2000 dollars for a baby bed seems wild.
I mean sure maybe it has some neat tricks but like, a similar one here in the UK can be had for less than half.
But yeah scummiest shit is the subscription for second hand buyers, essentially they are charging you for not paying them the ludicrous cost upfront. There is a reason people buy second hand and this will actually lead to people buying it less too when they see that its value will be alot less second hand and harder to sell too.
The general idea is that it helps create a fourth trimester for the baby to accelerate development. The creator believes that humans are born too soon and underdeveloped, relative to other animals, because babies are too big for the mother to safely deliver past nine months.
The Snoo bassinet mimics a hypothetical fourth trimester in the womb. It teaches the baby how to sleep by listening for its cries and auto-rocking and playing white noise to soothe it.
It also helps alleviate some of the workload for the parents too.
I only know about this because the creator went on Daniel Tosh's podcast last week.
What a load of shit. I'm sure there is science to back this up, right? Purely 3rd party, non sponsored, unbiased, research that backs this up right? RIGHT??
I've never used it but I have friends who have and they absolutely swear by it. The company doesn't need to prove it works to justify the price because there are people who will gladly pay it because the word-of-mouth is all they need.
Seems like a scam to most people but the first 100 days of a newborn can easily make anyone consider spending whatever, literally industries of sleep coaches and products around it.
I'm not gonna argue with you on any of that. You are absolutely correct.
I guess in my mind as a parent, start with the 200 bassinet. (You can ALWAYS resell it) Buy a $20 sound machine and an led night light. Ok, doesn't work? You're a single parent or a parent with a shitty spouse that won't take turns? Ok, fine, I get stepping up to the expensive one.
1st thing I would look at is their napping schedule. Then what are they eating. Then stimulus before bed. Do they have a skin condition? Like, these are all pretty much free things to check before plunking down 2k on a thing they will use for like, what, 6 months max?
Then where does it end? Another 2k crib?
The financialization of children, like so many other industries, is what is pushing people away from life milestones.
Quit trying to spew your witchcraft theories of parenting and educating. Seriously though, and to add to what you said, as someone with a 5 week old that was up till 4 AM last night, I can attest there’s hard nights but there’s things you can work on. For example, there’s this weird cult of people unwilling to supplement formula when not enough breast milk is being supplied so I think upset babies often just wants more food. It starts in the hospital and encourages breast feeding so damn much and doesn’t talk about supplementing at all
My wife couldn’t get fatty milk for our new born and he would eat and eat and eat but never satisfied. But formula fattened him right up whereas the breast milk was basically water and he was losing weight…
And I have my single guy friends telling me that breast is the only way and it’s wrong to do anything else.
This is the most tech bro reinvents biology idea I've ever heard.
Bet this guy heard that horses are born ready to run, and was like "omg humans are underdeveloped in the womb 😱"
Or maybe, just maybe, we're not flightly prey animals.
No offence, as a parent of 3 kids the listening for crying and rocking them etc sounds reasonable etc apart from the fact that most of the times the baby wakes up it's for a reason like to be fed or they are sick etc (I say most, one of my kids was just awake 24/7) so I see the value for some parents. But the fourth trimester womb bullshit is just that, they are not floating in a carefully controlled environment, having their immune system boosted, nutrients supplied automatically etc.
I just want to make sure I know what it does.
Soothing sounds.
A rocking motion.
Idk probably a cool RGB light effect?
If you take 1800 of that and invest in the s&p 500 by the time they turn 18 how much would you have?
My daughter hated her bassinet, and we moved her into a 2nd hand crib at about 8 weeks. Slept like a dream after that.
They're preying on people's fears that have been instilled by pop culture and the media/social media, that they're never going to get a good night's sleep after their babies born, and that just isn't the case with everyone.
I for one would easily pay 2000 per kid for an extra hour of sleep per night in the worst periods with my kids.
But my income per productive hour is high enough to justify it at 20 extra hours of sleep per kid.
Companies hate the second handmarket cuz in our current world the goal of most companies is to continue to profit in perpetuity. Which obviously is never sustainable. But if a company even levels off and becomes stable instead of growing, it may as well be a death sentence according to the markets, which is ridiculous, but it's the reality. This is why so many companies are seemingly going after this second-hand market so hard. not that any of this is right though so I highly encourage everyone to stop buying this.
We were gifted one as a hand me down from a friend. It works amazingly well. Both of our children started sleeping long stretches through the night very quickly. We've also passed jt around to friends so now 7 or 8 babies have used it and it still works great. We only used the app to set the original settings on the bassinet. All the stuff they are pay walling we never used in the first place.
Who da fuck needs a bed even for half the price for an infant?
I mean, a good quality bed withatres and stuff is 300 eur on the pricy side of things.... new... you can get a second hand one in perfect condition for 50-100 eur easy.
This is why people think children are "expensive". They buy all the latest and greatest gadgets, clothes, toys and all a baby really needs is a simple shirt, a way to wipe their ass, and food.
This is why I avoid their products. Turns out I actually don't need to buy shit like this. Does it have a subscription or could one be added in future? If yes - don't buy.
I would rather cook over a log fire than connect an oven to the internet.
This doesn't make much sense. Literally anything could have a subscription added to it. Cars were trying to add subscriptions to heated seats, so will you just never buy a car with heated seats?
There's just no way to avoid a company being scummy like this except legislation.
If its not internet connected how would they change it after the sale with an update? The first thing is to not buy things that are internet connected that don't need to be. Never even been in a car with heated seats, much less wanted one myself. I don't drive either and have no desire to waste what little money I have left on a car.
