Parents outraged at Snoo after smart bassinet company charges fee to rock crib

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/snoo-bassinet-baby-sleeping-subscription-b2597869.html

by pseudolus • 2 years ago

111 182 2 years ago

independent.co.uk

talldayo4• 2 years ago

A tragic catch-22. You design and build the app-enabled internet rocker crib, but cannot justify supporting the app or the internet support without a subscription fee.

Reminds me of the "Someone Who Is Good At The Economy Please Help Me" memes.

upon_drumhead• 2 years ago

No, I think this is greedier than that.

The company's founder, Harvey Karp, said the pricing change was necessary to "bring in revenue," noting that the company was not underwritten by a university or the government, and must survive on its sales alone. He said his ultimate goal would be to see the Snoo paid for by the government or by insurance companies, but it's unclear if there has been any substantive movement toward achieving that end.

They want the government/insurance to buy them in bulk and then rent seek for everyone using them. There's zero reason why for the price this couldn't be done completely local and not cost Snoo a cent to run. They just don't want to because the long term strategy is to collect revenue forever.

idatum• 2 years ago

I wonder too if the data collected via that subscription is useful to monetize somehow? Maybe like health data from your watch?

nickff• 2 years ago

Your quote doesn't contradict the parent comment. Snoo may need to "bring in revenue" because they're losing money. They may, simultaneously, want to have their product purchased in large quantities, as that would be another way to "bring in revenue".

johnnyanmac• 2 years ago

The government can't even subdize child care. What interest would they have in buying a bunch of high tech baby rockers?

uoaei4• 2 years ago

Tragic? You really think the company is the poor victim??

Company made choices, they were bad choices. Bad business deserves zero sympathy.

s1artibartfast7• 2 years ago

I don't have any problem empathizing with business mistakes. I have made bad choices both as an individual and as a company.

Doesn't mean I am willing to subsidize them, but I get it.

etimberg2• 2 years ago

Similar problems exist with the Nanit baby camera. It’s free to view the camera from the app but to view it from their website costs money.

That being said if you know how to run docker you can just proxy the video feed to vlc pretty easily but most parents don’t have the time for that

Laaas• 2 years ago

Why not just use a normal camera?

UniverseHacker23• 2 years ago

The Dormi baby monitor app works extremely well, and you can install it on any old smartphone to repurpose as a baby monitor. For my son, I just velcroed an outdated phone with a worn out battery to the wall. It is really well designed because it also notifies if the connection is lost or if anything goes wrong, which a lot of expensive commercial cameras don't.

jimbob45• 2 years ago

It has a few bells and whistles that are worth having. We combined a Nanit camera and an Owlet sleep sock and that gave us god peace-of-mind at night. I only wish we’d topped it off with an analog walkie talkie as a backup in case the Wi-Fi went down.

krisoft• 2 years ago

I feel differently about that. (And it is possible that it is just because I don't understand what Snoo does)

To view a baby camera over the internet someone has to run a server. To run that server costs money. (If you think that the actual server/bandwidth cost is negligible, make sure to also include the cost of keeping the team employed to maintain those servers.) Someone has to pay for that. Based on what you say it sounds like the Nanit baby camera degrades gracefully to the local only features if you don't pay the subcription. That is kind of the only honest way to run a business with a connected component.

As long as they were up-front about this at purchase I can't see a problem with that.

How is this different from Snoo? Quite frankly I don't see how the baby rocking function requires a remote connection. It should be totally implemented locally inside the basinet and there should be no on-going cost. Therefore the only reason they might lock the feature away is due to greed.

ryandrake2• 2 years ago

To view a baby camera over the internet someone has to run a server.

In an alternate universe with better technology, this would not be true. You'd connect to a host over the WAN just as you connect over the LAN. Unfortunately ISPs and firewalls and NAT have made this much more difficult and complicated than it should be.

