Owlet Cam 2

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

That's why I have a non-wifi monitor! People can make fun of us and cause us paranoid but I've heard too many crazy stories that it's just not worth it

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

I work in tech. My understanding of how Owlet works is that this would most likely happen via your Owlet account being compromised. Change your owlet password, even though you're done with them. If you use that same username and password on other sites, change your passwords there too.

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

This is truly horrifying. When I was doing research into whether I wanted a WiFi camera, this was one of the worst case scenarios for me even though people said it was rare. I also read that the hack is usually not through the camera, but the WiFi - like they hack your wifi to access the camera. So I would change your WiFi password asap!!

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

This happened to me with the owlet. I had it in my daughter’s room and I swear I heard a man clear his throat and say hi. My daughter (a little over 1 at the time) said hi back. I unplugged it and threw it in the trash. I Messaged owlet and they told me they’ve never had a case of an owlet being hacked (mmhmmm ok….). I disconnected everything from my WiFi and changed the password. I feel exactly as you did. We are not bad moms. We noticed something was wrong, we’re taking it seriously, that’s what a protective, loving parent does. I guess baby monitor hacking is unfortunately more common than people realize, and it has nothing to do with our parenting. It’s a tech issue, not a mom issue. You did not fail your daughter, you’re doing what matters most: keeping her safe now by addressing it. I will conclude with: Fuck those baby monitors and fuck people who hack them

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

Right after it happened I had my husband check the WiFi network and it said that the only devices connected were the ones that we own. He changed the password anyway. I just saw two other tik toks today saying their owlet camera was hacked as well. So sickening.

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

My motion detection has been activated by tiny flying bugs that got in the house and by things like a light outside the room turning on and coming in through the crack under the door.

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

100% This is best practice for any logins, but in particular, your more sensitive accounts: 1. Make sure your passwords are unique (never used anywhere else), with a variety of characters, capitalizations, and, most importantly, long. They should be at least 16 characters. If it is an account that you deem to be more sensitive, don't be afraid to change your credentials multiple times per year. 2. Use a password manager/locker. Research your options on which offers the best encrypted storage and how you can secure this account best. Change your credentials to this account more frequently. 3. Enable multi-factor authentication, but avoid text message based versions. Phone numbers can be spoofed, making this route way less secure. As AI becomes more robust, giving hackers better chances at brute forcing your passwords, staying on top of your account security is all the more important.

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

I commented elsewhere, but I’ve heard it’s more likely your actual account was hacked. It might be a resused password you use elsewhere that was leaked etc. I’d change that password asap id you haven’t already.

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

Omg I can’t imagine the terror going through your body right now. Don’t blame yourself, technology is scary these days. It’s very unlikely that this would ever happen, but on the off chance (which you’ve experienced) it does, I’d be in shambles. I don’t know anything about the owlet. Is it controlled through an app? I would definitely reach out to the company in addition to law enforcement (good thinking on your part!). I’m so sorry this happened to you

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

Omg I'd like to this maybe this was our case but my son was dead asleep & there was no one else in the room

Thread: "Our owlet monitor was just hacked."

From what I learned about wifi monitors is that they often get hacked because it's an easy way to gain access to your wifi and therefore other devices on said wifi. Baby monitors are the easiest of wifi devices to hack into, making them the perfect door to the rest of your devices. Chances are they are not actually hacking the monitor to spy on baby, though that's still a possibility... It's more likely they are trying to get in to other devices through an easier route. We use a digital monitor that scrambles codes, making it one of the most difficult types of monitors to get into. It doesn't connect to wifi either!

Thread: "Our owlet monitor was just hacked."

Happened to us. We called owlet to report it and we were told to make a new account and re-register our cam. It was New Years 2020 and my husband and I were watching a movie when I heard a woman’s voice coming from my daughters room. My daughter (1.5 years old) was sleeping in her room. I ran in and caught the voice over the monitor with the red light on. I immediately unplugged the thing. No wonder she started having these severe nightmares and we couldn’t understand why. The lack of concern from owlet made me so mad. I had an a super, super strong password for the account since it was a camera in my kids room and they acted like I must’ve given the password out. Edit: I see all the comments mentioning WiFi and want to mention my husband and BIL (senior IT) set up our wifi since we lived in an apartment and wanted to make sure it was super secure. We could see what devices were and if a new device was connected to our internet. After this happened we took down the camera and changed all of our WiFi passwords as a precaution since it freaked us out.

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

Omg that is terrifying!! My husband is in tech and refuses to get a WiFi camera for our child’s room. I’ve heard of it happening but ugh that’s so scary. I’m so sorry you went through this. You should contact ring (or owlet? Confused which camera it was). They need to know about the instances where their cameras are hacked like that.

Thread: "Our owlet monitor was just hacked."

We bought a monitor that doesn’t use WiFi for this specific reason. I can’t check it from my phone so I have to carry the monitor around when he’s in his crib and I’m walking around the house, but thats a great compromise for safety!

Thread: "Hacked Baby Monitor?"