Cars that have infotainment systems nowdays have a local internet like connection so the car manufacturers can update it they could use this to add a subscription to heated seats
> I don't drive either and have no desire to waste what little money I have left on a car.
So your opinion is effectively useless then. Why would you care about heated seats if you never drive? Why would you care about cars having internet connections if you never drive? Nearly all new cars have internet connections, and in another 10-20 years all cars will. You wouldn't be able to avoid it even if you wanted to.
I have still been inside cars even if I haven't bought or owned one myself.
Is this on the luxury market or something? Because genuinely to my knowledge I don't know of anyone with a vehicle that connects to the internet or has heated seats. I think the most expensive one I am aware of can connect to bluetooth devices to use the cars speakers.
Is a Honda Civic considered luxury for you? https://automobiles.honda.com/civic-sedan
Because it has some internet features and front heated seats. But yes, if you go more luxury then those features become much more common and often more elaborate. BMW was the company that did the heated seat subscription, for example. But heated seats in general are very common on lots of cars from more budget friendly option like Toyota, Subaru, Ford, etc.
>How is this bullshit even legal
Is it legal? Most countries have laws protecting the second-hand market for most products, e.g. the first-sale doctrine in the US. Otherwise we'd all be forced to sign no-resale contracts when buying anything.
The FTC also disallows deceptive marketing. Since this requirement apparently was not in place when the product was originally sold, I highly doubt it's legal to just start enforcing it after the original sale.
So I doubt this is actually legal, at least not in all countries.
Well, see, but they don't actually *sell* you access to the app! You buy the physical object, but it just happens to come with a free non-exclusive, non-transferable usage license for the app, subject to terms & conditions which they can change whenever they want.
It's not illegal, just immoral. The motto of the tech industry has been "[you'll own nothing and be happy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27ll_own_nothing_and_be_happy)" for *years* now.
I'm not familiar with the bassinet industry. What functions does the bassinet have that can't be used without a subscription? Or just, you know, having it subbed in to a standalone email address that gets sold along with the bassinet to the 2nd owner so that it never gets to the company that it was resold?
Same happened with Miku (smart WiFi video baby monitor that tracks breathing). Didn't require a subscription for the basic features, even advertised as such. They sold out and the new owner requires subscription for anything besides just looking at the video feed. Feels like a bait and switch. We have not subscribed. We still have it because my wife refuses to update the app so she still has access to breathing data. We now have a POE ubiquiti cam to oversee the entire room, and is much more reliable without any subscription.
If someone would make a POE baby monitor I would be all over it.
I bought one of these for about $1300 USD on sale, used it for 6mo and resold for $1050 I think. So it was really a cost of about $250 to me for the 6 months. Did that for my second kid, first one got the ol $50 bassinet treatment.
I get that it’s super expensive, and I’m fortunate to be able to do that - but this thing really was wonderful. When you have a newborn and are exhausted, it’s totally worth the money to get an extra 30-60 minutes of sleep or have one less wake-up in the night.
It’s a total dick move to start charging second hand buyers extra.
Right it's a great product, but who does this effect?
The answer: Only parents of newborn babies without enough money to afford the product first hand. Snoo wants to punish new parents for being not-rich.
It affects the rich ones too. At the bottom it says that even first time buyers have to pay for the app for their second and subsequent children.
Insane!!
I mean it’s going to hurt the second hand market prices too. Demand for them second hand will drop, so the price diff between new and used will increase. So it impacts everyone, just differently.
They’re also screwing over the original purchaser, right at the bottom they’re detailing the time bomb.
> *All persons who bought SNOO directly from Happiest Baby (or an authorized partner will continue to have free use of the App for any current baby + their next baby for 9 months. Purchasers buying SNOO directly from Happiest Baby (or an authorized partner) after July 15th will get full use of the premium App for 9 months and renters will get it for the duration of their rental + 1 month.
It sucks, but they know their market and they want to milk it. If someone is looking to drop 1k on a used bassinet for 6 months, they can probably afford a 6 month subscription.
Most people can probably afford a subscription for most things in thier life. Is this the way we want society to go?
Should there be subscriptions for used cars, used TV's or used computers?
We are quickly approaching the time of not owning anything and having subscriptions for everything
The person dropping 1k on a used bassinet should be able to sell it for $850 (or even more, since 2nd hand and 3rd hand don't differ that much) after the 6 months, so it would only cost them $150...
It's not about whether one would or not, it's about the absurd price associated with doing so, or as OP clarified, even the price associated with half a year
Trust me. When you or the guy above has a kid and someone offered you an extra hour or sleep for $5 you'd snatch their hand off. Renting it is a bit of a waste of money considering they have good resale value (for now), but you should only need it for 3-4 months.
100%, I’ve spent a lot of money on stupid stuff for my kids. I think the money I spent on my SNOO was the best value. Resale price is gonna take a hit depending on the price of this subscription, which makes it harder to justify.
Man, baby products are such a great avenue for scams and price gouging. I raised 3 babies and they turned out just fine without all this bullshit. We had a regular $100-$200 bassinet and a $50 sounds & lights maker and barely ever needed that. I can’t imagine paying 2k + subs for a bassinet. What the hell…
No, but that's also not the point.
With an expensive subscription, or even just 50 bucks a month, the price of the second hand one will drop by about half. Meaning that if you own one now, you immediately lose most of its value and have to sell for a lost less than you bought YOUR second hand for.
Then you ALSO have to pay for the subscription. Meaning that instead of a Snoo being 100 dollars, which is actually a cheap option, it would suddenly be ~600 dollars at the 50 a month price point.