My heart aches when I think about how many company servers are out there running only to facilitate "doing X with your LAN, but from the Internet".

etimberg2• 2 years ago

My point is that the app does that for free even from a distance. It’s simply website access that costs even though it should have 0 more marginal cost

clintonb2• 2 years ago

The market is saturated. Four years ago we could buy a new one for $1300 or buy used on Craigslist for $800. We went with Craigslist, and resold six months later for $900 (not a typo).

The bassinet is well-made so it would be silly to throw it out after 2-3 kids. The fact that the resellers are other parents makes me trust a little more that they aren’t selling a broken/dirty bassinet, so why buy new for double the cost?

They are a victim of their own success.

dyauspitr• 2 years ago

It depends. One of my rules is to never buy a secondhand mattress and I definitely wouldn’t buy one for my baby. I’m not sure off the mattress comes with this bassinet or not.

UniverseHacker23• 2 years ago

This article mentions that the Snoo was designed to prevent SIDS, but the number one factor predicting SIDS is a used mattress... and interventional studies have proven it is not caused by other confounding factors like poor familes or second children being more likely to have used mattresses- It can be prevented with a new mattress or non-permeable mattress cover.

The Snoo has an integrated mattress in a non-standard size, but you can buy new replacements from the manufacturer.

taspeotis• 2 years ago

The company's founder, Harvey Karp, said … the company was not underwritten by a university or the government, and must survive on its sales alone.

Thanks for that primer on private enterprise…

disillusioned• 2 years ago

This is code for "our early investors are disappointed we didn't build in a subscription model to begin with."

uoaei4• 2 years ago

You bought into a walled garden, now you're upset when the owner of that garden decides to do some landscaping. Something tells me people aren't really getting this whole "you need to own stuff to have control over it" thing.

ximus• 2 years ago

don't they own the crib after paying $1700?

thrtythreeforty• 2 years ago

Not quite, dear customer: You own the motionless hunk of plastic, and you only rent the functionality. See also streaming hardware, BMW heated seats, textbooks, and home security systems.

haswell2• 2 years ago

When you buy a PlayStation 5 or an iPhone, you’re buying into a walled garden. People generally understand the implications of their choice of garden.

Looking at this product on Amazon right now, there’s zero indication that there’s some subscription component, nor would I have any reason as a potential buyer to suspect that there’s a garden, much less a wall.

To say nothing of the ridiculousness of the restriction itself. For all of the problems with walled gardens, they generally come with tradeoffs, some of which are beneficial.

This looks like nothing but pure dark patterns and greed.

uoaei4• 2 years ago

You imply there is some moral relevance to commerce. There is not. You either own a thing to control it, or you do not. I'm not saying relying on goodwill and enforcement is naive, but you always have to keep the possibility in mind that somebody somewhere will implement some new feature locking you out of the experience you expected, unless you own the thing.

UniverseHacker23• 2 years ago

The SNOO is cheaply made and poorly engineered despite the incredibly high price- and there isn't much to it. It should cost ~$45, not the $1695 it actually costs.

I recently rebuilt a used snoo myself for my newborn nephew, and was shocked to see that it is built to move everything on rubber rollers, and those rollers use the wrong material, so they both slip and grind to dust quickly.

That said- it works. I would have given my right arm for one when my son was newborn and had "colic" and would literally scream continuously from 10pm to 4am everyday for months. I was up all night holding him by myself, using the method developed by Dr. Harvey Karp (who later founded SNOO)- which is exactly what the SNOO copies and replicates automatically, which is the only thing that would calm him. It was exhausting, and I started to hallucinate frequently, and make dangerously bad decisions from lack of sleep. I think the SNOO would have saved me.

cwillu2• 2 years ago

built to move everything on rubber rollers, and those rollers use the wrong material, so they both slip and grind to dust quickly.

Sounds like it was designed deliberately to reduce the aftermarket supply. Maybe the first person can sell it, but avoiding the creation of a robust secondary market has been the dream of a great many MBAs.

dotBen• 2 years ago

Or just wast built to the correct tolerances. We loved our Snoo but it had a life of about 4 months before our son grew out of it. It doesn't feel like those rollers need more than a year or two of life, even with multiple owners.

