Dormi is a free baby monitoring app for Android. You can install this app on a Android device that you will place in your child’s room and you can install a version of this device on your own Android device, which you will designate as a parent device. Now, you can easily listen to any noises in your child’s room and speak to your child through child device.
Dormi lets both parent and child devices stay connected using both wifi as well as mobile data. So, even if you are on the move, you can still be connected to child device and listen to whatever is happening in your kid’s room. It also lets multiple parent devices connect to same child device, so that both the parents can monitor the child.
Note: Free version of Dormi lets you monitor your kid for up to 4 hours every month, and you can increase this free time by referring others to download this app, or downloading this app yourself after being referred by someone else.
Here is a video overview of Dormi:
Features of Dormi Free Child Monitor App:
Before we proceed to how to setup and use Dormi, let’s do a quick summary of features:
- Dormi works on all type of networks: Edge, 3G, 4G, Wifi.
- Dormi works without internet as well, using Wifi direct and Wifi Hostspot / AP
- Multiple parent devices can connect to same child device
- Whenever there is any noise near your child device, there will be an alert on parent device. It comes with Push-to-listen feature so that you can listen to what’s going on there.
- If you want to talk to your child to soothe him, you just need to Push-to-talk on your parent device; no action needs to be done on child device.
- On your parent device, you will be able to see charging status of child device, so you can know if charging will end soon.
- If child device is disconnected from monitoring, there will be an alert on parent device.
- If there is any missed call or text on child device, notification for that will come on parent device as well.
- Works on Android 2.3 or above.
Features that Dormi lacks:
- Free version of the app lets you monitor just up to 4 hours per month. This is a very low limit, and good enough for occasional use only. Though, this free limit can be increased by referrals, but I strongly believe they should have had a decent free plan.
- It does not have camera monitoring, which is a big let down for me. You can only hear voice and speak back, but can’t see what is going on in your child’s room.
- In my testing, I could hear lot of ambient noise from parent device, even though my surroundings were relatively silent.
Now that you know what this app does and does not do, let’s see how to use this free baby monitoring app for Android.
How to Use Dormi Baby Monitoring App:
Start by installing Dormi from Google Play Store by using link given at the end of this review. You will need to install it on both parent device as well as child device. Don’t worry; you can be connected with different Google Play store id’s on both the devices.
Once installed, the first step is to pair the devices. For that, you will see the option of “Tap to Pair Now”. Click on this to start device discovery process (make sure the app is installed on all the devices before you do this). This will show all the nearby devices that have Dormi app installed. In my case, both the phones were connected to same wifi network, and Dormi was able to quickly discover the devices.
Just click on device name to pair with it; a notification will go to second device to confirm request for pairing and when that device accepts the request, both the devices are paired.
As you can see in the screenshot above, one of the devices that I used for this testing is a pretty old device: Samsung GT-S5670. Dormi worked well on that, so you can use any old Android device that is lying around to quickly turn that into a baby monitor (of course, it should be on Android 2.3 or above).
Once the devices have been paired, you can designate one of them as child device and another as the parent device. Now, Dormi will start to work.
Whenever there is a noise in your kid’s room, Dormi will show an alert on parent device that noise is detected on Child device. You will need to tap and hold “Listen” button to listen to the sound.
Similarly, when you need to talk back to Child device, just click and hold on “Speak” button and start speaking into parent device. Whatever you say on Parent device will be transferred to Child device.
Now, one of the bug I faced here was that whenever there was any noise on child device, it was automatically transferred to parent device, without a need to click on “Listen” button, and once that started, lot of ambient noise started coming, which never stopped (even if there was no noise in Kid’s room). I tried making three separate devices as Child device, and had the same experience with all.
Another useful feature of Dormi is that it can show information about Child device. For that, you will see a small arrow at bottom. Clicking on that will expand a panel which will show charging status, wifi network connected to, and noise level in your child’s room.
In the screenshot above, all the info that you see is for child device. It also shows how much your monthly allowance of Dormi is left.
Another interesting feature of Dormi is that whenever child device gets disconnected, it will raise an alarm on parent device.
What I like in Dormi:
First of all, Dormi is very easy to use. It is one of the simplest Android Baby monitor app I have come across. I like the fact that it lets multiple devices act as parent at same time. Also, it gives nice notification whenever there is a noise near your child device and comes with push-to-talk and push-to-listen features.
What I don’t like in Dormi:
I believe this app is a missed opportunity. This app is 95% there to being a fantastic baby monitor for Android, but the 5% that is left out is a deal breaker for me. First of all, only 4 hours per month in free plan is quite impractical. Secondly, the noise that keeps coming through parent device needs to be fixed. And most importantly, there has to be camera monitoring as well.
My Opinion About Dormi:
Dormi is definitely a very nice app. However, because of the limitations I mentioned above, I will not use it as a Baby monitor for my own 1.5 years old kid. So, there is no reason I can recommend this app to you. I will keep looking on Google Play Store and will come back to you with some perfect baby monitor app for Android.
Meanwhile, if you want to try out this app for yourself, use this Google Play Store Link for Dormi, or scan QR code below:
