We're expecting our first child soon and live in a two-story home so we need a monitor that can cover the distance without losing signal. Our nursery is upstairs, and we often hang out in the living room downstairs. We tried a basic audio one before, but it cut out frequently when we went to the kitchen. Budget is around $100, and we prefer video capability for peace of mind. It should have night vision too and since the baby will sleep in a dark room. We've looked at a few on Amazon, but reviews are mixed on reliability. Something with good battery life would be ideal, as we don't want to plug it in all the time.
I would go with HelloBaby baby monitor for a two-story home. Its dedicated non WiFi link is typically reliable through floors and kitchen walls, the 1000 ft rated range gives you plenty of cushion, and the battery can last up to 30 hours so you are not tethered to a plug and plus the night vision is solid.
We are in a two story with the nursery above the garage and the living room behind the kitchen which, tbh yeah our first cheap audio unit died every time we walked near the fridge. Swapped to a non WiFi that model setup with a long range rating and it held a connection everywhere downstairs and even on the patio. The parent screen battery handled an evening fine if I left it on voice activation and kept the screen timeout short, though with the display on nonstop it drained fast. Night vision was clear enough to see breathing and movement. I also changed my WiFi router to a less crowded channel which cut random dropouts from interference. Lesson learned.