2cynykyl• 2 years ago

Or put a fake expiry date on it like car seats! Diabolical genius.

etrautmann4• 2 years ago

We borrowed a snoo and set it all up before giving birth - everything was ready. Come home from the hospital with a one day old and it refuses to connect to the app. At some point after spending 45 min debugging and resetting the device I realized how awful this experience was. Internet of shit.

mtmail3• 2 years ago

Did it eventually work?

stavros2• 2 years ago

Smart devices' biggest appeal is that they can turn what was a one-off sale to a recurring subscription.

When I say "appeal" I mean to the company, not to the customer, of course.

autoexec3• 2 years ago

"never buy hardware that requires a cell phone app to use" can be a frustrating and expensive lesson. At least you didn't have to pay for it with money.

er4hn2• 2 years ago

Where can you get a better built and cheaper bassinet?

UniverseHacker23• 2 years ago

You can get regular bassinets everywhere, and they're pretty much all "better" and "cheaper" but none will have the function the SNOO has of rocking the baby in a certain way, along with a certain sound, that is claimed to mimic the movement and sound of the womb, and is clearly extremely calming. You can do it with just your hands using instructions from "the happiest baby on the block" video, also made by the owner and inventor of SNOO.

If you can afford it, get a plain untreated wood crib/bassinet with a natural fiber flame retardant free mattress. I posted elsewhere in this thread about the theory that flame retardants might contribute to SIDS, and the plain wood is based on the fact that kids will chew on it, and get particles of paint or plastic in their mouth otherwise.

UniverseHacker23• 2 years ago

For people criticizing me for saying "it should cost $45" - that is based on what it actually costs for a lower end electric baby swing with sound[1], which is not fundamentally simpler or cheaper to make than the SNOO. I'm just guesstimating what a device of this (very low) quality would actually cost on the open market, if it weren't uniquely effective and patented, which it is.

I'm fine with them charging a lot for a unique invention that works better, but irked that they didn't then give it decent build quality.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Bright-Starts-Paradise-Portable-Autom...

tqi4• 2 years ago

A baby swing is not a bassinet.

29athrowaway3• 2 years ago

Make sure there's no soap residue after washing bottles.

UniverseHacker23• 2 years ago

Why are you responding that to me? Are you saying that is why my son was crying so much?

He was breast fed, and only rarely used a bottle... and when we did we used high temperature water only sterilization, never soap.

The reason he was crying is most likely that he was a big baby, and wasn't getting enough milk initially.

HeatrayEnjoyer5• 2 years ago

It was exhausting, and I started to hallucinate frequently, and make dangerously bad decisions from lack of sleep.

The Western (American, especially) approach to early infant care is mind-boggling. In many cultures and nations, often those less "developed", parents suffer little sleep deprivation.

Westerners will pay small fortunes for a cloud subscription bassinet but can't create the basics of a functioning community.

gyomu• 2 years ago

Westerners will pay small fortunes for a cloud subscription bassinet but can't create the basics of a functioning community.

What a weird way to phrase things. It has been systematically dismantled and taken away from them over the last few centuries by a relatively minuscule group of people with vested interests.

UniverseHacker23• 2 years ago

Westerners will pay small fortunes for a cloud subscription bassinet but can't create the basics of a functioning community.

That is incredibly insulting, what would you have done in my situation specifically?

How the heck can you "create the basics of a functioning community" when you're struggling just to keep a baby alive and haven't slept in two weeks? People in those other cultures didn't create the culture, they were born into it.

The only place I could find work to support my newborn was 1000 miles away from my family and friends. The mom had serious postpartum depression and rage, and generally refused to help take care of our child. She was aggressive and abusive, and locked herself in a room for days on end so I was 100% on my own while trying not to lose my job. I begged people for help and advice but got only disdain "if you're having a hard time you need to just relax" and "parenting is easy for dads! they just play and the mom does it all!" There were no open spots in any kind of childcare around my house- they said "apply before you decide to have a kid." I had done so- but the person at the counter pocketed the deposit and quit. I eventually paid 110% of my salary for a nanny to help me, and burned through all my savings just to survive.

