Watchful
The baby monitor that
collects nothing.
Turn two Apple devices into a private baby monitor over your home Wi-Fi. Video and audio never leave your network — no cloud, no account, no subscription.
Free · iOS 17+ · two devices on the same Wi-Fi
Up and running in seconds
No account, no email, no setup wizard. If both phones are on your Wi-Fi, you're done in under a minute.
Place the camera
Open Watchful on the device in the child's room and tap Camera. The screen dims to near-black — no glow in the nursery.
Open the viewer
Tap Viewer on your phone. The camera appears automatically — no IP addresses, no pairing codes to type.
Watch instantly
Tap the camera in the list and the live feed opens right away. The camera always shows when someone's watching — and you can block any viewer with one tap.
“No cloud” is why it doesn't drop at 3 a.m.
Cloud baby monitors die when a relay server hiccups or your ISP blinks. Watchful streams peer-to-peer inside your home, so there's simply nothing out there to fail.
Internet down? Still works.
The stream lives entirely on your Wi-Fi router. Your ISP is not invited.
Never a silent black screen
If Wi-Fi blips, the viewer holds the last frame, tells you loudly, and reconnects by itself.
All-night audio
Lock your phone, put it in your pocket — the child's sound keeps playing. Talk back to soothe them with one tap.
Privacy you can check, not just trust
Every monitor app promises privacy. Watchful is built so you can verify it.
- “Data Not Collected” — the strongest App Store privacy label there is. Apple shows it on our listing; go look.
- Local-only by construction — WebRTC restricted to your LAN (no STUN, no TURN, no relay servers configured). The stream physically cannot leave your network.
- End-to-end encrypted — DTLS-SRTP on every frame, even inside your home.
- No silent watching — the camera pulses a visible indicator whenever anyone is viewing.
- See & block — the camera shows a clear indicator whenever anyone is watching, and you can block any viewer instantly.
- Nothing to breach — no account database, no stored video, no server logs. We can't leak what we never receive.
Built by a mobile security engineer who wanted a monitor he could point at his own child with a clear conscience.
Honest pricing
Some monitor apps charge $6.99 a week. We think that's absurd.
The whole monitor: video, audio, talk-back, auto-reconnect, Picture-in-Picture. No trial, no time limit, no locked features, no subscription.
Questions parents ask
Do I need internet?
No. Both devices just need to be on the same Wi-Fi network. The stream never touches the internet — it works fine when your connection is down.
Can I use an old phone as the camera?
Yes — that's the idea. Any iPhone or iPad on iOS 17 or newer works. The drawer phone finally has a job.
Does audio work with my phone locked?
Yes. Lock the viewer, pocket it, and the nursery audio keeps playing all night.
Is any video ever stored or uploaded?
Never. There is no recording, no cloud, and no server. Frames exist only in transit between your two devices, encrypted.
Can I talk to my baby?
Yes — tap “Talk to the room” on the viewer. Your microphone is off by default and clearly marked when live.
What if my router blocks device discovery?
The camera shows a QR code; scan it from the viewer and you're connected. No IP addresses to type, ever.