Looks like there are very few monitors that don't operate at 2.4Ghz, but thankfully, there are enough of them that I was able to find one after ~90 seconds of Googling for under $100:

I've looked for 900Mz baby monitors, it seems most of them are audio-only. I did find the discontinued Mobicam Ultra which is a 900 Mhz color video monitor, but it got horrible reviews.

So far I have not found any 5Ghz video baby monitors. IP cameras would be an option (I actually have a Foscam C1 IP camera that I use) but we would strongly prefer an "instant-on" monitor, not a "log into this app and wait for it to connect" solution.


Sorry, should have specified that we're looking for video monitors.

Yeah, that's gonna be a problem. Not enough bandwidth in the lower ranges to pass anything resembling decent-quality video.

I didn't even know they made video baby monitors.

I do know that they make wireless security cameras (doorbell cams, and whatnot), and while I haven't done any research on them at all, something like this might work.

Aha. In that case, The Internet suggests a router that supports 5Ghz WiFi.

Hence my original post saying there aren't any open spectrums below 2.4ghz that can handle the bandwidth for video.

Security cameras normally connect using wifi.

Which also requires computers that support 5ghz. 5ghz also has less penetration and signal distance.

Router does, not all devices do.

EDIT: Which leads me down the rabbit trail of figuring out why my work laptop doesn't connect to the 5Ghz network. Apparently this is a known issue with Dell laptops using the DW1501 wireless card.

EDIT 2: Apparently while Dell lists the DW1501 WLAN card as being "N/5Ghz" compatible, if you look up the original Broadcom chip, it is specified to only work on the 2.4Ghz band. Off to see what a replacement WLAN card will cost.

EDIT 3: DW1520 is a direct replacement WLAN card that actually is N compatible. $13 shipped Amazon Prime. Done. Other devices will not be as easy to fix, but this should fix the biggest issue.

5 gig wifi blows hardcore, will not penetrate two normal interior walls, less signal than just dealing with interference.

Have any of you noticed that your microwave will cause dead spots in your house, larger when running? Also, my sump-pump seems to cause a dead zone in my bedroom while it's running.

My microwave knocks out my WiFi. But at least I get a warm, fuzzy feeling when it is heating my coffee.

Trivia:

By sheer coincidence, most current-gen consumer microwave ovens operate at around 2.45 Ghz.

I honestly don't know why they operate at this frequency. I've heard people say things like "oh, it's the resonant frequency of a water molecule," except it isn't. Wavelengths in the low Ghz range are far too large to affect anything at a molecular level, and other types of microwave ovens (such as those used for commercial pasteurization / sterilization) operate at much lower cavity frequencies where large amplifiers are more efficient.

I can only assume that the FCC decided to park them in band as, in the late 70s when consumer microwave ovens started to become popular, it was both reserved and otherwise unoccupied.

I wonder if it has to do with safety. You say that lower frequencies are used for sterilization. Maybe 2.45Ghz doesn't have that sterilization effect, or is easier to shield.

Doesn't matter in the least. Pasteurization / sterilization is a purely thermal process. Before the commercial application of microwave ovens, they used steam. It's purely because big RF amplifiers are easier to build at lower frequencies.

The same holds true of radio / TV transmitters. UHF transmitters operating in the high hundreds of Mhz are very finicky beasts. Less so now that a lot of them are going solid-state, but the big tube-based ones can be rather nasty to work with are require a lot of care and feeding to keep stable in their efficient range. VHF transmitters (say, 50-200 Mhz) are fairly tame by comparison, while AM transmitters (0.5 - 1.6 Mhz) are downright primitive in their construction.

It were easy and cheap to generate 2.4 in high enough quantities for food heating back in the day, they were messy noisy, made the FCC set out space on either end for interference.

Microwave doesn't have firmware, but cell phones, corlesses, and routers all do and can cope with noise.

Kinda just coincidence everything operates near there, from what I gather.

What I would do would be get a cheap wifi tablet (amazon fire tablet?) and a good IP camera. Keep the tablet open to the video stream all the time and use it as your baby monitor.

They even have ones with motion detection and stuff.

Pretty much. They're in the part 15 junk bands along with cordless phones, baby monitors, cordless phones, etc.

The best thing I ever did for wifi coverage was to run wires in the crawl space, buy a couple more access points, and backhaul them with the wires. Now everything is within 20 or 30 feet of an AP, and all the fixed-location devices that had been sucking up precious wireless bandwidth (I'm looking at you, Netflix streaming box!) are using wires instead.

--Ian

Yup. I can't be bothered with our current house, but if/when we move to a new house, before the painting and unpacking I'm going to pick a closet for network equipment, and run CAT5e around the house.