Wall-E, a baby monitor.
A Raspberry Pi with a night vision camera and a small microphone, in the nursery. Call it from your phone to see and hear the baby. It answers by itself, and it never listens back.
Wall-E has watched over our own nursery since September 2026.
What it does
A camera that only you can call.
Answers by itself
Call it from a paired phone or computer, and it answers at once with the nursery's picture and sound.
Sends only
It never plays a sound or shows a picture, and your own camera and microphone stay off.
Sees in the dark
The night vision camera sees by infrared light, so you can check on the baby with the lights off.
Pairs only when you ask
It pairs only while you hold a pairing window open on the Pi itself, with the first device that asks.
One watcher at a time
While one of you watches, a second call hears that it is busy.
Says nothing about you
Its log records what happens, such as a call starting, and never names a device or a person.
What you need
- Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+, the board it was made for
- Raspberry Pi Night Vision Camera, with its infrared lights
- A USB microphone, or the ReSpeaker 2-Mics Pi HAT
- A microSD card with Raspberry Pi OS Lite, 64-bit
- A power supply for the Pi
Build it
Prepare the Pi
Install Raspberry Pi OS Lite, connect the camera and the microphone, and add the sound server the monitor listens through.
Build the monitor
On a computer with Docker, one command builds the monitor for the Pi. The Pi 3 A+ is too small to build it itself.
Install it
Copy the monitor and its settings to the Pi, give it a name such as Nursery, and start it as a service.
Pair it
Open a pairing window on the Pi, and scan its code with Callyou on your phone. Then tap it to watch.