and has built-in motion, sound, temperature, and humidity sensors for even less money, making it our Editors' Choice.
Panasonic Long-Range Baby Monitor KX-HN3001
Pros
Motion, sound, and temperature alerts.
Mechanical pan and tilt.
Two-way audio.
Lullaby and white noise presets.
View More
Cons
Low resolution.
Dark night video.
Narrow viewing angles on display.
No recording capabilities.
No mobile app or Wi-Fi connectivity.
View More
The Bottom Line
The Panasonic Long-Range Baby Monitor KX-HN3001 has sensors for motion, sound, and temperature, but its video quality is middling and it doesn't offer recording capabilities.
The Panasonic Long-Range KX-HN3001 ($149.95) is a two-piece baby monitor that uses DECT wireless technology to transmit video from its camera to a handheld color display.
It's equipped with multiple sensors and will send alerts to the display when motion or sound is detected, or when your baby's room temperature gets too cold or too warm, but it's a low-resolution camera that doesn't record video or offer Wi-Fi connectivity like our top pick for baby monitors, the iBaby Monitor M6S.
Design and Features
The KX-HN3001 consists of a camera and a handheld monitor.
The white pill-shaped camera enclosure stands 4.0 by 3.1 by 2.9 inches (HWD).
It has a black-and-white panel attached to its upper half that makes it look like something out of Pixar's Wall-E.
The front of the panel holds the 0.3-megapixel CMOS sensor, which provides a relatively low 640-by-480-pixel video resolution at 10fps.
It also has a light sensor and a microphone, and the back of the panel has a speaker, an LED indicator, and a pairing button used to connect the camera to the display.
The camera uses an infrared LED to deliver black-and-white night video up to 13 feet and has a 37-degree field of view.
The panel is attached to the top half of the camera enclosure using a mechanical hinge that provides 72 degrees of tilt maneuverability, which is controlled using a four-way dial on the handheld display.
Right behind it is a rigid 2-inch antenna.
The top and bottom of the enclosure are separated by a mechanical swivel device that offers 309 degrees of panning movement, which is also controlled on the handheld device.
The bottom half of the camera enclosure has a round black base, a power jack, and a temperature sensor.
The camera is not equipped with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth radios.
Instead, it communicates exclusively with the handheld monitor using the same DECT (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications) wireless technology used in most cordless phone systems.
As such, it can't be accessed and controlled remotely using a phone like the iBaby Monitor M6S and the Netgear Arlo Baby 1080p HD Monitoring Camera.
All controls are accessed using the handheld monitor.
The monitor measures 1.5 by 4.9 by 3.3 inches (HWD) and has a 3.5-inch color screen with a low 320-by-240 resolution.
It has a built-in microphone and speaker for two-way audio communication with the camera, and along the top edge are a flip-up antenna and a power button.
To the right of the screen are Menu and OK buttons, a four-way dial for pan and tilt, a Volume and Brightness button, and a Microphone button.
The right side has a power jack, and around back are a battery compartment and a pull-out easel-style desktop stand.
The monitor uses a lithium-ion battery pack to provide up to five hours of untethered monitoring time and 13 hours of standby time.
In the upper left corner of the screen is the current room temperature, and over on the right are signal strength and battery level indicators.
Above the screen is an LED bar that glows green when low-level sounds or motion is detected, and amber when louder sounds and more pronounced movement is detected or when a temperature threshold has been reached.
The monitor also emits a chime when an alert is triggered.
Tap the Menu button to access settings where you can enable sound and motion notifications, enable the 2X zoom feature, set motion and sound sensitivity levels and temperature alert thresholds, set monitor sleep times and speaker volume, and configure lullaby settings.
There's a choice of five different lullabies, or you can select one of five background noises including White Noise, Ocean/Wave, Rain, Vacuum, and Heart Beat.
You can set a playback time of between 5 and 120 minutes and have lullabies play automatically when sound or motion is detected.
The KX-HN3001 comes with the camera and monitor, a lithium-ion battery pack for the monitor, two AC adapters, a wall mounting bracket, and an operating guide.
Installation and Performance
Setting up the KX-HN3001 is very quick and easy.
Start by installing the battery pack into the monitor by removing a screw on the back panel.
The monitor will power up and display the meaning of the LED bar.
Once you power up the camera, a live stream will appear on the display and you're ready to go.
The KX-HN3001 camera and display is a low-res monitoring solution and it showed in our tests.
Daytime video provides decent color, but the 640-by-480 image is not very sharp.
Night video is extremely dark as well.
The camera's 37-degree field of view is relatively narrow compared with other baby monitors, but the responsive pan and tilt feature compensates for this by allowing you to see other parts of the room quickly and quietly.
As we saw with the Baby Delight 5" Video, Movement and Positioning Monitor, the display viewing angle performance here is weak—the image appears way too dark when viewed from an angle, particularly a bottom angle.
That said, the sound, motion, and temperature sensors work well: In testing, events arrived immediately, accompanied by the appropriate LED bar indicator.
Two-way audio is clean and uninterrupted by background noise, and the camera maintained a strong signal with the monitor throughout my home and in the backyard.
Conclusions
With the Panasonic Long-Range Baby Monitor KX-HN3001, you can keep a watchful eye and ear on your baby and receive alerts when they move or cry.
It offers mechanical pan and tilt and will send an alert if the baby's room becomes too hot or too cold, and it plays lullabies or background noise such as rainfall to help put your baby to sleep.
However, this monitoring system lacks Wi-Fi connectivity, which means you can't monitor things from your phone or while you're away from home, and the camera's low-resolution video lacks detail.
Moreover, it lacks recording capabilities.
For that, you'll have to pick up the iBaby Monitor M6S.
It too offers mechanical pan and tilt, but it captures and records high-quality video at 1080p, offers free cloud storage, and has built-in motion, sound, temperature, and humidity sensors for even less money, making it our Editors' Choice.
Panasonic Long-Range Baby Monitor KX-HN3001
Pros
Motion, sound, and temperature alerts.
Mechanical pan and tilt.
Two-way audio.
Lullaby and white noise presets.
View More
Cons
Low resolution.
Dark night video.
Narrow viewing angles on display.
No recording capabilities.
No mobile app or Wi-Fi connectivity.
View More
The Bottom Line
The Panasonic Long-Range Baby Monitor KX-HN3001 has sensors for motion, sound, and temperature, but its video quality is middling and it doesn't offer recording capabilities.
