Support and answers

Two phones, a stand and a charger.

• A phone that stays in the nursery as the monitor, and your own phone to watch. An older phone you no longer use can do the nursery job.
• A stable stand or mount outside the cot. The phone, the mount and every cable must be well out of your baby’s reach.
• A power point near the nursery phone: keep it plugged in.
• Your own home Wi-Fi with both phones on it. Hotel and guest networks often keep phones apart.

BubCue installs on iPhone with iOS 16.4 or later, and on 64-bit Android 9 or later; older 32-bit Android phones cannot install it. Most of our testing so far has been on an iPhone 12 mini and on OnePlus phones running Android 9 and Android 13, and a phone that meets the requirements may still work differently. One feature needs more: face visibility is not available on Android 9. BubCue is built for iPhone; iPad is not supported. The app is in English.

It may, if it runs iOS 16.4 or later or 64-bit Android 9 or later. We’ve done most of our iPhone testing on an iPhone 12 mini. It doesn’t need a SIM card: the nursery phone needs only Wi-Fi.

• Keep it plugged in all night. Don’t use a phone or charger that is damaged, swollen or unusually hot, and follow the phone maker’s charging instructions.
• On phones that report their temperature, BubCue stops soothing and pauses low-light assistance if the phone gets too warm.
• One feature needs a newer phone: face visibility isn’t available on Android 9.
• When a phone reaches the end of its life, MobileMuster recycles mobile phones in Australia.

Yes. Either one can be the nursery phone, and the other watches, at home or from another place.

Our current plan is an annual subscription for monitoring, with no separate subscription for invited viewers. Pricing and purchase terms are not final. Under that plan, your own phone, partners, grandparents and sitters don’t need their own subscription to watch a monitor that has one. Watching away from home uses your internet or mobile data.

BubCue is in development and not yet available to download; see About availability. It is designed as one app for iPhone and Android: the same app goes on both phones, and you choose which one monitors the nursery when you open it.

It depends on the phone’s role.

• iPhone in the nursery: keep BubCue open, plugged in and with the screen on. Locking it pauses monitoring.
• Android in the nursery: keep it plugged in. Monitoring continues with the screen off.
• Your phone (iPhone or Android): keeps playing the room’s sound when locked or when another app is open, and picture-in-picture keeps a small video window on screen. Alerts play a tone and vibrate while BubCue is open; a locked phone may not play them.

Alerts do not appear as lock-screen notifications. Calls, Focus or Do Not Disturb, the mute switch and swiping the app away can stop sound and alerts.

Your phone says “Connection lost — not live” and keeps trying to reconnect; after a short Wi-Fi drop it reconnects without pairing again. Your phone also plays a sound and vibrates, repeats it about every minute until the connection is back, and plays a chime once it is. When your phone receives the nursery phone’s Stop, the reminders end; if it can’t confirm the Stop, it tries to keep reminding you about every minute until you tap Stop watching. While it is disconnected, other alerts can’t reach your phone. A still picture or silence is not proof that monitoring is working.

BubCue does not restart itself. The phone’s power management (especially on some Android brands), a crash or overheating can stop it. Connected parent phones then show a connection warning and play a reminder sound about every minute until it’s back. On Android, setup asks you to let BubCue run without battery optimisation, which reduces interruptions but cannot prevent them. After a restart, every viewer needs to join again with the new QR code, browser link or a new invitation.

Keep the nursery phone plugged in. On phones that report their temperature, BubCue stops soothing and pauses low-light assistance if the phone gets too warm, and tells you. Being plugged in does not by itself show that monitoring is working.

• On iPhone, the screen stays on: the monitor screen is dark, and Settings > Dim monitor preview dims the picture further. You can also lower the phone’s brightness.
• Turn off the phone’s ringtone and notifications, or use a phone without a SIM, so calls don’t sound in the nursery.
• Update the phone before bedtime so it doesn’t restart overnight.
• Check the picture, the sound and the status badges, and play “Test alert sound & vibration” on your own phone.

Phone cameras do not have infrared night vision. Low-light assistance, on Auto by default, adjusts the camera when the phone supports it, but some light is still needed. A completely dark room may need dedicated hardware. How well it works varies between phone makers and models.

Outside the cot, in a stable stand or mount, with the phone, the mount and every cable well out of your baby’s reach. Keep it plugged in and follow the phone maker’s guidance on ventilation. Don’t use a phone or charger that is damaged, swollen or unusually hot, and follow the phone maker’s charging instructions.

Keep the cot clear of pillows, toys and loose bedding. A baby monitor does not replace safe-sleep guidance.

• Sound alerts: when sound stays above the level you set. Sound level only — not cry recognition.
• Cry alerts (experimental): when a sound model on the nursery phone flags sound that resembles crying.
• Face visibility (experimental): a notice when camera analysis stops detecting a face it had detected. Real-world detection performance has not been established.

These alerts travel over the live connection to each connected BubCue app: a tone, a vibration and a card. A browser viewer must be unmuted first. Sound alerts pause while you talk, while soothing plays and while a voice clip is recorded.

Reminders play a sound and vibrate when the connection to the nursery phone is lost (about every minute until it’s back) and while the nursery phone’s battery is low and it isn’t charging. Camera and microphone warnings show on screen only.

Experimentally. Cry alerts are on by default and use a sound model on the nursery phone. They can miss crying or alert for other sounds, and soothing sounds or a white-noise machine can make them miss crying.

