How do baby monitors get hacked? A safety guide
A plain-language breakdown of how baby monitor hacking actually happens, and how to protect your family.
If you've found yourself Googling "is my baby monitor safe" at 11pm, you've landed in the right place. 🤍
We're Tweetycam, and we make a non-WiFi baby monitor. So yes, hacking is something we think about a lot, not because it affects our product, but because it affects our community.
We've had this conversation many times. A lot of the families who find us are coming from WiFi monitors or are weighing up their options and trying to make sense of the hacking risks. Either way, you deserve a straight answer.
Baby monitors get hacked in four main ways: unchanged default passwords, reused passwords from other breached accounts, an unsecured home router, and outdated firmware that hasn't been patched. In almost every real case, it comes down to one of these four ordinary oversights, not sophisticated hacking.
Here's a plain-language breakdown of how each of these vulnerabilities is exploited.
Last updated: March 2025
Why are WiFi baby monitors vulnerable to hacking?
A WiFi baby monitor is an internet-connected device, part of a category commonly called IoT, or Internet of Things. That's just the name for everyday objects that now connect to the internet: smart TVs, thermostats, doorbell cameras, WiFi baby monitors.
IoT devices have historically shipped with weaker built-in security than your phone or laptop. A smartphone gets regular, automatic security updates. Many baby monitors don't, and that gap is where vulnerabilities creep in.
How hackers get in: the four entry points
Something most "baby monitor hacking" headlines leave out: a majority of baby monitor breaches come down to an unchanged password. Not at all sophisticated hacker stuff, just a password that never got updated. A lot of the time, vulnerabilities are exactly like this: simple and easy to fix.
Here are four fixable vulnerabilities you might not know about.
1. The unlocked front door: default passwords
Most WiFi monitors ship with a generic login, something like username: "admin", password: "1234". Those defaults are the same across every unit of that model ever made, and they're listed publicly in the manual.
If you set up your monitor and never changed the password, that door is still open. No special skills required. A hacker just looks up the model, tries the defaults, and they're in. A Euroconsumers study in 2023 found security flaws in all 17 baby and children's connected devices tested, with weak password requirements among the most common issues.
2. The spare key problem: reused passwords
If you've used the same email and password for your monitor's app as you have for any other account, a shopping site, a subscription service, anything, and that service was ever breached, your credentials may already be in a leaked database somewhere. 😨
Automated tools try those combinations across thousands of apps simultaneously. It takes seconds. The password was never guessed. It was already known.
Worth checking: haveibeenpwned.com lets you search your email address against known data breaches for free.
3. The reception desk: your home router
Your router is the box with the blinking lights that shares your internet with every device at home. Think of it as a reception desk. If someone gets behind it, they can see everything that's checked in.
Routers also ship with default admin passwords. If yours has never been changed, anyone on your WiFi network can log into your router settings and access everything connected to it, including your monitor, even if the monitor's own password is fine.
This is the door behind the door most parents don't think about.
4. The unpatched window: outdated firmware
Firmware is the software your monitor runs on, like a phone's operating system. Except your baby monitor won't always automatically remind you to update it, the way your smarter devices (like your phone or laptop) would.
When a security flaw is found in a monitor model, the manufacturer releases a firmware update to fix it. There are documented cases of the same WiFi monitor brand being hacked repeatedly over several years, all traced back to the same unpatched vulnerability. So technically, the fix did exist, but families didn't know how to install it. Automated scanning tools can check millions of internet-connected devices a day for known vulnerabilities. Nobody is targeting you specifically. They're casting a wide net, and an outdated monitor gets caught in it.
Can non-WiFi baby monitors be hacked?
Here's where the picture looks quite different:
A non-WiFi monitor like Tweetycam doesn't connect to the internet at all. It sends a direct signal between the camera in your baby's room and the parent unit in your hand… and nothing else. No app, no cloud, no internet connection.
That means every single entry point described above simply doesn't apply. No default password to forget. No app account to compromise. No router dependency. No firmware sitting vulnerable on a public network. There is no digital door for anyone to open, because there's no door at all.
