New parenthood comes with a whirlwind of information, advertisements, and unsolicited advice, which makes an already-overwhelming transition feel even more complicated. While researching choices for our registry, one thing I wished for was more reviews of the smart crib we ended up choosing, Cradlewise. It’s relatively new to the market in comparison to its main competitor, the Snoo, and I had a hard time finding reviews that were not sponsored or gifted, and which didn’t contain affiliate links (kind of a gray-area for sponsorship: would you still be telling me about this expensive item if you didn’t get a kick-back?). For that reason, I’m now writing this Cradlewise review: not sponsored, with no affiliate links, and after several months of use. I’ll be sharing a brief summary of what Cradlewise does, compare it to its main competitor, and share about our experience, favorite aspects, and hopeful future points of improvement.
Surprise! If you follow me on Instagram, you already know this, but I had a baby this fall. While I may choose to share some of my story and experiences of motherhood in the future, for now I’m keeping that part of my life private—and I plan to keep our child’s life, name, and likeness completely private indefinitely.
Cradlewise review: Why a smart crib?
The Cradlewise is a “smart crib” — it bounces when your child starts stirring to help them fall back asleep, and it includes a built-in baby monitor and sound machine. We wanted a smart crib because we really wanted to prioritize our sleep in the early months, and that meant prioritizing the baby’s sleep. I had heard rave reviews from parents with smart cribs, and we decided early on that this was an area where we were willing to splurge.
How we chose Cradlewise vs. Snoo
In comparison to the Snoo, which rocks in a side-to-side twisting motion that is, apparently, crack for babies, Cradlewise gently bounces up and down. I was worried that might be less likely to calm the baby down (spoiler: it wasn’t), and I had some concerns because, as noted above, it was harder to find reviews of Cradlewise because it’s a newer company.
In the end, we still chose Cradlewise over the Snoo for a few reasons:
- While Snoo can be used for only the first 6 months (or until a baby hits 25 pounds or can be on their hands and knees), Cradlewise can be used until a child is two. It has a bassinet mode and a crib mode.
- I really liked the idea of the built-in baby monitor feature.
- I saw screenshots of the sleep reports in-app and was interested in having that kind of data for my baby’s sleep. You can see screenshots of this below.
- I had heard horror stories about the transition from Snoo to normal crib. Because it felt like the difference between the Cradlewise and a crib was smaller than for the Snoo, and because the transition with a Cradlewise would be happening at an older age, I hoped this would be less of a big deal for us.
- This was a smaller plus for us, but I liked the idea of having a built-in noise machine.
- Finally, at the time we were making our purchase decision, Snoo had just announced a very contentious subscription feature, which puts most of the existing features of the crib behind a paywall after the first few months. I really hate subscription models for physical products, and that absolutely influenced my decision not to buy a Snoo. (Funnily enough, on the day I started writing this review, Cradlewise announced Cradlewise Plus, a subscription for new additional features. I’ll share some thoughts on that below.)
Cradlewise price vs. Snoo pricing
Price was not a big factor in making the choice between Snoo and Cradlewise, because we were willing to spend more for the right product. However, as a point of comparison:
Snoo pricing:
- New: Snoos are currently selling new for $1695. The product includes 9 months of the app and Snoo features, meaning that for future children, it’s an additional $20/mo of use, or +$120 for 6 months.
- Rented: They also offer a rental model: $159/mo, plus a $100 cleaning fee, a $59 shipping fee, and a $50 security deposit. If you use it for 6 months, that means $1163 for a rented Snoo.
- Secondhand: It’s not uncommon to see secondhand Snoos on Facebook Marketplace for $500-800. To activate the app and access the features of the Snoo through it is $20/mo. For six months of use, thats’s $620-920.
Cradlewise pricing:
- Depending on your shipping window, Cradlewise cribs are currently selling for $1399-1699 new. I bought our Cradlewise for $1399, four months before the crib was supposed to ship (if you want it immediately, you’ll pay closer to $1699).
- Secondhand, I’ve seen them on Facebook Marketplace for $1000-1800.
Our experience with Cradlewise
Cradlewise review: 5/5
We’ve loved our Cradlewise for the three months we’ve had it. We started using it on our child’s first night home. While we can’t say how their sleep would be without the Cradlewise, I’ll say that with it, our baby is an exceptionally good sleeper. Starting at around 4 weeks, they woke only once or twice a night, with an additional wake-up arond 8am before a late morning nap.
According to the Cradlewise app, it’s currently soothing our baby back to sleep an average of five times per night. We’ve also witnessed this happen: sometimes the baby stirs and start kicking and grunting, and the crib’s bouncing action will lull them back to sleep in about a minute. (Don’t tell the Cradlewise people, but when this happened once around 2am, Ken said to me, “I would have paid double for this.” 😂.)
An unexpected feature of the crib that I really appreciate is its thermometer. We can see the room temperature in the app, which helped put us at ease that the room was a safe temperature for the baby.