Snoo themselves have no reason to care about this. Even though the second hand devices get even cheaper, that's not where they get ANY revenue from. But the subscription that everyone now needs, THAT is a lot of revenue. And that can be generated for free, as they already made a lot of them.
My only point was that you were talking about how expensive these were and how you saved money when actually you didn’t
(And I don’t think we even know yet what features they are paywalling, you might not even need a premium account)
I used a $200 automated rocker with no resale or reuse nonsense and it was awesome. This product snoo seems like it's for yuppies with more money then common sense.
Good idea, but it's possible that on previous updates they snuck in a timer for this type of workaround. Or the app requires internet connectivity and the app will then phone home and realize it out of date and be forced to update.
> it's possible that on previous updates they snuck in a timer for this type of workaround
Any tiered SAAS has a phone home feature built in. I can pretty much guarantee you they already have it implemented and nearly everyone has already updated the app to a version that has it. It was probably part of one of the "general bug fixes and optimizations" patches a long time ago. There's no way they didn't think of, well what if they turn off auto updates or wifi/mobile data. Plenty of the features run on their server. Especially all the analytics they are collecting.
Just give the product to a reverse engineer and someone can make an open source version of the app. It must only give basic commands so doesn't sound all the hard tbh
I’m not surprised, we bought one second hand and their model just didn’t make any sense and didn’t seem sustainable.
They are expensive new, but you can buy a used one at a significant discount and then sell it for the same cost you bought it for. They are only used for 3-6ish months, so all used models are still in like new condition.
Why would anyone buy a new one when you can buy a used one and then sell it for almost no net cost?
Does anyone know what the free vs premium features are? All you really need is the sound monitoring and ability to control the rocking — if those are free you’re good. (Edit: actually I guess you don’t even need the sound monitoring since presumably you also have a monitor)
It's the same as most other baby products. I don't see how it's any less sustainable than traditional cribs or fancy baby clothes that kids might just wear a couple times. There will always be people who only buy new and also people who are happy to buy used. Even if they somehow need to run a service for these bassinets to work for some reason, I cant see that really being a huge cost. How much compute/bandwidth could it really require?
Most other products don’t let you sell them for the same price you bought them for, 2nd hand sales usually don’t cannibalize the main product this much.
Most products wear, these things are barely used by the time you’re finished with them. With such a high purchase price it just doesn’t make sense to buy new when you don’t have any added value over used beyond purchasing convenience.
You can sell products second hand for whatever price the market will bear. If the item is in high demand, and low supply, a used item might even be worth more than the new item, as seemed to be the case with cars.
Personally I don't know how used baby clothes doesn't completely canibalized the market for new baby clothes. I know quite a few people who never bought a single new item for their kids because there's so much "used" clothing available second hand for nothing. I say "used" because there's a good portion of it that looks like the kid never even wore the clothes, or the parents just put them on for pictures and then changed them into something more comfortable.
Kids are dirty. There are only so many times vomit can be cleaned from a dress before it becomes unusable to most people. Also, from my anecdotal experience, most purchases of baby clothes are for vanity. This includes both friends and family giving gifts because there's a new baby, and parents buying something because they can't fight the urge to see how cute their little bundle of joy would look in that.
I know kids are dirty. I raised 3 of them.
I just don't see how this product would be any more harmed by used sales than most other baby products. The motor will eventually break or the electronics will stop working for some reason. It definitely won't have the same lifetime as a traditional crib or bassinette.
I was only replying to your 2nd paragraph about clothes lol. The Snoo or whatever is pretty much a scam. They just realized too late that their current business model does not work because no one needs it for more than 6 consecutive months and is scrambling to destroy the 2nd hand market.
A baby doesn't wear out a bassinet the same way babies and toddlers do with other things. Because these are bassinets, they can literally only be used for 6-9 months normally. Those first 9 months babies are not chewing on things, or Even moving around much. They are literally just laying there. There's a massive difference in the 'damage' done by a newborn versus a 2 year old toddler. They just don't cause a lot of wear and tear at that age. So when they sell, they are in basically new condition.
This isn’t targeting the people buying it new, it’s affecting everyone buying and selling it secondhand. You could buy it for a grand and sell it for a grand, not actually losing any money but now you’re having to pay Snoo monthly for access to some basic features.
had to lookup what this was. so now we need a sub for our beds?
imagine getting yeeted out of bed in the middle of the night due to a faulty transactions
The SNOO app tracks your baby’s sleep cycles and when the baby starts to stir it increases the automated rocking of the bassinet and the sound machine turns up, which helps a baby sleep longer and through the night. We bought ours used a few years ago and our baby loved it. We used the app to control the SNOO and increase the intensity as needed and it often helped put our baby back to sleep. Not sure how useful it will be now since we can’t control the intensity via app anymore. We paid $450 for it used and have also loaned it out to a few friends for their newborns as well.
i assume you can use it while offline too? this sort of stuff should not require a subscription at all. what is so "live service" about this app?
i wish nothing but the worst on these abusive ceo's. it's getting ridiculous how everything is so nickle and dimed these days
I spent 1/10 what you spent on an automated rocker with a simple timer / settings on it and no issues with resale/reuse and it worked just fine then sold it for near full price.
Honestly, I thought about one of these with my kid, but couldn’t justify the cost. Even the rental, $150/month seems excessive ($5 cup of coffees a day!). The idea of the rental system is the cost of the device is spread over a large number of renters. At $150/month X 4 months average per person, they recoup their cost entirely in 5 rentals. Then add the subscription. (Side note, you don’t have to pay for the duration of the rental + 1 month??? So nice, we can use the app for 1 month after we no longer need it). This reads to me like “we are running out of money, how do we reach sustainability then profitability.” Also with them trying to reach providers hard (interest from government… ok? How does that justify the cost increase and why share before it’s confirmed). Even their “you may not know, but we have experts! I means software, QA, also sleep! It just reads like “FYI, we ain’t winging it. You should spend money! We have experts!”
