The very expensive but widely acclaimed smart baby bed, the Snoo, now offers a premium subscription that unlocks some of the best features of its app for $19.99 per month. It came into effect this weekhas infuriated many Snoo owners because the subscription makes some previously free features that new parents have come to rely on into expensive paid services.
A thread on the Snoo subreddit read: exploded and Complaints ‘Wild choices’ since the plan was announced last month One user wrote“It’s really obnoxious to trick parents who are just trying to get their kids to sleep into paying an already significant amount of money for a pleasure that a) may not work, b) will only be usable for a short time and then will become unusable, and c) requires ongoing payments to get full functionality.”
“I’m not opposed to the concept of a premium membership if they want additional features, but I was surprised to see existing features that were advertised as coming with Snoo suddenly made available for a fee,” said Sarah, a Snoo owner from Australia. The Verge. (Sarah’s name has been changed at her request to protect her privacy.) “It’s like a mechanic purposely wrecking your car so he can sell the repair money.”
To get the most out of Snoo, connect it to Wi-Fi through the app from crib manufacturer Happiest Baby. When Snoo is on, the crib floor rocks back and forth to soothe your baby and plays low-pitched white noise. If your baby gets fussy or cries, Snoo responds by increasing its movement and sound intensity. You can also control many settings through the app, which also has features like sleep tracking and a “weaning mode” that’s helpful when you need to transition your baby to solid foods. A bigger bed.
Until now, all features of the app have been free, but starting July 15th, many features of the Happiest Baby app will be available for a premium subscription, including some of the app’s best tools, such as sleep tracking and weaning mode.
This paid membership is especially painful because the Snoo isn’t cheap to buy outright: Happiest Baby’s regular retail price for the Snoo is $1,695, and a certified pre-owned version is $1,195. While the resale market is a common place to find a used version, Happiest Baby is now encouraging potential buyers to buy the Snoo directly from Happiest Baby or one of its certified partners.
Anyone who purchases Snoo from Happiest Baby or an authorized partner after July 15, 2024 will receive a nine-month premium subscription for one baby, says Happiest Baby CEO Harvey Karp. The VergeIf you rent Snoo for $159 per month, you’ll get access to premium features for the duration of your rental, plus an extra month.
(People who purchase Snoo from Happiest Baby or an authorized partner by July 15, 2024 will get the best price and have access to a premium subscription, if applicable. All the babies you give birth toYou can add a second baby through the app, or contact Happiest Baby customer support if you need more babies.
Meanwhile, if you buy a Snoo on the resale market, you’ll have to choose whether or not to pay a subscription fee. Karp says the company has received many support requests from people who received second-hand Snoos, and “the subscription allows us to provide the same level of care, from tech support to troubleshooting to sleep consultations, to SNOO users who buy their SNOO on the resale market.”
“You’ve already paid a lot of money for the device itself, and it would be a shame to miss out on some of the benefits you bought it for.”
Sarah, a Snoo owner from Australia, says she bought her Snoo from a company called: Buy and refurbish a snooze However, she is not affiliated with Happiest Baby, which means there is no free trial period for Premium, but she plans to pay for it: “I’ve already paid a lot for the device itself, and it would be a shame to miss out on the benefits of what I bought it for.”
“It was a great experience,” said Jordan Leventhal, who is due to give birth in September. The Verge He and his wife found Snoo on Facebook Marketplace for a reasonable price, and while he says he can afford the $20 a month premium subscription, “I’m not sure we would have bought Snoo” if he’d known there would be a fee.
For my wife and I, the Snoo has been a lifesaver. Before we got it, our baby would not sleep anywhere but with us, which meant we had to take turns staying up late for him for weeks. We were desperately looking for something that would help him fall asleep on his own.
We ended up finding someone on Facebook Marketplace selling a barely used Snoo for much cheaper than Happiest Baby’s official option. (Our family very generously gifted us the Snoo, which we’re so grateful for, as it was cheap but still cost a lot of money.) We used the Snoo for a few months, and baby moved onto a bigger bed with the help of the weaning mode. If baby had been born a few weeks earlier, we would have had to pay for this feature.
Despite the outcry, Happiest Baby went ahead with the subscription. “We need to be agile and adjust our business structure to make Snoo even more accessible,” Karp says.