I have seen our Owlet cam remain red after my wife closed the app on her iPhone. She had to "force quit" the app for the light to switch back to blue. With that said, Owlet has had compromises in the past and it's definitely a possibility. We regularly change our username and password combo to try to reduce some risk of unauthorized access.

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

People keep saying it's rare but I've heard accounts from more than a dozen people online and in person who said this has happened to them. That's way too many in my book to ever trust a wifi capable camera. It's tough too because the manufacturers haven't really addressed this issue.

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

Same with walkie talkies! We ended up getting a pair for a toddlers and you have them for about 2 weeks until I realized people were checking in on them and talking to them through their channel.

Thread: "Our owlet monitor was just hacked."

I work in a cyber security heavy job and have a hard rule of no network connected cameras in my house. I don't even trust people's phones (what's app zero day exploit and apple facetime bug are two examples)

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

I got so much abuse in comments about minding my own business when I would comment this is why I won’t get one when people asked for pros and cons. And then this happens to them, and they get upset nobody warned them. Not saying that happened to OP, but it gets frustrating trying to get the info across.

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

This happened to my sister as well. Some people are sick!

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

This.. this advise is very important to follow!

Thread: "Our owlet monitor was just hacked."

In full disclosure none of those baby devices with wifi enabled apps have security on them. Source: my husband is a software engineer and says they are asking to be hacked and jacked around with. Specifically if devices don't have a way to get updated for security patches : the hatch, the owlet, the wifi baby monitors which have apps. Add in wifi ovens- Samsung and wifi fridges.

Thread: "Don’t buy the Owlet cam."

Buy what you want and sell the Owlet cam on fb marketplace or ebay. You won’t get back all your money, but you won’t be out all of it either. You’re going to use this monitor for years (even longer if you have more kids), so do yourself this favor now.

Thread: "My baby monitor got a call?"

I had an owlet camera when I had my first in 2021. When he was a couple months old I saw a video about these getting hacked into and I switched to a non-WiFi monitor. I have no idea about the connectivity though, unless it got connected by accident or automatically. I would honestly just switch, because that scares me. There are so many really good monitors out there that don’t require WiFi. The eufy spaceview was my favorite until my toddler ripped the antenna off. I have cheap hello baby one I use for travel. I also have a better quality hello baby I purchased when my eufy broke.

Thread: "Our owlet monitor was just hacked."

My husband works in information security, so was super adamant about having no baby devices that connect to wifi. I'm sorry you had this scary experience, but most important thing is you all are safe and unharmed. If it was a legit hack, it was probably someone just pinging off every network in the area and not actually trying to do anything nefarious. But good that you've got it all locked down now.

Thread: "Why would a pulse oximeter/apnea monitor NOT prevent SIDS?"

The Owlet does a pretty good job of catching major issues - when my son had RSV, it could detect a consistently decreased spO2 (usual sats 98-99%, RSV sats 94-96%, and when he had another respiratory infection when we were between insurances, it was reading 92-93% and when I went to check on him, he was having retractions. Using his nebulizer relieved the retractions and raised his spO2 back to 94-95%, and we talked to his doctor and opted to monitor at home, which we were more comfortable doing with the additional data the Owlet gave us. We could also see increased heart rate during those times, as compensation for poor gas exchange. That said, it doesn’t give you the same granularity of data that a hospital pulse ox gives, and it won’t alarm unless there’s a sustained low spO2 because movement can cause problems, and consumers wouldn’t/didn’t tolerate frequent false alarms. Also until relatively recently, like this past winter, they would only give you a 10 minute average for the spO2 because they weren’t registered as a medical device, but they’ve submitted the data and gotten FDA clearance so now you can see a tracing. It’s just on the scale of seconds, not fractions of seconds, so it’s not appropriate for really fragile babies who need a hospital-grade pulse ox.

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

Omg. Why do creepy people have to ruin everything

Thread: "Our owlet monitor was just hacked."

Stories like this are why I was so adamant that I didn't want a wifi monitor. I hear things like this with all brands.

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

In other cases of wifi cameras getting hacked, it seemed that the most likely source was that the email/username and password used to sign into the app was compromised through another website’s leak and the password was reused for the camera. Still scary - but the issue likely isn’t your home network’s security or the camera’s security.

Thread: "Our owlet monitor was just hacked."

I really recommend getting a password manager (like 1password or LastPass). The process of getting it set up can seem intimidating but remember that you don't have to do it for everything at once. Start with the most important ones (banks, healthcare, etc) and then add more as you log in to them. It is 100000% worth the effort.

Thread: "Our owlet monitor was just hacked."

I wonder now if people are buying and returning knowing that their app will still allow connection . Oh my gosh that’s deceptive but I’d really hate to find the person doing it intentionally

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

At the very least ask if they can see where you signed in. This way you can tell if your account got hacked. If you usually on sign in on your phone and a new device got added that can give you an idea how long this person has had access to your child. You may even get their location from the signing in records.

