The Snoo, a very expensive but highly rated smart bassinet, now has some of its app's best features locked behind a new $19.99 monthly premium subscription. The change, which came into force this weekhas angered many Snoo owners, as the subscription puts some previously free features that new parents rely on behind a costly paywall.
A lot of threads on the Snoo subreddit have exploded with complaints since the plan was announced last month. “Wild choice,” wrote a user“It's really disgusting to take advantage of parents who are just trying to get their kids to sleep and who are already paying a large sum for the pleasure of something that a) may not work, b) can only be used for a short period before becoming useless, c) requires ongoing payment to use all the features.”
“I’m not opposed to the concept of a premium membership if they want to add more features. I’m surprised to see existing features that were advertised as included with Snoo suddenly being put behind a paywall,” says Sarah, owner of Snoo in Australia. The edge. (Sarah’s name was changed at her request for privacy reasons.) “It’s like a mechanic intentionally breaking your car just so he can sell you the repair.”
You can get the most out of your Snoo by connecting it to Wi-Fi through the app from Happiest Baby, which makes the bassinet. When you turn on the Snoo, the bassinet floor rocks back and forth to soothe your baby while a humming white noise plays. If your baby fusses or cries, the Snoo can respond by increasing the intensity of the motion and sound, and you can control many settings from the app. The app also offers features like sleep tracking and a “weaning mode” that helps you when you need to transition your baby. To a bigger bed.
Until now, all of the app's features were free, but as of July 15, the Happiest Baby app includes many features in the Premium subscription, including some of the app's best tools like sleep tracking and weaning mode.
The paywall is especially annoying because the Snoo isn’t cheap to buy direct. At its full retail price at Happiest Baby, the Snoo costs $1,695, while a certified pre-owned Snoo costs $1,195. The resale market is a common way to find one for less, but Happiest Baby is now incentivizing potential buyers to purchase a Snoo directly from Happiest Baby or an authorized partner.
If you buy a Snoo from Happiest Baby or an authorized partner after July 15, 2024, you'll get a nine-month Premium subscription for one baby, says Harvey Karp, CEO of Happiest Baby. The edgeIf you rent a Snoo (which costs $159 per month), you'll have access to Premium features for the duration of your rental plus one additional month.
(People who purchased a Snoo from Happiest Baby or an authorized partner before July 15, 2024 get the best deal. If that's you, you'll have access to a Premium subscription with every baby you haveA second baby can be added through the app, and for additional babies you can contact Happiest Baby customer service.
On the other hand, if you buy a Snoo on the resale market, you'll have to choose whether you want to pay for a subscription. The company receives a lot of support requests from people who received their Snoo secondhand, Karp said, and “the subscription allows us to offer the same level of support — from technical support to troubleshooting to sleep consultations — to SNOO users who have purchased their SNOO on the resale market.”
“I've already spent a lot of money on the device. It would be a shame to miss out on some of the benefits I bought it for.”
Sarah, the owner of Snoo from Australia, says she bought her Snoo from a company that Buy and renew Snoos but she is not affiliated with Happiest Baby. That means she won’t get free months of Premium, but she says she will pay for it. “I’ve already shelled out a lot of money for the device itself. It would be a shame to lose some of the benefits I bought it for.”
Jordan Leventhal, who is expecting a baby in September, says The edge that he and his wife found a Snoo on facebook Marketplace at a price they could afford. While he says they can afford the $20 monthly fee for the Premium subscription, “I don't know if we would have bought the Snoo” if they'd known they'd have to pay.
For my wife and I, the Snoo was a lifesaver. Before we got it, our baby didn't want to sleep anywhere but ours, so we would take turns staying up all night for the baby's sake for weeks at a time. We were desperate to find something that would let her sleep on her own.
We finally found someone on facebook Marketplace selling their gently used Snoo for much less than the official Happiest Baby options. (Our family very generously gifted us the Snoo, which we are very grateful for, as even the lower price would have been a huge coup.) We used the Snoo for months, and our baby just transitioned to a bigger bed with a lot of help from the weaning mode — a feature we would have had to pay for if our baby had been born a few weeks earlier.
Despite the protests, Happiest Baby has gone ahead with the subscription. “To make Snoo even more accessible, we need to be able to be agile and adapt our business structure,” says Karp.
