Are there any brands of Wi-Fi baby monitors that I can trust to have acceptable security practices? Yes, it need to be video. I’d prefer an actual baby monitor camera and not a large ugly security camera.
I think your only option is to find a model that can work without a connection to the internet, and then firewall it off from the outside world. Then nobody can access it to use those exploits and backdoors for evil.
Edit: Didnt see the video part, sorry. I wont have any of the online models in my house
Edit2: Seems like Neonate has a video model with 300m range (approx 950ft). Dont known if thats enough. Anyway I can vouch for the brand, super babymonitors. Think its the most commonly used in Denmark
Android phones are relatively hard to hack remotely and the comms will be over TLS.
My buddy does this for other reasons, but it occurred to me that maybe searching for a different product that can also do what you want might reveal more results
Given it's a baby monitor, you are likely to be on the same network, so VPN is not even needed most of the time.
Just restrict your webcam to access wider internet