NapLink

Turn any two devices into a baby monitor.

Leave an old phone by the cot. Listen from the garden, the terrace, or two floors down. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for.

Start monitoring I have a link
  • No app
  • No account
  • Peer-to-peer
  • Free

Three steps, about a minute.

  1. Open it on the device that stays

    Any phone, tablet or laptop with a microphone — an old one is ideal. It picks up the sound and shows a QR code.

  2. Scan the code with the device you keep

    Your phone opens the link and joins. That is the whole setup: no pairing, no password, no second app.

  3. Listen from anywhere

    Sound by default. Ask for the picture when you want to check, turn it off when you do not — the data stops with it.

The room does not go through our servers.

NapLink connects your two devices directly, browser to browser. Our server introduces them to each other and then steps out of the way — stop it in the middle of a nap and the sessions already running carry on.

Some networks refuse a direct connection; holiday rentals and hotel Wi-Fi are the usual culprits. When that happens the stream is forwarded by a relay — and it stays encrypted end to end the whole way. The relay moves bytes it cannot read, and keeps none of them.

Nothing is recorded. Nothing is stored. There is no account, so there is nothing to leak, and no advertising, ever — an ad network is a data-collection business, and this is a page pointed at a child's room.

Silence is never ambiguous.

The failure that matters in a baby monitor is not a crash. It is a quiet screen that looks exactly like a sleeping child. Everything here is built around telling those two apart.

  • A lost link never looks like a quiet room. The two states are shown differently, always, on both devices.
  • It comes back on its own. A dropped Wi-Fi, a rebooted router, a reloaded tab: the session resumes without anyone touching anything.
  • It works on hostile networks. Direct when the network allows it, relayed when it does not.
  • Monitoring that stops says so. If the watching device dies, you get told — because "everything is fine" and "it stopped an hour ago" are the same silence.

Made for the places your monitor does not reach.

  • Holiday rentals

    Thick walls, an unfamiliar layout, and dinner on a terrace two rooms away. Your own monitor stayed at home; two phones did not.

  • A big house or a garden

    The monitor bought for a flat gives up at the bottom of the garden. Anywhere your Wi-Fi reaches, this does.

  • At friends' or grandparents'

    Nothing to install on anyone's device, nothing to configure on their network. A link is enough, and it leaves no trace behind.

  • Daytime naps

    Blank the watching device's screen so the room stays dark, then raise its light from your phone when you actually want to look.

What it does.

  • Adjustable alert threshold Set the level and how long it must hold, so a passing lorry is not an alert.
  • Notifications on a locked phone Put it in your pocket. The alert arrives even with the page closed.
  • Video on demand Off by default. Turn it on for a look, off again to stop the data.
  • Audio first Sound alone uses a fraction of the bandwidth video does.
  • Remote light Raise the watching screen's brightness to see into a dark room.
  • Blank screen The watching device goes black — discreet in a bedroom, and easier on battery.
  • Keeps the screen awake And says so plainly when the browser will not let it.
  • Mute without going blind Cut the sound to save data; the level meter and the alert keep working.

Questions.

Do I need to install an app?

No. NapLink runs in the browser on both devices. On iPhone, adding it to the home screen is worth doing anyway — it is what makes notifications possible there.

Does it work on an iPhone?

Yes. One caveat, and it is Apple's rather than ours: web notifications on iOS only exist once the site has been added to the home screen. The app tells you how, at the point where it matters.

Does it eat my mobile data?

Sound alone is very light — a fraction of what a video call costs. Video is far heavier, which is exactly why it is off unless you ask for it. On a home network none of it counts against a data plan.

Is it really free?

Yes: free, no account, no ads. If it turns out to be useful to enough people we will look at how to pay for the relay, but advertising is ruled out for good.

What happens if your server goes down?

Sessions already connected keep running: the server's only job is to introduce the two devices. New sessions could not be started until it came back.

How many people can listen at once?

One listening device per session for now.

Can it replace a real baby monitor?

No — and please read the line below rather than this answer alone.

NapLink is not a medical or safety device. It depends on two devices, their batteries, their browsers and a network, any of which can fail without warning. Never rely on it as your only means of supervising a child.