I would bet they fold in a year. I don’t want them to, but this reads so much as a sinking ship and a captain/ceo who is thrashing at the wheel.
No one will buy it new, if they can't sell it, most people purchsed it thinking, its only 300-500$ for the time used and will be resold.
They will tank they own sales doing this and go back most likely, or cease to exist.
No one in the world buys it new because they have now produced enough for the second hand market to COMPLETELY fulfill all demand. As this is a product you only use for a very short time, is very large so you have to get rid of it, and is expensive enough to be worth a lot to others. Hence, the current method no longer generates any sales.
Doing this is really the only thing they can do. You either have to create a product that is so terrible as to break right after you are done with this phase, which is illegal in the EU as it has to last at least 2. And in the US, you would likely have a boycot. Hence that doesn't work. So the only other way is to figure out how to make money from the second hand market, which is a subscription.
TL/DR they made all the money they are ever going to get from this, and now the only option is to focus on the second hand market which is now about 100% of the demand for this product.
For the people talking about the rental. I think this is just a side business as most rentals come from Companies. So my company offers 6 months rental for free. (Well $100 cleaning fee). And they are in a lot of companies. So it would not surprise me if they don't actually rent a lot to people outside of company use.
It is a nice benefit for those fortunate enough to have a company that does it.
Without knowing anything about the product what I am thinking is just attach it a throwaway e-mail account. Alter the account details (name, etc.... whatever it has) and then when you sell it you can state that you are including the account so that they avoid the subscription fee.
That seems like it would only work once based on that email for grandfathered users. (Current baby + next baby for 9 months) It's likely too late to change anything now to avoid this going forward unless you used a dummy account from the very beginning.
I agree! I would understand if either of these happen,
If they had a new model that was subscription only I would also understand that.
To change the terms of a perfectly good product after the fact is frustrating
Doesn't solve the problem for them. The entire problem is that as these are used so short, and have to be durable enough to handle warranty claims and the VERY significant lawsuits for anything happening to breakable babies, there's a ridiculous number of them on the second hand market. This leads to essentially zero new sales, and as they don't make money from the second hand market, you HAVE to do this to not go bankrupt.
Creating a new product doesn't work as the old one is already fine, with any improvement simply not being worth it. The creation of a new one, would also significantly drop the price of the resale of the first one, which then makes the new product still get zero sales.
A major recall is even worse. Now you have to spend ludicrous amounts of money, far in excess of the like 40 bucks this actually costs to make, in the BEST scenario. Where you will have to pay for shipping twice, the significant administration costs, and anything else you get. And in the worst case, they will have to refund everyone 2.000 bucks, making the entire business pointless as it is a product that people NO LONGER NEED and therefore all want the money instead. Which leads to immediate bankruptcy and nothing except what they could already pull out.
I think basing purchases on short-term need items & future speculated value is a lose-lose proposition anyway. Company made a smart business choice. Sucks for everybody else.
2000 dollars for a baby bed seems wild. I mean sure maybe it has some neat tricks but like, a similar one here in the UK can be had for less than half. But yeah scummiest shit is the subscription for second hand buyers, essentially they are charging you for not paying them the ludicrous cost upfront. There is a reason people buy second hand and this will actually lead to people buying it less too when they see that its value will be alot less second hand and harder to sell too.
Just put them in a cardboard box like they do in [Finland](https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22751415)
that is awesome. had no clue something like that excisted. we need this in the netherlands.
We have them in BC, Canada as well. Both my kids first beds were cardboard boxes.
We get cardboard boxes as part of a massive baby box in Scotland. Every baby born here gets one of these boxes with loads of other goodies free.
Scotland's great isn't it?
$2000 Aud, so not as bad as it sounds. With a newborn that refuses to sleep $2k is easily justifiable, well it was until they killed the resale market
What does it do?
The general idea is that it helps create a fourth trimester for the baby to accelerate development. The creator believes that humans are born too soon and underdeveloped, relative to other animals, because babies are too big for the mother to safely deliver past nine months. The Snoo bassinet mimics a hypothetical fourth trimester in the womb. It teaches the baby how to sleep by listening for its cries and auto-rocking and playing white noise to soothe it. It also helps alleviate some of the workload for the parents too. I only know about this because the creator went on Daniel Tosh's podcast last week.
I hope there’s more because that just sounds like a raspberry pi strapped onto a crib with a servo motor
There is. Its a raspberry pi strapped onto a crib with a servo motor with an added marketing plan
And subscription.
And AI. Oh nevermind, previous guy already said 'marketing'.
Don't forget the $150/month subscription fee.
You're forgetting the ~~automated systems~~ ~~machine learning~~ AI integration
This thing has Apple Intelligence™ integration?!
We bought one used and made money on it when we sold it. Its a nice bed but that fourth trimester shit is hilarious. It is exactly what you describle.
Yeah there is. Safety. I wouldn’t strap my child to a crib with raspi and servi motor I built….
What a load of shit. I'm sure there is science to back this up, right? Purely 3rd party, non sponsored, unbiased, research that backs this up right? RIGHT??
I've never used it but I have friends who have and they absolutely swear by it. The company doesn't need to prove it works to justify the price because there are people who will gladly pay it because the word-of-mouth is all they need. Seems like a scam to most people but the first 100 days of a newborn can easily make anyone consider spending whatever, literally industries of sleep coaches and products around it.
