How to use the Samsung Galaxy S5 as a baby monitor

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Published 22 May 2014

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Galaxy S5

The Galaxy S5 is loaded to the brim with features — Air View, S Voice, My Magazine, Single Handed Mode, Gestures and more. For some strange and unknown reason though, Samsung has also included a Baby crying detector feature on its latest flagship. It looks like the company was trying to become the jack of all trades with the Galaxy S5. With this option enabled, your Galaxy S5 will automatically send a vibrating alert to your Gear smartwatch every time it hears your little baby crying.

    Don’t expect your Galaxy S5 to replace a dedicated baby crying monitor, though. Samsung clearly warns the user at the time of activating the service that they should not expect their phone to perform flawlessly as a baby monitor. Also, the phone needs to be placed within 1m of the baby in a silent room. The vibration notification can only be sent to a Gear watch. If you were smart enough to not buy one [Ed Note: I see what you did there!], you can also set the camera flash to blink, which will act as a notification.

    Read below to find out how you can use your $700 piece of technology as a baby crying detector:

    Step 1: Head over to Settings -> Accessibility (located under Personalisation) -> Hearing. Scroll down to the bottom where you will find the option to enable the Baby crying detector mode.

    GalaxyS5_baby_crying_detector

    Step 2: Toggle the switch in the action bar to On position to enable the mode. After this, make sure to tap on the giant Play button on the screen to actually start the baby crying detector mode.

    Step 3: Make sure to keep the phone near the baby in a very silent room. To customise the notification settings, tap the overflow menu button on the top, followed by Settings. Here, you can select and customise the vibration intensity, vibration pattern and even enable the option to use the LED Flash as a notification.

    And that’s about it. You can now successfully use your $700 worth of smartphone as a baby monitor, in case the need arises.