Cradlewise app: 4.5/5
I really love the Cradlewise app. The homepage features the baby monitor’s live feed, which you can also put in picture-in-picture mode so you can keep an eye on the baby while using other apps on your phone. You can also view the room temperature and adjust soothing (bounce and sound) settings from this page.
The app also has a Sleep Insights tab, where you can see a summary of sleep, wake, and stirring times from the day, and an Explore tab with insights for new parents. I’ll discuss the Sound tab below, in the sound machine section.
One area where the app could improve is including video clips from the night under Sleep Insights. This is a nice-to-have and not a must-have feature, and as of today, Cradlewise has shared via an email to customers that they’re including this feature in the new Cradlewise Plus add-on, which I’ll share thoughts on below.
Built-in baby monitor: 5/5
I’ll keep it brief: I love the baby monitor and have no critical feedback. It’s really nice to have this built into the crib; it means one less item in the bedroom and one less app and installation to worry about. The camera quality could be marginally better, but I’m not looking to record memories. I just want to be able to see what our baby is up to. (And, for fellow anxious moms: the quality is good enough that I can zoom in to see that the baby is breathing.)
Built-in sound machine: 2/5
This is the one element of Cradlewise that’s been underwhelming. The sound machine includes only four tracks. I find both the quality of the tracks and the sound quality of the speaker worse than for our Hatch Rest noise machine. (I’m actually not a huge fan of Hatch because of their subscription upcharge model—but the sounds and sound quality are both good.) Here’s a comparison:
The sound itself also didn’t seem to soothe our baby very much, so we disabled it in the soothing settings. Now the crib only bounces to soothe the baby back to sleep (which is enough). We do use the sound machine as a speaker for Spotify music in the mornings, which is actually really nice!
Other Cradlewise review notes: shipping, set-up, and look
Shipping
Some Cradlewise users had issues with their cribs coming weeks late, due to an issue with imports from the foreign manufacturer. My crib was about a week later than promised, and I ordered it to arrive a month before our baby was born, just to be safe. We didn’t have any other issues with shipping.
Assembly
Crib set-up and assembly were extremely easy, and the crib packaging and instructions were clearly designed with a lot of thought and attention to detail. I had a close friend help me with this, and she remarked that it was a lot easier than setting up her child’s crib.
Design
This is subjective, but Ken and I also both really like the look and design of the crib. It feels high-end and thoughtfully made. The build quality is very high, and the crib feels like a high-end product. Ken also wanted me to mention that the motor that causes the crib to bounce is close to silent, which is a huge plus for us, since it’s in our bedroom.
Thoughts on Cradlewise Plus
Coincidentally, I received an email today announcing Cradlewise Plus, a new optional paid subscription plan. The email stresses that all existing features of the app will continue to be included with the crib, and that the new plan only unlocks new, optional features, specifically:
- Video alerts: 30-second video clips with each baby notification
- Sleep flipbook: A visual recap of your baby’s night to help understand sleep patterns
- Lullabies: A new music player featuring lullabies, plus the option to record voice memos for your baby
- Web-based streaming: The ability to watch the baby’s video feed on devices other than a phone using a secure web portal.
I hate subscription models. But…
This is a Cradlewise review, not a review of Cradlewise Plus, but I’d like to share some preliminary thoughts on the promised feature. I’m extremely critical of subscription models for physical products (it’s part of why I hate the Hatch Rest). That said, in this case the original features of the crib are not being gatekept behind a paywall; I personally feel that the Hatch Rest is a half-baked product without the subscription, and the Cradlewise is a full product without it. Further, in my personal opinion, the Cradlewise is currently being sold for less than it’s worth (which may be insane to say about a $1400-$1700 product).
I believe that Cradlewise is currently trying to undercut Snoo to get a foothold in the market, but they’re offering far more features and far greater product longevity than their competitor (compare $1695/6 months to $1400/24 months: $280 vs. $60/mo). It is not a Snoo alternative, but a product in its own right with more features. It makes sense to me that, like many other companies, they’d like to get recurring revenue from their customers. I don’t like it, but I’m less resentful of them for doing this than, say, Hatch, because they are still delivering a complete product separate of the subscription add-on.
Personally, the main feature in Cradlewise Plus that I’m curious about is the ability to see video clips from the previous night, both for notifications and in the ‘night recap’—I’m hoping these will be visible in the Sleep Insights tab. However, the features do feel like add-ons, and unless those video clips really blow me away, I’m unlikely to pay $10-14/mo for them (the current pricing). I personally would rather have paid more for the crib with these features included, than having a cheaper crib with an add-on subscription.
Final thoughts
In summary, the Cradlewise has been absolutely worth it for us. I don’t know what our baby’s sleep would have been like without it, but with Cradlewise, we have been better-rested than most new parents I know. While this was our big new-baby splurge item, our experience has been so positive that, in hindsight, I would have paid more for this. We would absolutely choose to use it again.