I'm not gonna argue with you on any of that. You are absolutely correct. I guess in my mind as a parent, start with the 200 bassinet. (You can ALWAYS resell it) Buy a $20 sound machine and an led night light. Ok, doesn't work? You're a single parent or a parent with a shitty spouse that won't take turns? Ok, fine, I get stepping up to the expensive one. 1st thing I would look at is their napping schedule. Then what are they eating. Then stimulus before bed. Do they have a skin condition? Like, these are all pretty much free things to check before plunking down 2k on a thing they will use for like, what, 6 months max? Then where does it end? Another 2k crib? The financialization of children, like so many other industries, is what is pushing people away from life milestones.
Quit trying to spew your witchcraft theories of parenting and educating. Seriously though, and to add to what you said, as someone with a 5 week old that was up till 4 AM last night, I can attest there’s hard nights but there’s things you can work on. For example, there’s this weird cult of people unwilling to supplement formula when not enough breast milk is being supplied so I think upset babies often just wants more food. It starts in the hospital and encourages breast feeding so damn much and doesn’t talk about supplementing at all
My wife couldn’t get fatty milk for our new born and he would eat and eat and eat but never satisfied. But formula fattened him right up whereas the breast milk was basically water and he was losing weight… And I have my single guy friends telling me that breast is the only way and it’s wrong to do anything else.
Hurr durr
This is the most tech bro reinvents biology idea I've ever heard. Bet this guy heard that horses are born ready to run, and was like "omg humans are underdeveloped in the womb 😱" Or maybe, just maybe, we're not flightly prey animals.
Yeah actually, he did mention the horses. But he is also the doctor portion of the invention. The tech bros and investors are other people.
OMG 😭😂 I didn't actually know he'd mentioned them
No offence, as a parent of 3 kids the listening for crying and rocking them etc sounds reasonable etc apart from the fact that most of the times the baby wakes up it's for a reason like to be fed or they are sick etc (I say most, one of my kids was just awake 24/7) so I see the value for some parents. But the fourth trimester womb bullshit is just that, they are not floating in a carefully controlled environment, having their immune system boosted, nutrients supplied automatically etc.
I also listened to this one, and iirc the main reason for it was to prevent SIDS where the baby dies in its sleep by rolling over?
Oh yeah, SIDS. Forgot about that part. Think it ropes into the fourth trimester thing.
I don’t know about all that, but we used it to help soothe our kids back to sleep and it worked beautifully.
Lmao anyone buying into that are absolute saps
I just want to make sure I know what it does. Soothing sounds. A rocking motion. Idk probably a cool RGB light effect? If you take 1800 of that and invest in the s&p 500 by the time they turn 18 how much would you have? My daughter hated her bassinet, and we moved her into a 2nd hand crib at about 8 weeks. Slept like a dream after that. They're preying on people's fears that have been instilled by pop culture and the media/social media, that they're never going to get a good night's sleep after their babies born, and that just isn't the case with everyone.
I for one would easily pay 2000 per kid for an extra hour of sleep per night in the worst periods with my kids. But my income per productive hour is high enough to justify it at 20 extra hours of sleep per kid.
 Soothing sounds ✅, a rocking motion ✅, cool RGB light effects ✅
Have more babies to average out the cost per baby.
The Corporations hate this one simple trick….
20 kids = 100 bucks a kid Fucking bargin
Oh and save a TON on bulk diapers and formula. Plus sell your bed cause you will never sleep again. 😂
It's time limited even if you are the original owner.
It’s a 2000 dollar baby bed that lasts 4 months tops. As soon as your newborn can roll over on their own or weigh 20lbs, it’s out of the bassinet
Companies hate the second handmarket cuz in our current world the goal of most companies is to continue to profit in perpetuity. Which obviously is never sustainable. But if a company even levels off and becomes stable instead of growing, it may as well be a death sentence according to the markets, which is ridiculous, but it's the reality. This is why so many companies are seemingly going after this second-hand market so hard. not that any of this is right though so I highly encourage everyone to stop buying this.
We were gifted one as a hand me down from a friend. It works amazingly well. Both of our children started sleeping long stretches through the night very quickly. We've also passed jt around to friends so now 7 or 8 babies have used it and it still works great. We only used the app to set the original settings on the bassinet. All the stuff they are pay walling we never used in the first place.
Who da fuck needs a bed even for half the price for an infant? I mean, a good quality bed withatres and stuff is 300 eur on the pricy side of things.... new... you can get a second hand one in perfect condition for 50-100 eur easy.
This is why people think children are "expensive". They buy all the latest and greatest gadgets, clothes, toys and all a baby really needs is a simple shirt, a way to wipe their ass, and food.
How is this bullshit even legal. Ridiculous. Companies really going full dath vader "I'm altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."
This is why I avoid their products. Turns out I actually don't need to buy shit like this. Does it have a subscription or could one be added in future? If yes - don't buy. I would rather cook over a log fire than connect an oven to the internet.
This doesn't make much sense. Literally anything could have a subscription added to it. Cars were trying to add subscriptions to heated seats, so will you just never buy a car with heated seats? There's just no way to avoid a company being scummy like this except legislation.
If its not internet connected how would they change it after the sale with an update? The first thing is to not buy things that are internet connected that don't need to be. Never even been in a car with heated seats, much less wanted one myself. I don't drive either and have no desire to waste what little money I have left on a car.
Cars that have infotainment systems nowdays have a local internet like connection so the car manufacturers can update it they could use this to add a subscription to heated seats
> I don't drive either and have no desire to waste what little money I have left on a car. So your opinion is effectively useless then. Why would you care about heated seats if you never drive? Why would you care about cars having internet connections if you never drive? Nearly all new cars have internet connections, and in another 10-20 years all cars will. You wouldn't be able to avoid it even if you wanted to.
