Tuck vs Dormi (2026): iPhone vs Android, Honestly

The honest reality: Dormi is Android, Tuck is iPhone

Dormi has been Android-only for its entire 12-year history. Sleekbit said in a 2015 TechCrunch interview that they would 'wait to see Android reception' before committing to an iOS timeline; eleven years later, no iOS version has materialized. That isn't a knock on Dormi — it's a clear product choice. They serve the Android market well.

Tuck is iOS-only at launch (2026). The reason is mechanical: Tuck's Bluetooth Coded PHY fallback needs precise control of the Apple BLE radio, and the AI inference pipeline is built around the Apple Neural Engine. An Android port is on the long-term roadmap but is not committed for V1.

If your household runs Android, this comparison comes down to: Dormi today, or wait for Tuck's eventual Android version (no committed date). If your household runs iPhone, Dormi simply isn't an option, and the comparison is: Tuck, Cloud Baby Monitor, Annie, Bibino, or Saby. We'll lay out the honest feature comparison below for parents weighing the OS choice itself, or for households with mixed devices.

Pricing — Dormi is the cheapest in the category, by a lot

Dormi is $17 lifetime — the lowest sticker price for a credible baby monitor app on either platform. The free tier gives 4 hours of monitoring per month (renewable), which is enough to evaluate the product but not enough to use as a primary monitor. Sleekbit also offers $2/month or $10/year subscription tiers if you'd rather rent than buy.

Tuck is $0 hardware (uses two iPhones you already own) and $14.99/month or $99.99/year, with a 14-day free trial. One plan, includes everything: continuous video and audio monitoring, two-way talk, cry alerts, AI scene understanding, morning sleep diary, a curated lullaby library, and free family viewer access.

On dollar value, Dormi at $17 lifetime is unbeatable for what it does. Tuck at $99.99/year is much more expensive but includes the AI layer Dormi doesn't have. Apples to oranges in part because they're on different operating systems.

Feature breadth — Dormi is intentionally minimal, Tuck adds AI on top of the basics

Dormi's feature set is deliberately minimal: video, audio, two-way talk, sound detection, multi-caregiver. No lullabies, no white noise, no night light, no cry detection AI, no sleep diary, no scene understanding, no breathing or vitals. The pitch is 'a monitor that does monitoring, nothing else, and respects your privacy completely.'

Tuck covers more ground: video, audio, two-way talk, motion, sound, cry detection, free family viewer access — plus AI scene captions, a curated lullaby library, and a written morning sleep diary.

If you want a baby monitor that does one job extremely well and skips everything else, Dormi is the right philosophy. If you want a feature-rich app with an AI layer, Tuck is the better fit.

Connectivity and offline — both work without internet, with different mechanisms

Dormi works offline via Wi-Fi Direct, a personal hotspot, or a same-network Wi-Fi link — no internet required. The two Android devices can talk to each other peer-to-peer over Wi-Fi without going out to a cloud server. This is a meaningful privacy and reliability win, but it does require Wi-Fi (or hotspot) on at least one end. It does not work in airplane mode unless you can keep one device's hotspot or Wi-Fi radio active.

Tuck uses Bluetooth Coded PHY for its offline link — a long-range, error-resilient Bluetooth Low Energy mode. Both phones can be in airplane mode (BLE stays on); no Wi-Fi or hotspot required on either side. The link carries audio plus a degraded video stream and reaches ~30-50 meters through walls in pre-launch testing.

Both philosophies are strong. Dormi's Wi-Fi-Direct approach is proven and works on the Android stack. Tuck's BLE Coded PHY approach is more aggressive — it works on flights with both devices in airplane mode, which Dormi cannot match.

AI features — Dormi has zero by design, Tuck is built around them

Dormi's whole posture is anti-AI in a baby monitor context. No cloud inference. No analytics SDKs. No machine learning models. No third-party trackers. The product is intentionally classical, and that is the appeal. If you don't want a baby monitor running LLMs over your nursery video, Dormi is the cleanest option in the category.

Tuck's AI layer is the entire product thesis. On-device AI scene understanding writes plain-language captions — your nursery video is never sent to a cloud AI. Tuck ships a curated lullaby library of 16 tracks across six moods with a fade-out sleep timer.

These are opposite philosophies. Dormi optimizes for absence of AI as a feature. Tuck optimizes for AI as the differentiator. Neither is wrong; they're answering different parents.

Trust and privacy — Dormi is the gold standard for a baby monitor

Dormi's privacy posture is genuinely the strongest in the category. End-to-end encryption, no analytics SDKs, no ads, no trackers, no cloud recording, no account required for the local-network mode. Twelve years in operation with no publicly documented security incidents. If absolute privacy with no third-party data flow is the buying criterion, Dormi is the answer.

Tuck uses DTLS-SRTP encrypted media (LiveKit / WebRTC), US data residency, and no third-party analytics on the monitoring path. The AI scene captions run on-device, which means your nursery video is never sent to a cloud AI. There's no continuous cloud video; only encrypted cry-moment snapshots are retained for 30 days for the morning diary, opt-out in settings.

Neither is FDA-cleared. Neither monitors breathing or vitals.

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