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

Creep on or watch babies. I assume most of them are just bored hackers seeing what they can get away with, but worst case scenario is pedophiles.

Thread: "Our owlet monitor was just hacked."

Sorry about your experience! Fear of this exact thing is why we went with a non wifi video monitor. Still technically hackable but they'd have to be in our driveway to be in range, and the people who do this kind of thing wouldn't dare risk being confronted by a real person in real life

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

I wanna know how these sickos find the cameras in the first place. Are the staking out the house, had the camera company got a dodgy employer or someone who sells this information to people. Just so fucked up. Are they hacking into everyone’s WiFi until they find something. I don’t get it. So sorry this happened to you lovely. ❤️

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

I remember there was that a certain surveillance camera’s feed could be accessed by anyone who knew the camera’s serial number. So creeps would buy the cameras, write down the serial number, then return the camera.

Thread: "Our owlet monitor was just hacked."

Which app were you using to access the camera? I have seen people talk about how owlet isn't shipping security patches for their mobile app anymore but from a quick Google search it looks like they deprecated the "Owlet Care" app and are migrating to a new one called the "Owlet Dream" app. Their apps are an utter cluster f*ck at the moment. You shouldn't need a [guid](https://support.owletcare.com/hc/en-us/articles/4416110065805-What-App-do-I-need-) to figure out which app to use.

Thread: "Do we really need a nice baby monitor like the Nanit or Owlet if we're room sharing for the first 6 months anyway?"

I'll give an unpopular opinion and say we never used a monitor at all! Expecting our third baby and don't plan on getting one either. We room shared for about a year with our other kids and we live in an apartment- if we had a house with two floors, then I would've gotten a cheap audio only walkie talkie style monitor. It's totally personal but for me a fancy monitor would've driven me bonkers and made me way more anxious, even a video monitor (which many parents use) is not my thing because knowing myself I'd constantly stare at it (or at least that's what all my friends who had one did when we came over to their place!)

Thread: "Best baby monitors?"

Do not get an owlet. People will suggest it. Ignore it. We have one, I’d trade it for a new penny.

Thread: "Our owlet monitor was just hacked."

My DH is higher up in the information security field. We have our own (expensive) server/network set up that everything connects to, so someone would first have to hack into our network to even see devices we have that are connected to WiFi. So they wouldn’t know we had cameras unless they assumed so before trying to hack in. The average joe can’t do that and since it’s our personal home network, they’d have to be at our house trying to attempt getting on it. The cameras we have do not connect to any outside service (like Ring or Nest for example) so they wouldn’t be able to hack it from the company side either. Everything is encrypted. If you can’t lock it down yourself, your best option is stuff that doesn’t connect to WiFi. Some people are willing to take the risk, we are not. Edit to say- another good defense is to make sure you are current on security/software updates. Just like apps, phone software, computer software etc periodically have updates, things like your ROUTER firmware also need to be updated. Hackers take advantage especially when people aren’t up to date on fixing vulnerabilities. Don’t have the same password for everything, use a password manager like LastPass. If one thing is hacked they try the same credentials on other sites. It’s successful too often because people reuse the same login for everything. Keep yourself safe.

Thread: "Hacked Baby Monitor?"

I’m sitting in my nursery right now with my Owlet Cam 2 and confirmed this: The light will be red if the app is open, even in the background. You will need to force close the app to get it to go back to blue. Your camera allows audio to continuously be fed to your phone even if the phone is locked (Cam Audio: Background option). If you have the background audio disabled the camera will still show a red light if the app is not force closed.

Thread: "Our owlet monitor was just hacked."

Thanks for this. I have been trying to understand motive for someone to do that.

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

this effing infuriates me. Who TF preys on children like this?!?! 😡🤬

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

If that's the case then I wonder if it's the owlet app that got hacked, not the wifi. Still good to change both. And always use passwords that are long with symbols, numbers, and capitals so that it is hard to crack!

Thread: "Our owlet monitor was just hacked."

I remember my baby’s video monitor being hacked when he was less than a year old. I unplugged it and never used it again, only the walkie talkie sound one we had. Freaked me out and found out that it’s very common. I wish it was talked about more.

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

Oh yeah! Our old camera could be locked on to a person so it would pan if they moved out of frame. I forgot about that!

Thread: "Man Talking To My Daughter Through Owlet Camera"

Way to go catching it and responding so immediately! That's terrifying. And your daughter saying go away! Good job to both of you.

Thread: "Owlet camera - DO NOT BUY!"

we’ve been using ours for 16 months with no issue, what happened

Thread: "Our owlet monitor was just hacked."

Yeah! I have no idea how my phone and my husband's were still connected to it. That camera seemed to be making its rounds.

Thread: "Our owlet monitor was just hacked."

I feel like I have a pretty good knowledge of tech and was able to set up my wifi securely. Another commenter said her husband is a software engineer and that he said these camera have no way of having any security due to lack of updates. Not sure but I know that I'm done with the product. Not only for this but for that fact that the camera is shit as well.