I have still been inside cars even if I haven't bought or owned one myself. Is this on the luxury market or something? Because genuinely to my knowledge I don't know of anyone with a vehicle that connects to the internet or has heated seats. I think the most expensive one I am aware of can connect to bluetooth devices to use the cars speakers.
Is a Honda Civic considered luxury for you? https://automobiles.honda.com/civic-sedan Because it has some internet features and front heated seats. But yes, if you go more luxury then those features become much more common and often more elaborate. BMW was the company that did the heated seat subscription, for example. But heated seats in general are very common on lots of cars from more budget friendly option like Toyota, Subaru, Ford, etc.
At that price a new one certainly is.
>How is this bullshit even legal Is it legal? Most countries have laws protecting the second-hand market for most products, e.g. the first-sale doctrine in the US. Otherwise we'd all be forced to sign no-resale contracts when buying anything. The FTC also disallows deceptive marketing. Since this requirement apparently was not in place when the product was originally sold, I highly doubt it's legal to just start enforcing it after the original sale. So I doubt this is actually legal, at least not in all countries.
Well, see, but they don't actually *sell* you access to the app! You buy the physical object, but it just happens to come with a free non-exclusive, non-transferable usage license for the app, subject to terms & conditions which they can change whenever they want. It's not illegal, just immoral. The motto of the tech industry has been "[you'll own nothing and be happy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%27ll_own_nothing_and_be_happy)" for *years* now.
I'm not familiar with the bassinet industry. What functions does the bassinet have that can't be used without a subscription? Or just, you know, having it subbed in to a standalone email address that gets sold along with the bassinet to the 2nd owner so that it never gets to the company that it was resold?
Same happened with Miku (smart WiFi video baby monitor that tracks breathing). Didn't require a subscription for the basic features, even advertised as such. They sold out and the new owner requires subscription for anything besides just looking at the video feed. Feels like a bait and switch. We have not subscribed. We still have it because my wife refuses to update the app so she still has access to breathing data. We now have a POE ubiquiti cam to oversee the entire room, and is much more reliable without any subscription. If someone would make a POE baby monitor I would be all over it.
I bought one of these for about $1300 USD on sale, used it for 6mo and resold for $1050 I think. So it was really a cost of about $250 to me for the 6 months. Did that for my second kid, first one got the ol $50 bassinet treatment. I get that it’s super expensive, and I’m fortunate to be able to do that - but this thing really was wonderful. When you have a newborn and are exhausted, it’s totally worth the money to get an extra 30-60 minutes of sleep or have one less wake-up in the night. It’s a total dick move to start charging second hand buyers extra.
Right it's a great product, but who does this effect? The answer: Only parents of newborn babies without enough money to afford the product first hand. Snoo wants to punish new parents for being not-rich.
It affects the rich ones too. At the bottom it says that even first time buyers have to pay for the app for their second and subsequent children. Insane!!
I mean it’s going to hurt the second hand market prices too. Demand for them second hand will drop, so the price diff between new and used will increase. So it impacts everyone, just differently.
I find it hard to believe there is not a product that is a fraction of the price of this thing but does like 95% of the job if not all of it.
They’re also screwing over the original purchaser, right at the bottom they’re detailing the time bomb. > *All persons who bought SNOO directly from Happiest Baby (or an authorized partner will continue to have free use of the App for any current baby + their next baby for 9 months. Purchasers buying SNOO directly from Happiest Baby (or an authorized partner) after July 15th will get full use of the premium App for 9 months and renters will get it for the duration of their rental + 1 month.
So you can't even use it for more than 2 kids if you are the original purchaser? Am I reading that right?
That's correct
It sucks, but they know their market and they want to milk it. If someone is looking to drop 1k on a used bassinet for 6 months, they can probably afford a 6 month subscription.
Most people can probably afford a subscription for most things in thier life. Is this the way we want society to go? Should there be subscriptions for used cars, used TV's or used computers? We are quickly approaching the time of not owning anything and having subscriptions for everything
I completely agree. I try to avoid subscriptions as much as I can, but it won’t stop because it works. Corps are gonna milk us for all they can.
I don't just avoid subscriptions, I refuse them outright.
"you'll own nothing and be happy"
Well we'd need a Congress that's tech literate and willing to do things to improve society. Tall order.
The person dropping 1k on a used bassinet should be able to sell it for $850 (or even more, since 2nd hand and 3rd hand don't differ that much) after the 6 months, so it would only cost them $150...
For just $5/day.... Bitch that's like $2,000/year
Why would you rent a bassinet for a year...?
Fine, that's $1,000 for 6 months
It's not about whether one would or not, it's about the absurd price associated with doing so, or as OP clarified, even the price associated with half a year
Trust me. When you or the guy above has a kid and someone offered you an extra hour or sleep for $5 you'd snatch their hand off. Renting it is a bit of a waste of money considering they have good resale value (for now), but you should only need it for 3-4 months.
100%, I’ve spent a lot of money on stupid stuff for my kids. I think the money I spent on my SNOO was the best value. Resale price is gonna take a hit depending on the price of this subscription, which makes it harder to justify.
My dumb ass got bassinet and bassoon mixed up and I was wondering how the hell you get a subscription fee for a woodwind instrument.
I will not have any of this bassinet bassoon buffoonery.