An experimental setting, on by default, that adds how long possible crying lasted, your recent cry alerts and a general list of things to try. Sometimes it shows a guess at the cry type: “Might be hungry?” or “Might be tired?”. Experimental guess. Development testing has not demonstrated reliable identification of hunger or tiredness. Independent confirmatory validation has not been completed. The guess can be wrong. The guess is made on the nursery phone, and BubCue does not know why a baby is crying. Suggestion only — you know your baby best. You can turn it off in the nursery phone’s settings.

An experimental feature that is on when video is on. The nursery phone looks for a face in the sleep area of the picture. After detecting a face, the app can show a notice, “Face not visible”, if camera analysis stops detecting it. It cannot determine why. Real-world detection performance has not been established. This feature does not assess breathing, health or safety. It works in memory on the nursery phone and saves no image.

Face visibility can miss a hidden face, and it can alert when the face is only turned away or out of view. It sends no alert until it has seen the face. It shows “unavailable” when the camera moves, the light is too dark or too bright, or the phone is too warm, and it is not available on Android 9 phones. It never shows that a baby is fine.

BubCue is not a medical device: check on your baby yourself.

Yes, on your own phone. “Test alert sound & vibration” in your phone’s BubCue settings plays the real alert tone and vibration on that phone. It does not test the nursery phone, the connection or detection, and it cannot promise that later alerts will arrive.

Yes. Up to two viewers can watch at once, each on their own phone. A laptop browser counts as one of the two.

Yes. Away from home, a phone that has joined connects over the internet, and the nursery phone can share an invitation link with someone elsewhere. Video goes directly between the phones, encrypted, with no relay. When you leave home, your phone tries to reconnect over the internet and shows “Connection lost — not live” until it does.

Both ends need internet, and some networks never allow a direct connection; BubCue then shows that it isn’t live and keeps trying. Watching from away uses Wi-Fi or mobile data at both ends.

A device joins by scanning the nursery phone’s QR code, opening its browser link on the same Wi-Fi, or opening an invitation link from the nursery phone. Anyone who has the current QR code, the browser link or an unused invitation can join without asking you, so share them only with people you trust. Access ends when monitoring stops: after the nursery phone stops or restarts, everyone joins again with the new QR code, browser link or a new invitation.

Invited viewers can watch, listen, talk and use live controls. They cannot stop monitoring or invite other people.

BubCue is not yet available to download; see About availability. As designed, an invited person installs BubCue on their phone, then opens the invitation link on that phone and taps Open BubCue on the page that appears. Under our current plan, invited viewers don’t need their own subscription. A computer cannot use an invitation: it can watch only through the nursery phone’s browser link, on the same Wi-Fi. You can watch, listen, talk and use live controls, but you cannot stop monitoring or invite others.

On the nursery phone, open Connect, then Viewers. Remove disconnects an app viewer, and Cancel stops an unused invitation. Change pairing code stops new joins with the old code but does not disconnect people already watching. A browser viewer is disconnected only by Stop.

Yes, on the same Wi-Fi. Open the browser link from the nursery phone’s Connect screen. The page starts muted: click Unmute to hear the room and get audible alerts. A browser cannot talk to the baby, and alerts are not promised while the tab is hidden or the computer is locked. Your browser may show the page as “Not secure”, because its setup page uses plain HTTP, so someone else on the same network could tamper with it: use it only on your own home network.

Yes, from the BubCue app. Hold Talk and your voice plays on the nursery phone’s speaker. While you hold, your own listening is silenced and sound alerts pause.

White, pink or brown noise, lullabies, or up to three voice clips of up to 60 seconds that you record on the nursery phone. You set the volume and a timer, and you start and stop it.

Soothing may mask crying: sound alerts pause while it plays, and cry alerts can miss crying. A voice clip can pick up nearby sounds, including your baby. Keep the volume low and the phone away from the cot. Soothing is not promised to help a baby sleep.

Your own home Wi-Fi. Hotel, guest, café, office and other shared networks are not supported: they often stop the two phones reaching each other.

BubCue is made for your own home Wi-Fi. Hotel, guest and other shared networks are not supported (see Which Wi-Fi works?). From away, you can watch a nursery phone that is at home over the internet, where networks allow.

Watching at home on the same Wi-Fi does not need internet. Without internet, both phones need to be on the same Wi-Fi network; without one, they can’t connect.

Watching at home on the same Wi-Fi does not depend on BubCue’s connection service. Watching from away and invitation links need it.

Not to BubCue, and BubCue does not record or save it. Video and sound go directly between your devices, encrypted. When someone watches from away, they travel over the internet directly to that device, with no relay. The only recordings are Soothe voice clips that you record yourself on the nursery phone. See privacy and security.

It lists alerts and gaps, never audio or video. It is cleared when you stop monitoring or restart the app, unless you choose to save it. Saved records are encrypted on that phone and left out of automatic cloud backups, and sharing them works only on the same home network. See Activity records.

No. BubCue does not measure your baby’s breathing, heart rate, oxygen, temperature or movement, and it does not detect, diagnose or prevent any condition. Monitoring can miss or mistake events. The absence of an alert does not show that a baby is safe, asleep or well. In an emergency, go to your baby and call for help; do not wait for an app.

Follow the safe-sleep guidance given by your healthcare professional and relevant public-health authorities; using BubCue does not change that guidance.