Cradlewise Smart Crib Review
Like having an extra caretaker
Becoming a parent is arguably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. You constantly hear about how important it is for you to get rest and to sleep when the baby sleeps. But can technology help bridge that gap and improve baby’s sleep thus improving new parent’s sleep? Cradlewise certainly thinks so. Cradlewise is a smart crib advertised to sustain a baby for the first two years of a their life that uses motion to bounce and soothe the baby to sleep in real time. How does it perform in real life? We actually own this and went through our own life experience as first time parents with our son using this smart crib. Here’s a real account of what the Cradlewise can and can’t do for you.
Retail Price: $1,499.00
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How it Works
While other smart cribs use side-to-side movement, the Cradlewise bounces to mimic what caregivers may typically do when trying to soothe a baby themselves. Cradlewise uses a built-in monitor to detect when a baby is beginning to stir - whether that’s through sound or motion it will determine the scenario and act upon it. Depending on the setting, the Cradlewise will then bounce for a certain amount of time and then gently slow and stop. Cradlewise advertises that the crib is proactive and is able to give parents up to 2 more hours of sleep each night.
But there’s a lot more to the Cradlewise than just the bounce feature. And while that’s the whole purpose of the crib, there’s also plenty of other functionality through the Cradlewise app, including a built-in camera, sleep insights, sleep tracks, and more that makes this a complete package as a baby-sitting assistant.
The Crib
Before we get into the app, let’s first dive into the look and feel of the crib itself. We initially decided on purchasing the Cradlewise after seeing it and testing it out at the Babylist showroom in Los Angeles. It’s high quality, feels premium, and able to be setup in about an hour. Included with the crib is a bassinet attachment, a fitted sheet and waterproof mattress cover and crib mattress. The crib itself is smaller than a traditional crib, but slightly larger than a mini-crib with dimensions of 40”(L) x 25” (W) x 42”(H).
As first time parents, we are big fans of the breathable mesh that surrounds the crib itself and I wish more crib makers offered this instead of the traditional wooden slats that babies often get hands and feet stuck inbetween. The crib itself features a natural looking wood and the included mattress is made from biodegradable materials free from PU foam. Most of the crib is detachable and machine washable as needed. The crib weighs a total of 88 lbs, and while it is quite hefty to move around, the gliders make it easy to push around on the floor if it needs to be moved. Overall, I’m a big fan of how the crib looks and it adds a modern aesthetic to any nursery.
As the baby grows, parents can remove the bassinet attachment and move the mattress down. Cradlewise advertises that the smart crib can be used for babies up to two years of age or 33 pounds, but this will vary depending on baby’s size as they get older. Anecdotally, my baby is on the smaller side of the growth curve and I think even he will outgrow it before the age of two.
Connectivity + App
Given that the Cradlewise is a smart crib, there’s a few ways the crib needs to connect to work as designed. The Cradlewise requires a wall socket to keep powered on. It also connects to Wi-Fi on both 2.4GHz and 5.0Ghz frequencies. Caregivers can control settings and monitor baby via the Cradlewise app.
The Cradlewise app is honestly my favorite feature of the smart crib. The built in-camera lets you see at a glance how your baby is doing in the crib - whether they’re sleeping, crying, fussing or stirring. You can take screenshots, flip the camera, and even continuously monitor audio all via the app so you can use other apps or do other things at the same time, essentially using your phone as a baby monitor.
While the camera works great for the most part, there are times where the picture appears grainy and it’s impossible to see the baby's face because of the shadows. In terms of settings, users can quickly turn on soothe by bouncing or playing audio like a sound machine. Smart Soothing is a feature that enables caregivers to designate how much bounce they want the Cradlewise to adapt to when soothing a baby. There’s five settings total for bounce mode including a gentle version that we used most when he was a newborn. This setting does a light bounce almost as though someone is holding the baby in their arms.
There’s a bunch of other helpful information in the Cradlewise app as well. Sleep Insights is especially useful for parents who may be starting to sleep train or look for patterns in their baby’s sleep. You can see how long the baby slept for, how long they were awake and how many times the Cradlewise soothes the baby back to sleep. I also love that I can see a log of each week to monitor baby’s sleep over time. And when it comes to accuracy, I’ve found the Cradlewise sensor to be pretty accurate. There may be a few minutes here and there where it detects the baby as sleeping when he’s clearly awake or vice versa, but it’s pretty quick to fix itself and adjust accordingly.
