$1,200 smart crib gives hope to sleepless parents

PanARMENIAN.Net - If you're a sleep-deprived parent of a newborn, you'd probably give just about anything for a few more hours of sleep. This is especially true if you're back at work where naps are hard to come by.

More sleep is what the Snoo Smart Sleeper promises to give you for $1,160, CNet says.

The Snoo was created by pediatrician Dr. Harvey Karp. In the parenting world, he's renowned for his baby-whisperer superpowers. His book, "The Happiest Baby on the Block," and the companion DVD gives parents the "5 S" approach to soothing a newborn: swaddle, side or stomach position, shush, swing and suck. His methods are based on the notion that the first three months of life are more like a fourth trimester of pregnancy in which the baby still needs to feel like he or she in the womb.

Karp's approach was the basis for the bassinet. He worked with MIT Media Lab trained engineers and designer Yves Béharto turn his 5 S method into a device that mimics the womb by using technology to swaddle, swing and shush babies back to sleep.

It may look like a fancy bassinet, but the Snoo is full of tech, from top to bottom. It has three microphones, a speaker and two motors that create different rocking motions.

To turn on the Snoo, you have to swaddle the baby in one of the Snoo's sleep sacks and clip the sack into the sides of the bassinet. This is to ensure that your baby won't roll over in the middle of the night. Once the baby is in place, you start the Snoo with a button on the base or with the Snoo iOS or Android app on your phone. This will initiate a gentle rocking motion and a soft white noise that sounds like rainfall.

When the baby starts to cry, the microphones signal the motors to intensify the movement and the speaker to change the white noise to a higher frequency that's supposed to help calm the baby. It will continue to bump up to the next level until level four. Once the Snoo has comforted your baby, the bassinet will slowly decrease to the default level. If your baby is hungry or has a dirty diaper and continues to cry past level four, the Snoo will shut down and send you a notification alerting you that your baby needs attention.

The Snoo companion app allows you to control the bassinet remotely even when you're not connected to the same Wi-Fi, which is helpful once the baby is sleeping in his own room.

You can get away with not using the Snoo app and rely on the button, but it's nice to have control over the levels and settings. The app also allows you to lock the Snoo at a certain level, set a limit on the maximum level reached and adjust the sound sensitivity.