Now that I had this experience, I go out of my way to be there- by airplane if necessary for family and friends that need it.

lolinder9• 2 years ago

One of the big problems with American culture surrounding infant care these days is that a vocal group of well-meaning but misguided people persuaded everyone that letting a baby cry themselves to sleep is abuse that will ruin them for life.

Our oldest was inconsolable at bedtimes. We tried every kind of hold, rocking, swings, swaddles, nothing worked. None of us were sleeping for the first two weeks.

Finally and with much guilt my wife finally tried one last thing: leaving him to cry in the bassinet. Lo and behold, he was asleep within five minutes and slept longer than he had in his life. That became our routine: we put him down, he cried himself to sleep, then he woke up happy in a few hours.

I don't know who came up with the idea that babies shouldn't cry alone ever, but I strongly suspect that's the culprit that spurs demand for these products.

cafebee• 2 years ago

This reply shows a complete lack of empathy. Was that not something you learned in your functioning community?

tourmalinetaco3• 2 years ago

If your “functioning community” is so great, then why are you so insecure about it, and why did you come out of it with this kind of attitude?

mardifoufs• 2 years ago

I can assure you that the esame exact problem still exists in tightly knit communities. It's just that the burden is put on the grandparents or siblings. Even in those communities (I'm from one), it sucks to take care of a baby and anything that helps is used and there are tons of "oral knowledge" sort of tricks to calm down a baby or an infant. So this would still be incredibly useful regardless of how communal your life and social network is.

Do you think that those communities haven't adopted the modern diaper just because hey, the community takes care of their babies together? Because that's absolutely not the case (if they can afford to).

Ancalagon• 2 years ago

It astounds me how much money people a willing to spend on crap like this. I mean, thank you for keeping the economy running, but also how do you afford to keep doing it?

autoexec3• 2 years ago

Parents and baby showers probably help

UniverseHacker23• 2 years ago

Don't dismiss something you don't understand the need for. Even fairly poor people buy these when they can barely afford it because they need it, and there is no realistic alternative.

It effectively solves a desperate problem for people in a desperate situation so they can actually sleep and not go crazy and lose their jobs or get hurt (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41286547). Humans evolved to have lots of baby caretakers, and sometimes newborn babies need to be held and rocked almost continuously- yet not everyone has that kind of help available.

When my sister got one I couldn't believe the incredible disdain from older, non-working family members who raised their kids with the help of a big community that she had no way to access. These same family members that did not step in to help take care of the baby.

pavel_lishin2• 2 years ago

I need you to stay up for a week straight while a tiny infant screams at you, and then tell me whether you'd pay $20/month to possibly make it stop.

SkyPuncher3• 2 years ago

My extremely frugal friends bought one when their second came. It’s a night and day difference for them. They can actually live and enjoy a life instead of being constantly hounded by an infant that keeps them up all night.

It’s worth every penny to them.

29athrowaway3• 2 years ago

$45 seems too low, consider:

- manufacturing cost

- manufacturer margin

- marketing

- labor

- insurance

- income taxes

- retailer margin

- customer support

- etc.

But yeah, $1695 seems excessive.

UniverseHacker23• 2 years ago

Fair enough

sklargh• 2 years ago

Am I the only one who thinks this is unfair? If you use the Snoo successfully it gets you two-plus hours of sleep a night. That’s magical as a parent of a newborn.

We’re talking about a critical app for a hardware device that has a lifespan of several babies (ours is going on six as it circulates among friends). We should reward people who make hardware so durable and effective that they’ve sold so many of them they need to find another revenue stream.

