It says that it should be fully charged before the first use, but I just plugged in the USB cable and it worked just fine. I do not have a baby, but my children wanted to stay in our camper. So I put it in the camper so they could talk to us. The motorhome is parked on the side of the house next to the master bedroom so it worked well. The signal only had to go around 22 or 25 feet, but it went through the motorhome wall and the slag block wall in our home, so I think it's a good enough test. I liked the temperature sensor on the camera, very cool function. 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 children easily. I did not hear the sound at the other end, but I could hear them without any problems, and they answered my questions. I turned off the audible warning. There is an alarm when the camera hears a sound. But it was easy enough to turn 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 * can * be range. I do not have proof of this, so I want to be clear. My range is quite short. Although it is transmitted through an exterior wall and a motorhome wall, it is still only 25 feet away. So I can not say if it would work in a house with a shared floor plan to monitor the baby's room if the master bedroom is on the other side of the house. Definitely to recommend.