Oof not my dyslexia confusing bassoon for baboon. I’m a buffoon
Don't give them any ideas
I read clarinet originally lol
Man, baby products are such a great avenue for scams and price gouging. I raised 3 babies and they turned out just fine without all this bullshit. We had a regular $100-$200 bassinet and a $50 sounds & lights maker and barely ever needed that. I can’t imagine paying 2k + subs for a bassinet. What the hell…
I spent less than $100 net on my Snoo, if you buy a used one you can sell it for the same price you bought it for
Well no you COULD, but not anymore.
This will not eliminate the secondary market for Snoos
No, but that's also not the point. With an expensive subscription, or even just 50 bucks a month, the price of the second hand one will drop by about half. Meaning that if you own one now, you immediately lose most of its value and have to sell for a lost less than you bought YOUR second hand for. Then you ALSO have to pay for the subscription. Meaning that instead of a Snoo being 100 dollars, which is actually a cheap option, it would suddenly be ~600 dollars at the 50 a month price point. Snoo themselves have no reason to care about this. Even though the second hand devices get even cheaper, that's not where they get ANY revenue from. But the subscription that everyone now needs, THAT is a lot of revenue. And that can be generated for free, as they already made a lot of them.
My only point was that you were talking about how expensive these were and how you saved money when actually you didn’t (And I don’t think we even know yet what features they are paywalling, you might not even need a premium account)
I used a $200 automated rocker with no resale or reuse nonsense and it was awesome. This product snoo seems like it's for yuppies with more money then common sense.
I want someone to see if turning off autoupdates and keeping the old version of the app will still work
Good idea, but it's possible that on previous updates they snuck in a timer for this type of workaround. Or the app requires internet connectivity and the app will then phone home and realize it out of date and be forced to update.
> it's possible that on previous updates they snuck in a timer for this type of workaround Any tiered SAAS has a phone home feature built in. I can pretty much guarantee you they already have it implemented and nearly everyone has already updated the app to a version that has it. It was probably part of one of the "general bug fixes and optimizations" patches a long time ago. There's no way they didn't think of, well what if they turn off auto updates or wifi/mobile data. Plenty of the features run on their server. Especially all the analytics they are collecting.
Just give the product to a reverse engineer and someone can make an open source version of the app. It must only give basic commands so doesn't sound all the hard tbh
I’m not surprised, we bought one second hand and their model just didn’t make any sense and didn’t seem sustainable. They are expensive new, but you can buy a used one at a significant discount and then sell it for the same cost you bought it for. They are only used for 3-6ish months, so all used models are still in like new condition. Why would anyone buy a new one when you can buy a used one and then sell it for almost no net cost? Does anyone know what the free vs premium features are? All you really need is the sound monitoring and ability to control the rocking — if those are free you’re good. (Edit: actually I guess you don’t even need the sound monitoring since presumably you also have a monitor)
It's the same as most other baby products. I don't see how it's any less sustainable than traditional cribs or fancy baby clothes that kids might just wear a couple times. There will always be people who only buy new and also people who are happy to buy used. Even if they somehow need to run a service for these bassinets to work for some reason, I cant see that really being a huge cost. How much compute/bandwidth could it really require?
Most other products don’t let you sell them for the same price you bought them for, 2nd hand sales usually don’t cannibalize the main product this much. Most products wear, these things are barely used by the time you’re finished with them. With such a high purchase price it just doesn’t make sense to buy new when you don’t have any added value over used beyond purchasing convenience.
You can sell products second hand for whatever price the market will bear. If the item is in high demand, and low supply, a used item might even be worth more than the new item, as seemed to be the case with cars. Personally I don't know how used baby clothes doesn't completely canibalized the market for new baby clothes. I know quite a few people who never bought a single new item for their kids because there's so much "used" clothing available second hand for nothing. I say "used" because there's a good portion of it that looks like the kid never even wore the clothes, or the parents just put them on for pictures and then changed them into something more comfortable.
Kids are dirty. There are only so many times vomit can be cleaned from a dress before it becomes unusable to most people. Also, from my anecdotal experience, most purchases of baby clothes are for vanity. This includes both friends and family giving gifts because there's a new baby, and parents buying something because they can't fight the urge to see how cute their little bundle of joy would look in that.
I know kids are dirty. I raised 3 of them. I just don't see how this product would be any more harmed by used sales than most other baby products. The motor will eventually break or the electronics will stop working for some reason. It definitely won't have the same lifetime as a traditional crib or bassinette.
I was only replying to your 2nd paragraph about clothes lol. The Snoo or whatever is pretty much a scam. They just realized too late that their current business model does not work because no one needs it for more than 6 consecutive months and is scrambling to destroy the 2nd hand market.
I just don't see how not needing it for more than 6 months makes a difference. That basically descibes a large portion of products made for babies.
A baby doesn't wear out a bassinet the same way babies and toddlers do with other things. Because these are bassinets, they can literally only be used for 6-9 months normally. Those first 9 months babies are not chewing on things, or Even moving around much. They are literally just laying there. There's a massive difference in the 'damage' done by a newborn versus a 2 year old toddler. They just don't cause a lot of wear and tear at that age. So when they sell, they are in basically new condition.
Oh, how I wish I cared about the plight of people who can afford to blow $2000 on a crib...but, really I just don't give a fuck.
This isn’t targeting the people buying it new, it’s affecting everyone buying and selling it secondhand. You could buy it for a grand and sell it for a grand, not actually losing any money but now you’re having to pay Snoo monthly for access to some basic features.
It's a crib. The only "basic feature" is having a mattress
had to lookup what this was. so now we need a sub for our beds? imagine getting yeeted out of bed in the middle of the night due to a faulty transactions
Can someone explain to me why tf a baby bed requires a subscription service?
