Snoo, a very expensive but widely adopted smart bassinet, now has some of its best app features locked behind a new $19.99 monthly premium subscription. The change, which went into effect this week, has angered many Snoo owners because the subscription puts some previously free features that new parents rely on behind an expensive paywall.
A bunch of threads on Snoo’s subreddit have exploded with complaints since the plan was announced last month. “Wild choice,” wrote one user. “It’s actually disgusting to take advantage of parents who are just trying to get their kids to sleep and are already paying a fortune for the pleasure of something that a) may not work, b) may only be used for a short period before become useless, c) requires an ongoing payment to use the full features.’
“I’m not against the concept of premium membership if they want to add more features. I’m surprised to see existing features that were advertised as coming with Snoo suddenly paid for,” says Sarah, owner of Snoo in Australia On the edge. (Sarah’s name has been changed at her request for privacy.) “It’s like a mechanic intentionally breaking your car just so he can sell you the fix.”
Get the most out of your Snoo by connecting it to Wi-Fi via the app for the happiest baby that makes the bassinet. When you turn on the Snoo, the bassinet floor rocks back and forth to soothe your baby while a tinkling white noise is heard. If your baby fusses or cries, Snoo can react by increasing the intensity of movement 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 when you eventually need to transfer baby to a bigger bed.
Until now, all the features in the app were free. But as of July 15, the Happiest Baby app puts many features behind the Premium subscription, including some of the app’s best tools, like sleep tracking and a weaning mode.
The paywall is especially annoying because Snoo isn’t cheap to buy outright. At full retail price from 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 now incentivizes potential buyers to purchase the 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 get a premium subscription for one baby for nine months, says Harvey Karp, CEO of Happiest Baby On the edge. If you rent Snoo — which costs $159 per month — you’ll get access to Premium features for the duration of your rental plus one additional month.
(People who bought Snoo from Happiest Baby or an authorized partner before July 15, 2024 get the best deal. If that’s you, you’ll get access to a Premium subscription with every baby you have. A second baby can be added through the app, and for additional babies you can contact Happiest Baby customer support.)
If you buy a Snoo on the resale market, on the other hand, you’ll have to choose whether you want to pay for the subscription. The company gets a lot of support requests from people who got their Snoo second-hand, according to Karp, and “subscription allows us to provide the same level of care—from technical support, to troubleshooting, to sleep consulting—to SNOO users , who purchased their SNOO through the resale market.’
“I’ve already dropped a lot of money on the device itself. It would be a shame to miss out on some of the benefits I bought it for.”
Sarah, a Snoo owner from Australia, says she bought her Snoo from a company that buys and refurbishes Snoos, but is not affiliated with Happiest Baby. That means she won’t get free months of Premium, but says she will pay for it. “I’ve already dropped a lot of money on the device itself. It would be a shame to miss out on some of the benefits I bought it for.”
Jordan Leventhal, who is expecting a baby in September, narrates On the edge that he and his wife found Snoo on Facebook Marketplace at a price they could afford. While he says they can pay the $20 monthly fee for the Premium subscription, “I don’t know if we would have gotten the Snoo” if they knew they’d be charged.
For my wife and I, Snoo has been a lifesaver. Before we got him, our baby wouldn’t sleep on anything but us, meaning we’ve been up all night in shifts for the sake of the baby for weeks. We were desperate for anything that would allow her to fall asleep on her own.
We ended up finding someone on Facebook Marketplace selling their barely used Snoo for much less than the official Happiest Baby options. (Our family very generously gifted us a Snoo, which we are extremely grateful for, as even the lower price would have been a big mouthful.) We’ve been using the Snoo for months, and our baby just upgraded to a bigger bed with a lot of help from weaning mode, a feature we would have had to pay for if our baby had been born just a few weeks earlier.
Despite the outrage, Happiest Baby went ahead with the subscription. “To continue to make Snoo even more accessible, we need to be able to be flexible and adjust our business structure,” says Karp.
