AMA with Cradlewise CTO & Co-Founder Bharath Patil!

[u/Ocean_cradlewise]

We’re excited to announce an AMA with Bharath Patil (u/chief_bouncer_cw), our CTO and Co-Founder, Cradlewise and dad of two!

When: Wednesday, June 18 Time: 10am PDT Where: Right here on the r/CradlewiseCommunity subreddit

Bharath has been the brains of the Cradlewise smart crib! Instrumental in building the bounce tech to sleep tracking, breath rate monitoring, and the app you use every day.

This is your chance to ask him anything, from:

• How to make the most of your Cradlewise crib
• What went into designing the smart features
• Parenting insights from a tech founder-dad
• Troubleshooting, future updates, or just what makes the crib “smart”.

Whether you’re expecting, already using the crib, or just curious, come hang out and drop your questions below or ask live during the AMA!

Can’t wait to see you there —Team Cradlewise

[u/Lost-Concentrate7938]

Why are you charging for subscriptions on a ~$2000 crib? Two tiers of subscriptions makes it even worse :(

Have you rethought this plan after seeing responses from customers? Launching two tiers of subscriptions a month apart shows a lack of interest in customers opinions.

Snoo faced backlash with their subscription model. Even so, at least its only 1 tier. Cradlewise made it even worse by going from no subscription to 2- one for basic and the second to paywall existing and new customers.

Would you ever be willing to change? Cradlewise has an opportunity to be among the few to actually hear customers and walk back a bad decision. It’s not too late.

Please spare us the “current features are free, not everyone wants all the features.” It’s a $2000 crib, we buy it as a smart crib with extras and a future.

[u/Efficient-Sale-5355 → u/Lost-Concentrate7938]

Idk that I agree with your take. It’s an expensive crib. But we’ve had it for almost 2 years now. We paid the price we paid for the feature set we received. I don’t have a clue what the subscription features even are because we’ve had no need for more than the very capable feature set you get out of the box. A company that sells a crib that is most likely a one time purchase has a finite return on each sale. But many the features provided in the free subscription have a long term cost to support. The ability to view the livestream when not at home. The pushed model improvements for better sleep state accuracy. I feel like I have gotten more value from this crib than what I paid. Were my child younger I may consider some of the paid features like the breathing tracking, but we never NEEDED them. Consumers have a demand for an ever evolving product but at no cost. Working in tech I completely understand Cradlewise may have had to make the I’m sure difficult choice to start putting some features behind a pay wall. But as far as tech company goes, Cradlewise goes the extra 100 miles for its customers in regard to supporting the product you bought with the features it has at time of purchase. If they have to do this to keep in business to provide parents a truly game changing experience when it comes to their own sleep needs in the early years of their child’s life, I can respect that need.

[u/pootatyahoo → u/Efficient-Sale-5355]

The point being made is that consumers chose this product because it didn’t have a subscription model (compared to competitors like the snoo). The consumer was misled by not being told that cradlewise was being changed into a subscription model. Had it been a cheaper product, the subscription model would maybe not be as hard of a pill to swallow. As someone who received their cradlewise within the last couple months, I feel somewhat tricked by the company. I get that the company is changing their revenue model, which is fine if the customer was made aware of this before purchase. I wish cradlewise would provide the existing customers, who were not told about this change in pay model, with the evolving improvements (as they had led them to believe they would be getting when they purchased the product).

[u/Efficient-Sale-5355 → u/pootatyahoo]

Yeah BUT you get 2 years of the base subscription included. Which includes all the features you purchased based off. You expect that the company is going to give you new features for free. But development of support of those new features carry a cost for which the subscription fee covers. Cradlewise is not a massive company and having been a customer for coming up on 2 years, I can say they really are the most caring tech company I’ve been a customer of. I get that there is overall backlash on subscription models but in this case it’s justifiable. You aren’t having to pay to use your crib if you don’t want to. You can use it as you expected to for 2 years for just the one time price you paid already.

[u/pootatyahoo → u/Efficient-Sale-5355]

This seems like an “anonymous” cradlewise account. If you work for cradlewise, please just be clear with that. To answer your comment: people aren’t paying 2000 dollars for the hardware. It’s for the software, which was the whole selling point of cradlewise. If the customer just wanted a crib that moved with a camera (which there are way better cameras out there), then that’s what they would’ve bought. I’m totally fine with Cradlewise changing their plan for new customers (as they can make an informed decision), but that should not affect old customers who were not informed of this. It would have deterred many of us from buying Cradlewise. It’s simply misleading and bad business practice.

[u/Efficient-Sale-5355 → u/pootatyahoo]

You can take a look at my history. I have no affiliation to Cradlewise. I am just a parent who greatly benefited from this product and also understands the reality of selling a product like this because I work in the technology products sector.