We talk a lot in this community about maintainers getting paid. Here is a company within a ferociously regulated and risky market doing that.

saagarjha• 2 years ago

I suspect maintainers would complain a lot less if everyone paid them $1700 first.

sowbug• 2 years ago

Bassinets don't need maintainers.

kylehotchkiss• 2 years ago

sensors that detect when the baby is crying and simulates the sounds of the womb to help keep babies

I realize this may come off as a bit insensitive but isn't this taking away a chance to bond with your child? Children not being physically held enough at young age has lifelong implications

dhon_• 2 years ago

Humans are complex. It depends greatly on the situation.

dap2• 2 years ago

I realize this may come off as a bit insensitive but isn't this taking away a chance to bond with your child?

Having a Snoo doesn’t mean you never hold your child. Newborns provide many such opportunities. You don’t need to take them all. See the comment above about a newborn that needed this for 6 hours a night for months.

Children not being physically held enough at young age has lifelong implications

Citation needed? This is the sort of thing that people use to argue against sleep training, too, but I don’t believe much evidence has been found for that.

grvbck2• 2 years ago

Citation needed? This is the sort of thing that people use to argue against sleep training, too, but I don’t believe much evidence has been found for that.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4088358/

https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0504767102

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7502223/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9599775/

https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203758045

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8250458/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33924970/

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-662-67860-2_...

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14984130/

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/infant-touch/

doe_eyes2• 2 years ago

Some infants cry a lot. Not every instance is a magical bonding opportunity, especially since you still need to get stuff done.

There are high-tech child-rearing trends that I suspect might be doing harm, but a rocking bassinet probably isn't one.

pfisherman2• 2 years ago

Which high tech child rearing trends do you think are harmful? Just curious.

etrautmann4• 2 years ago

No, this does not take the place of physical interaction. You’ll get a ton of that too. Rocking your baby to sleep isn’t a great plan anyway.

ilickpoolalgae3• 2 years ago

Maybe, but the extra few hours we got of sleep each night meant the quality of interaction/bonding during our awake hours was higher.

er4hn2• 2 years ago

The first 3 months after my daughter was born I slept next to her while she was in this. If she was hungry or needed a change she'd let me know. This helped her sleep and helped the rest of us get some rest as well.

Flop73312• 2 years ago

Do you feel that way about shushing?

oldpersonintx• 2 years ago

new parents are so easy to scam, they all want the best for their new child, and they think that means blowing $$$$ on too-deluxe baby gear they will only use for a short period of time

we fell for it...plonked down $$$ for the deluxe stroller...used it four times

pfisch5• 2 years ago

That's fine, but the snoo isn't a scam. It works really well, and is far superior to any other bassinet on the market.

If you value your sleep the snoo is worth it, and frankly I suspect there is a significant consumer base that would pay an even higher price for it.

tshaddox2• 2 years ago

I’m curious why you only used the stroller 4 times. We also decided on a very expensive stroller and infant cat seat, and we’re pretty happy with them. Assuming the stroller continues to work well for 3ish years I think we’ll have no regrets.

Of course, we don’t know how happy we’d have been with a cheaper option. That probably would have been fine too. But the build quality seems noticeable and it doesn’t feel like we got taken advantage of.

stavros2• 2 years ago

The company's founder, Harvey Karp, said the pricing change was necessary to "bring in revenue,

That sounds like a "you" problem.

_8L34K2• 2 years ago

I'm not sure I understand the $1700 price tag. Self rocking bassinets can be had for a couple hundred dollars. Many have the same functionality, with cry detection and white noise capabilities. They also don't require the use of an app, it's just a self contained unit. Where is the 500% upcharge going?

ronsor• 2 years ago

The cloud, of course.

pfisch5• 2 years ago

That is not true. Show me another self rocking bassinet like the snoo.

Also the snoo does not require the app at all.

_8L34K2• 2 years ago

Just google "self rocking bassinet", but that is also why I asked - so if you are confident enough to say it's not true, then please explain.

Does it just come down to a different controller/set of algorithms for governing the rocking/white noise capabilities? The product itself doesn't seem to cost $1700 dollars to produce - it seems to be a bassinet on rollers with a motor attached that can play sound.

MostlyStable2• 2 years ago

"like the snoo" appears to be the sticking point. What specific features do you think that A) are important for helping a baby sleep and B) are only found on the snoo?

