It says to fully charge before first use, but I just plugged in the USB cable and it worked just fine. I don't have a baby but my kids wanted to stay in our camper. So I put that in the camper so they could talk to us. The camper is parked on the side of the house just off the master bedroom so it worked well. The signal only had to go about 22 or 25 feet, but it went through the RV wall and the cinder block wall of our home, so I think that's a good enough test. I really liked the temperature sensor on the camera, really cool feature. It reassured me that the heater in the motorhome kept the temperature comfortable even though the outside temperature dropped overnight. I was able to use the two-way communication feature to talk to my kids easily. I didn't hear the audio on the other end but I could hear them with no problem and they answered my questions. I turned off the audible warning. It's an alarm when the camera hears a sound. But it was easy enough to switch off. The pan function works well. Slight delay as expected. Works very similar to my security camera with the pan function. The only possible negative *might* be range. I don't have proof of this so I want to be clear. My range is pretty short. Even though it's transmitted through an outside wall and an RV wall, it's still only 25 feet away. So I can't tell if it would work in a split floor plan house to monitor your baby's room if the master bedroom is on the other side of the house. Absolutely to recommend.