The technology behind it is called FHSS: Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum. The camera and parent unit communicate by hopping between dozens of different frequencies every second, in a pattern only those two paired devices know.
To intercept it, someone would need to be physically standing near your home with specialised radio equipment and know the exact hopping sequence.
To date, there are no documented real-world cases of a modern FHSS non-WiFi baby monitor being hacked.
The tens of thousands of Australian families who use Tweetycam every night rest easy for exactly this reason. 😴
How to secure your WiFi baby monitor: a simple checklist
Now that you're aware of how baby monitor hackers get in, here are a few simple steps to close most of the doors they typically get through.
✅ Change the default password the day you set it up. Make it unique, not something you've used anywhere else.
✅ Check haveibeenpwned.com to see if your email has appeared in any data breaches, and use a different email address if so.
✅ Update your monitor's firmware. Open the app or settings, look for a software or firmware update option, and turn on auto-updates if available.
✅ Update your router's firmware too. Log into your router settings (your internet provider can help if you're not sure how) and check for updates.
✅ Change your router's default admin password if you haven't already.
✅ Turn off "remote management" on your router. If you don't know what it is, you probably don't need it, and leaving it on is an unnecessary risk.
✅ When your baby's older and you're done with the monitor, factory reset it before storing or passing it on.
For non-WiFi monitor users: most of the above doesn't apply to your setup. The one thing worth knowing is to make sure you're using a modern digital monitor. The old analogue dial-based models from the early 2000s are a different story. Any current FHSS monitor, including Tweetycam, is a closed system by design.
Hacking isn't some super scary magic trick. In almost every real case, it comes down to an unchanged password or an update that never got installed.
Ordinary oversights with ordinary fixes. No need to be a tech person to sort this out, and no need to be anxious or scared. You just need to know where to look. 🫶
And if you'd like to understand more about how WiFi and non-WiFi monitors compare across the board, our WiFi vs non-WiFi honest guide covers it in full.
🤍
No WiFi. No worries.
Tweetycam uses FHSS technology to send a direct, closed signal between camera and parent unit. No internet connection, no app, no entry points. Just clear, dependable monitoring.
Frequently asked questions about baby monitor hacking
Can baby monitors be hacked?
WiFi baby monitors can be vulnerable to hacking, but in almost every documented case, it comes down to a simple, fixable oversight: an unchanged default password, a reused password from a breached account, an unsecured router, or outdated firmware. None of these require sophisticated hacking skills to exploit, and all of them are straightforward to fix.
What is the most common way baby monitors get hacked?
The most common entry point is an unchanged default password. Most WiFi monitors ship with a generic login that's the same across every unit of that model and listed publicly in the manual. If it's never changed, anyone who looks up the model can get in without any special skills.
Are non-WiFi baby monitors safer than WiFi monitors?
Yes. A non-WiFi monitor doesn't connect to the internet at all, which means the four main hacking vulnerabilities (default passwords, reused credentials, router access, and unpatched firmware) simply don't apply. There's no app account, no cloud connection, and no digital entry point to exploit. To date, there are no documented real-world cases of a modern FHSS non-WiFi baby monitor being hacked.
What is FHSS and why does it matter for baby monitor security?
FHSS stands for Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum. It's the technology non-WiFi monitors like Tweetycam use to send a direct signal between the camera and the parent unit. The two devices communicate by hopping between different frequencies, in a pattern only those two paired devices know. Intercepting it would require someone to be physically near your home with specialised radio equipment and knowledge of the exact hopping sequence.
How do I know if my baby monitor has been hacked?
Signs can include the camera moving on its own, unusual sounds or voices coming from the monitor, the camera light being on when you haven't activated it, or unexpected changes to your monitor's settings. If you notice any of these, change your passwords immediately and check for firmware updates.
What should I do before getting rid of an old baby monitor?
Factory reset it before storing, selling, or passing it on. This clears any saved account credentials or network information from the device.