I've never used the snoo or any other self-rocking bassinet (luckily my daughter is a decently good sleeper on her own), but this product [0] certainly looks like it's pretty similar for a fraction of the price, and it's even from a known brand.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Graco%C2%AE-SmartSenseTM-Soothing-Bab...

mplewis• 2 years ago

Parents will pay a lot of money to get six months of sleep.

MostlyStable2• 2 years ago

Right but the comment you are replying to is making the argument that the same functionality, and the same increase in sleep, can be had for a fraction of the cost.

sarchertech• 2 years ago

I bought a Miku camera because it has a few extra features that I wanted and unlike the competition there was no monthly fee.

Well then they screwed up by pushing a bad over the air update that literally bricked all operating cameras. They made that right by replacing them all, but then they went bankrupt.

A new company bought their assets during bankruptcy and the first thing they did was add a monthly fee to use any of the “advanced” features (all the reasons I bought it in the first place.)

spartas• 2 years ago

Ditto. If you’re able to run an old version of the Android app, then you still have access to all of the Miku features. I haven’t found a similar workaround for the iOS app.

https://www.reddit.com/r/daddit/comments/17iuh6r/miku_camera...

lolinder9• 2 years ago

I can't even imagine spending $1700 on a bassinet in the first place. As the article notes, this thing gets used for ~5 months (6 if you're really pushing it) at which point the kid is done. If you're going to have another kid then you put it into storage for a few years before it gets a second round of 5 months of use (assuming the company you bought your smart bassinet from doesn't brick it in the interim).

At its simplest, it's a tiny bed on wheels and you can pick one up for free from a local parent. If you want to get really fancy you can get a self-rocking bassinet for <$400.

Who are these people who are willing to spend $1700 on a bassinet but then get outraged when the clearly-exploitative company decides to exploit them for another $100?

id00• 2 years ago

Used it for both of my kids. Both times we bought a used one for $800 and sold for the same price after it was no longer needed.

px1999• 2 years ago

The aftermarket for these things means that the cost winds up being split between multiple parties in a lot of cases.

Anecdotally, most parents within my circle bought their Snoo used and sold it after use. I bought an unopened snoo from facebook marketplace for $X and sold it after 6 months for $X-200.

I was a little annoyed that Happiest Baby is meddling with the resale value (because I was expecting to be able to sell it on after a few months of use)

IMO even though the product is overpriced, I'd have happily paid 5k for the extra sleep I believe it gave me.

s1artibartfast7• 2 years ago

It would be an interesting case study on pricing and transaction costs to look at how much the resale value changes.

Does it go down by the $100 people will have to pay in subscriptions? will it go down by more than that because people dont want to bother with the subscription as an extra cost?

scruple• 2 years ago

My wife's employer got us a rental for all of our kids. We had twins and it was amazing for them but around 3-4 months they were out of it and we returned it early. With our singleton, it didn't work at all. Kid hated it from day 1. We returned it after 3 weeks so that it wasn't eating up space in our bedroom.

bitshiftfaced• 2 years ago

I question even using it past 2 months. That's around when babies begin to learn to roll over. Swaddling past 2 months has resulted in deaths. I know that you Velcro the baby down with the Snoo, but I wouldn't feel comfortable putting off that milestone for long. As babies learn to roll, they strengthen their neck muscles. This allows them to safely sleep on their stomachs eventually.

rahimnathwani• 2 years ago

  Happy Baby customers received an email in June alerting them to the change in pricing. Buyers who picked up a Snoo before July 15 were grandfathered into the previous structure, while anyone who bought after that was locked into the subscription model.

rzimmerman• 2 years ago

The Snoo is great and the key feature that actually helps prevent SIDS is the restraints and swaddle, which is not being moved to a subscription here. It's actually FDA approved to reduce the risk of SIDS. The "bonus" rocking and soothing noises just help parents get more sleep.

The Snoo is very expensive and easy to pass down or buy used. I think they probably screwed up by selling it outright. You can rent the Snoo, which is probably a better model for everyone. This is kind of a janky way to pull back some of the rental revenue they lost by selling a durable product that people only need for a few months.

