To be paranoid the baby monitor is hacked

[pizzawinecake]

This is half in AIBU for the traffic as I need some urgent reassurance as I'm panicking, but also half here as my DH thinks I'm overreacting and this could not possibly be hacking.

So we have a leapfrog WiFi baby monitor, but I've not yet ever connected it to WiFi so just using it in range. Last night I was watching tv and suddenly noticed the view of the baby had gone darker and suddenly most of the bedroom wall was in the camera view. Thought it was weird, had a little play around of the buttons, couldn't figure out how to significantly change the view so left it. A few minutes later I literally saw the view rotating so that it panned across the whole bedroom including my bed (cot is in our bedroom). I thought maybe it was a delayed reaction from my playing around. Another 5 minutes again I saw the camera angle change again. I definitely hadn't touched anything this time. No weird sounds or anything I don't think.

It's not connected to WiFi so apparently can only be hacked by someone in the immediate vicinity. DH said no way someone on our road would do that and it's a technical glitch and to stop being silly. He thinks maybe it automatically changes angle if the camera detects motion (I don't think this is the case). I'm just panicking at the thought of someone watching me and the baby. I turned it off last night.

Thoughts, any experience of this, and what would you do?

I'd be thinking more ghosts than James Bond.

This would freak me out too. I would either stop using it or make a big sign that says "I know what you are doing and I am coming to get you" and leave it somewhere in the room not visible to the camera. That way if someone zooms around they see the sign and freak out.

Great. Ghosts! I hadn't even had time to spiral down that avenue yet

But I'm right in thinking the camera shouldn't automatically move itself, like motion detector or anything? Baby monitors are not that high tech?

Have a look at the instruction manual, online if you don't physically have it.

I'd also Google what happened, and "can [make and model] be hacked?"

Could you email the company to check the possibility of this

had a little play around of the buttons, couldn't figure out how to significantly change the view so left it.
Sounds like a delayed request to me. You ask it to do something, it doesn't register, or it's loading or whatever, and then a few mins later it does the thing you were trying to do.

Ours resets and does a rotation periodically? Different brand though.

Baby monitors absolutely can move themselves, it depends on the model.

We have motion detection on ours (different brand to yours) and it quite often does this, it's quite sensitive if a light shines in the door etc it picks that up as movement. Depends on whether yours has motion detection though, if not I'd probably be a bit concerned. Have you googled to see if this is a common issue with the one you have

This .

Spoke to leapfrog and they said the camera shouldn't move without me being in control of it (ie no automatic motion detector). Have sent an email for me to complete so they can investigate further

It could be that someone else in your road has the same monitor and the frequencies are crossing over. We had that once, I freaked out, but it was our neighbour two doors up. She recognised my voice coming through her monitor. You can usually change the frequency channel in the settings.

Just go back to a sound only one.

Honestly, this. We used to have a wireless doorbell and our chime would sometimes go off if the bell was rung in either of the two neighbours on the same side. It was a frequency thing.

This.

We’ve got a V-Tech one and it moves itself round all the time and it freaks me the F out.

It’ll be positioned to watch the baby and next thing it’s buried in the curtains or the wall, at first I thought it had fell off the wall and hit the baby 😩 but it has a mind of its own.

This is why we bought a baby monitor that isn't connected to wifi :) May be the way to go for your peace of mind if you're not using the wifi anyway?

Maybe when you tried to move your monitor, you actually moved a neighbour's one and they were trying to move theirs back?

Which model is it?

If it's not even on WiFi, almost guaranteed to be this.

This is most likely Big Farmer. Do you live in a rural area ?
Alternatively could it be you DH? Can you access it via mobile phone ?

This. No need to leap to either a hacker or supernatural explanation.

Convinced myself it's a delayed response on the camera given the range isn't amazing on these devices.

Noted re could be interference from another monitor. Though I haven't seen any other prams on my small cul de sac...

It's a leapfrog 2936 for those asking.

I'm prepared to admit it's hopefully unlikely it's hacked. Feels a bit more unlikely at 11am than it did at 11pm

Semi countryside but live on a suburban cul de sac. Why would it be farmers?

And not DH. He was watching tv on the next sofa.

Can't use an app to monitor it as I hadn't got round to setting it up on WiFi yet