Caregivers can also set sleep tracks that are played from the speakers to baby’s smart crib. This means you can play ASMR sounds like rain and white noise and the Cradlewise will automatically play it when it detects the baby is stirring. In these settings, you can adjust how loud you want the smart crib to play sound, making virtually any setting customizable. For those who have newborns, you can even simulate womb-like ambiances like heartbeat and breathing noises.
All of the above paired with at a glance features like temperature sensor really makes the Cradlewise the only baby monitoring app you need. And while I’ve seen the app go offline for very short temporary periods of time for whatever reason, the app works seamlessly on Apple and Android devices we’ve reviewed during this timeframe and I love being able to control all settings of the Cradlewise with just a few taps. You can even set features like gestures so that the crib can tell when caregivers manually bounce a certain number of times and can start or stop bouncing.
That being said, as of this review, there’s a few changes Cradlewise is making to its app. With the purchase of a Cradlewise, you get two years of Nurture Core included but they recently came out with a Nurture Plus version that has more features for an added monthly price. The new Nurture Plus is advertised to be able to monitor breath rate, eye motion, growth and more. And allows for up to 10 caregivers and 20 devices to simultaneously use the system at the same time. With the standard Nurture Core, you can only view 14 days of history whereas Nurture Plus enables full sleep analytics for insight. You also get notifications with video clips on Nurture Plus versus just in-app notifications in Nurture Core when the baby starts crying. Both versions will continue to receive software updates and gesture control but Nurture Plus gives additional functionality like caregiver access control, web streaming, sleep playback, and Spotify integration.
How Did My baby Do With the Cradlewise?
The Cradlewise acted as another caretaker for us when we were weary and delusional in the middle of challenging nights. Every few minutes of shut eye helped pass into the next hour of parenting during those early days.Admittedly, our experience with our baby using the Cradlewise has been mixed. The entire purpose of this smart crib is to soothe the baby via bounce. And for the first two to three months of his life, our baby actually did go back to sleep with the bounce motion. That allowed us to get an additional 30 minutes or so of sleep each time which really helped when you’re running on fumes during the newborn phase. Remember, when the recommendation says that a newborn should eat every 2 hours, that doesn’t take into account the time it takes for the baby to actually eat, burp, and fall back asleep. The reality of it is that new parents likely have 45 minutes to close their eyes. If they themselves can’t fall asleep within 5-10 minutes, then its already time to get ready for the next wave. For the crib to be able to put the baby back to sleep for another 15-30 minutes that they would have originally been awake already if sleeping in a normal bassinet or crib is monumental.
However, around four months, we noticed that our son didn’t particularly care for the bouncing motion and wasn’t soothed by it as he got older. As a result, we’ve either turned off the bounce completely or only use it on gentle mode. This essentially turns the Cradlewise into a regular crib with a smart app. Of course, every baby will have a different response to the crib but in our case, the motion functionality of it was pretty short-lived. That isn’t to say that the period of time it was beneficial wasn’t worth it at the end of the day. Our kid literally woke up exactly at the 1 hour 45 minute mark ready to eat at 2 hours promptly. He did that for what felt like forever. The Cradlewise acted as another caretaker for us when we were weary and delusional in the middle of the night. Every few minutes of shut eye helped pass the next hour of parenting during those early days.
Truthfully, I really do still like the Cradlewise for all the other features included with the app, but in our case, I’m not sure if we’re getting our money’s worth on this almost $2,000 crib. I like the build quality and appreciate that the Cradlewise is JPMA and Greenguard certified, meaning that the materials they used to build it are non-toxic and safe for the baby. I also like how modern the crib is and the breathable mesh that I think my baby prefers over wooden slats. I’m also a very big fan of the app, but I could get a regular crib and smart baby monitor instead for much less than the cost of the Cradlewise.
That being said, I’m also torn because there just aren’t that many smart cribs out there that are actually smart and honestly, the Cradlewise does a very good job of what it says it does. The truth is- just like many baby things, it’ll ultimately depend on your baby top justify whether it’s worth it.
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