It feels gross, I get it. But it's effectively a $100 per child fee which is quite reasonable given the benefits. And there's no realistic way to charge for that other than subscription for the premium (non-safety) stuff. The alternative is to keep developing new models with new features and adding crap people don't need. One thing I love about the original Snoo is that it works fine without an Internet connection or app. I used the app and it was great, but it's nice to know that when you travel or lose power, it can still rock your baby and soothe them. I hope that's still the case if there's a subscription involved.

lolinder9• 2 years ago

the key feature that actually helps prevent SIDS is the restraints and swaddle

Just a note that the NIH guidelines specifically call out this marketing claim as BS:

Even though swaddling does not reduce the risk of SIDS, some babies are calmer and sleep better when they are swaddled. Even though swaddling does not reduce the risk of SIDS, some babies are calmer and sleep better when they are swaddled.

They also call out the monitors specifically as also useless for SIDS and issue a general warning that products that claim to reduce SIDS are nearly-universally not useful and are often counterproductive.

https://safetosleep.nichd.nih.gov/reduce-risk/reduce

tshaddox2• 2 years ago

And there's no realistic way to charge for that other than subscription for the premium (non-safety) stuff. The alternative is to keep developing new models with new features and adding crap people don't need.

There’s another alternative: simply sell them for a little more than they cost. Just keep doing that. Solid business plan.

pvillano• 2 years ago

Why don't they just rent the thing entirely, six months at a time? Recurring revenue, tiered pricing, no secondhand market, and less waste from planned obsolescence.

mtmail3• 2 years ago

They offer rental, too https://www.happiestbaby.com/products/snoo-rental

ilickpoolalgae3• 2 years ago

We rented but we know a lot of parents that didn't because they didn't want a "used" bed for their newborn. To each their own.

egypturnash• 2 years ago

Meanwhile Finnish babies sleep in the cardboard box that originally contained a government-supplied cache of baby clothes, pillows, blankets, and even a toy and book or two, while their parents are both given 160 days (32 five-day work weeks) of paternal leave to care for the kid.

Capitalism!

mtmail3• 2 years ago

Photo of the baby box and contents: https://yle.fi/a/74-20083915

smabie• 2 years ago

Yeah and Finish devs also make a small fraction of what's possible in America

Novosell• 2 years ago

Dunking on the happiest country on earth, 7 years in a row, with "yeah well one of their professions makes less money". Nice.

ilickpoolalgae3• 2 years ago

I took a look at the features that are locked out and they seem reasonable to be behind a subscription as they require costs to maintain. Almost all of the features that do not require some sort of cloud service connection seem to remain free. It's also free for people who use the rental option.

Backlash is also understandable as they are changing the status quo.

Disclosure: We rented a Snoo and it was made a huge difference between our first (no Snoo) and second child.

https://www.happiestbaby.com/blogs/snoo/premium-app-features....

FireBeyond• 2 years ago

What? Almost none of those features require costs to maintain:

- Car Ride Mode - adds extra bounces

- Level Lock - don't change rhythm

- Sleepytime Sounds - play sounds before and after sleep

and so on.

The only ones I can see? Tracking, Sleep Logs (but I'd also argue that given that this is a smart device, I'd say that they could be expected baselines).

But as for the other, without being argumentative, I am sincerely struggling why it seems reasonable to you that "extra bounces", etc. are a Premium "subscription" feature.

ryandrake2• 2 years ago

About half of those premium features should not require a server or company-borne "costs to maintain." This seems like a pure cash grab: what subscription will the market bear?

Flop73312• 2 years ago

Very few of the premium features really require a cloud connection. The ones that do arguably aren't what the Snoo is for, e.g. diaper tracking.

s1artibartfast7• 2 years ago

I think the backlash is overblown because they are only changing the status quo for new purchases with advance notice. Everybody else is grandfathered in.