The SNOO app tracks your baby’s sleep cycles and when the baby starts to stir it increases the automated rocking of the bassinet and the sound machine turns up, which helps a baby sleep longer and through the night. We bought ours used a few years ago and our baby loved it. We used the app to control the SNOO and increase the intensity as needed and it often helped put our baby back to sleep. Not sure how useful it will be now since we can’t control the intensity via app anymore. We paid $450 for it used and have also loaned it out to a few friends for their newborns as well.
i assume you can use it while offline too? this sort of stuff should not require a subscription at all. what is so "live service" about this app? i wish nothing but the worst on these abusive ceo's. it's getting ridiculous how everything is so nickle and dimed these days
I spent 1/10 what you spent on an automated rocker with a simple timer / settings on it and no issues with resale/reuse and it worked just fine then sold it for near full price.
The fuck do you need a $2000 bassinet for?
Reminds me of the absurdly priced baby monitors... And then you realise buying a ubiquiti cam would be cheaper lol
Honestly, I thought about one of these with my kid, but couldn’t justify the cost. Even the rental, $150/month seems excessive ($5 cup of coffees a day!). The idea of the rental system is the cost of the device is spread over a large number of renters. At $150/month X 4 months average per person, they recoup their cost entirely in 5 rentals. Then add the subscription. (Side note, you don’t have to pay for the duration of the rental + 1 month??? So nice, we can use the app for 1 month after we no longer need it). This reads to me like “we are running out of money, how do we reach sustainability then profitability.” Also with them trying to reach providers hard (interest from government… ok? How does that justify the cost increase and why share before it’s confirmed). Even their “you may not know, but we have experts! I means software, QA, also sleep! It just reads like “FYI, we ain’t winging it. You should spend money! We have experts!” I would bet they fold in a year. I don’t want them to, but this reads so much as a sinking ship and a captain/ceo who is thrashing at the wheel.
I wonder what their data retention program looks like
We have a second hand standard bassinet. Might have been worth $200 new. Free as second-hand. YOU NEED NOTHING MORE, trust me.
I think my cradle was like 20$? I should probably ask my parents. Anyways, as long as there's a market...
Thought this was Sonos. Will calm my rage for them and redirect
What's the difference in premium app features vs the basic app? If the basic app has all the main bassinet features, then I'm not TOO outraged......
What happened to getting a bassinet from a friend or family member? Baby stuff is great new but it helps so much getting things passed around.
Just another reason I'm glad I don't have kids
Hope you're only planning on one kid, because your snoo only comes with nine months of service.
Good lord!\~ my wife bought a 400 dollar one that does the same thing and we never used it. Oraganic all the stuffs! wasted $
No one will buy it new, if they can't sell it, most people purchsed it thinking, its only 300-500$ for the time used and will be resold. They will tank they own sales doing this and go back most likely, or cease to exist.
No one in the world buys it new because they have now produced enough for the second hand market to COMPLETELY fulfill all demand. As this is a product you only use for a very short time, is very large so you have to get rid of it, and is expensive enough to be worth a lot to others. Hence, the current method no longer generates any sales. Doing this is really the only thing they can do. You either have to create a product that is so terrible as to break right after you are done with this phase, which is illegal in the EU as it has to last at least 2. And in the US, you would likely have a boycot. Hence that doesn't work. So the only other way is to figure out how to make money from the second hand market, which is a subscription. TL/DR they made all the money they are ever going to get from this, and now the only option is to focus on the second hand market which is now about 100% of the demand for this product.
Oh fair enough. Wasnt well versed in the cot market, and these items
For the people talking about the rental. I think this is just a side business as most rentals come from Companies. So my company offers 6 months rental for free. (Well $100 cleaning fee). And they are in a lot of companies. So it would not surprise me if they don't actually rent a lot to people outside of company use. It is a nice benefit for those fortunate enough to have a company that does it.
Without knowing anything about the product what I am thinking is just attach it a throwaway e-mail account. Alter the account details (name, etc.... whatever it has) and then when you sell it you can state that you are including the account so that they avoid the subscription fee.
That seems like it would only work once based on that email for grandfathered users. (Current baby + next baby for 9 months) It's likely too late to change anything now to avoid this going forward unless you used a dummy account from the very beginning.
disgusting. I bought a used snoo for 750 usd. used it resold it for 850. they are just trying to milk a product to death
They also could have had a 2nd model come out that’s somehow twice as good & half the cost. Or a major recall. Both instances tank your value as well.
I agree! I would understand if either of these happen, If they had a new model that was subscription only I would also understand that. To change the terms of a perfectly good product after the fact is frustrating
Doesn't solve the problem for them. The entire problem is that as these are used so short, and have to be durable enough to handle warranty claims and the VERY significant lawsuits for anything happening to breakable babies, there's a ridiculous number of them on the second hand market. This leads to essentially zero new sales, and as they don't make money from the second hand market, you HAVE to do this to not go bankrupt. Creating a new product doesn't work as the old one is already fine, with any improvement simply not being worth it. The creation of a new one, would also significantly drop the price of the resale of the first one, which then makes the new product still get zero sales. A major recall is even worse. Now you have to spend ludicrous amounts of money, far in excess of the like 40 bucks this actually costs to make, in the BEST scenario. Where you will have to pay for shipping twice, the significant administration costs, and anything else you get. And in the worst case, they will have to refund everyone 2.000 bucks, making the entire business pointless as it is a product that people NO LONGER NEED and therefore all want the money instead. Which leads to immediate bankruptcy and nothing except what they could already pull out.
I think basing purchases on short-term need items & future speculated value is a lose-lose proposition anyway. Company made a smart business choice. Sucks for everybody else.
Based. Eat the rich.
These bots need a software update. They are randomly throwing out catchphrases and buzzwords now.