It is pretty hard to empathize with the people who are complaining but buying the device anyways. Nobody is holding a gun to their head and making them purchase one.

pfisch5• 2 years ago

There is no fee to make it rock. This just isn't true.

jarrettcoggin• 2 years ago

My wife and I are currently borrowing a Snoo from a friend and have found it very helpful. Our daughter is 8+ weeks and regularly sleeping 7+ hours in a single stretch each night, probably heavily due to the Snoo. When we first got the Snoo, we saw an immediate change in our daughter's sleep where she went from having a unreliable 2-3 hour stretch between feedings to a solid 3+ hours between feedings with less fits during her sleep and also falling to sleep faster when we put her in the Snoo.

We understand the desire for the company to make money, but we feel there's a happy middle-ground where the Snoo could have the premium app subscription waived for the first child (6-12 months premium subscription free), but require a fee for the app for future children. That being said, the Snoo has been advertised for years around the core features that are now being locked behind a subscription.

We are very fortunate to be borrowing the Snoo from our friend, but it definitely makes us second guess buying a Snoo if the price goes up due to the "mandatory" subscription fee. Would we still use the Snoo even if we had to pay the subscription fee? Most likely, because one is ultimately buying sleep back by using a Snoo. At the same time, the Snoo does not work for every child and we've heard of multiple parents in our friend circles who bought the Snoo but didn't end up using it because it didn't work for their children. It's kind of an expensive, risky bet to make for the potential chance that it may not work out.

I personally think the Snoo is overpriced and think the true price is probably around $1,000, but it sounds like there are inefficiencies to be ironed out on Happiest Baby's side. The "mattresses" the Snoo comes with are simple foam and it's made up of a ton of plastic. Not being a physical product engineer myself, I think it could probably be re-engineered to bring the cost down while retaining the same feature set.

__MatrixMan__• 2 years ago

Let's write some open source bassinet firmware.

dmschulman• 2 years ago

Like every smart device, the Snoo isn't actually that smart. We have a 1 month old and bought a Snoo second-hand in anticipation and way before they changed the terms of their app.

Where you'd expect the Snoo to dutifully monitor the baby and gently increase the intensity of the motion to soothe the baby, it rapidly goes from a baseline to the highest level of motion and sound within a minute or so, which is both annoying for the parents and stressful for the child.

The motion locking feature was how we got around that poor excuse for engineering, but now that pretty basic feature is now behind the paywall. We just use it as a standard bassinet.

I haven't signed up for the added features yet, our kid is a pretty good sleeper at this point, but those features are a necessity to operate the Snoo properly, so I'll end up paying the premium (begrudgingly). As a parent I know companies are doing everything they can to get my business, so I'm not surprised by this behavior, but it's just a disappointment and annoyance.

tehwebguy• 2 years ago

Makes sense, I’d guess most used Snoos probably get resold many times.

_heimdall• 2 years ago

Based on the article, it sounds like Snoo hasn't yet started charging a transfer fee when a parent goes to sell the crib after 4 or 5 months. I have to assume that fee is coming soon to a bassinet near you.

steelframe• 2 years ago

I'm so fed up with Internet of Shit stuff that these days if I need some random thing like a cradle rocker I'll first check to see if there's a DIY Arduino-based solution out there. In this case, sure enough, there is:

https://www.instructables.com/Arduino-Cradle-Rocker/

https://www.instructables.com/INTELLIGENT-BABY-ROCKER/

UniverseHacker23• 2 years ago

I made a DIY rocker for my son in 2 minutes at home when he was born... I took a breast milk pump that has an oscillatory vacuum, hooked it to a large syringe used for marine epoxy, and taped the syringe to one end of a removable car seat that had a curved rocking bottom.

A simple rocker or swing isn't as effective as a snoo, however.

ijustwanttovote• 2 years ago

You can buy these off CL and sell it for almost cost.

I think they were overpriced and how would you know if it works or not.

We decided not to get one and our little one slept through the night. If we had the snoo, we would've thought it was the gadget.

Parents outraged at Snoo after smart bassinet company charges fee to rock crib

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