Video: Everything to Know About the Graco SmartSense Soothing Bassinet

Soothing bassinets aren’t new to the world of baby gear, but Graco’s SmartSense Soothing Bassinet takes the things parents love about the more expensive models—namely the part where it hears your baby crying and then activates a series of soothing motions and sounds to help them get back to sleep—and makes it more wallet-friendly. Mallorie, a Babylist parent of three, gives a full rundown in the video above. Or, keep reading for what you should know before buying it or adding it to your Babylist.

What Makes the SmartSense Bassinet Different?

Typically smart bassinets fall into one of two categories:

1. Ones that offer movement and soothing sounds that you manually activate by pushing a button on the bassinet whenever your baby gets fussy

2. Ones that automatically respond to baby’s cries and create a soothing combo of sound and motion in response

Automatic soothing bassinets can come with a high price tag—upwards of $1,500—but that’s where the SmartSense Bassinet stands out. For just under $400, it offers automatic soothing at about a third of the cost.

When tested with Mallorie’s baby, the SmartSense bassinet took just a few seconds to kick in once it heard her baby crying, activating a series of motions, vibration and sounds to help soothe her to calm (you can actually see that happen at the 0:54 mark in the video).

And where some other smart bassinets have motions that feel like more of a side-to-side rocking or variations of the same kind of bouncing and swaying, the SmartSense’s movement is closer to a natural back and forth motion—similar to what you might do if you were rocking your baby back to sleep. There’s also a cool feature called immersive sleep (which we’ll get into in a minute) that syncs your baby's soothing rhythm to the audio of your choice for a fully customizable sound-meets-motion soothing experience.

The one big difference between the SmartSense Bassinet and the other, more expensive automatic soothing bassinets is that there’s no app to control the bassinet settings remotely. So while it responds to your baby’s cries automatically, if you want to adjust the settings or turn the bassinet on when your baby isn’t fussy, you can easily make adjustments on the bassinet control panel.

But for less than you’d pay for a typical smart bassinet (and only slightly more than a regular old not smart bassinet), SmartSense delivers on all the other big-ticket features of the trendy cry-detecting bassinets minus the spendy price tag. Plus: with its minimalist design and a woodgrain finish that’ll match your grown-up aesthetic, you also get a really sleek bassinet that

Graco SmartSense Soothing Baby Bassinet - Luna

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How Graco SmartSense Technology Works

The SmartSense Bassinet automatically responds to babies cries with SmartSense Technology, or cry detection. That means it listens for when baby starts to cry, and then activates with rocking, vibrating, music, sound and speed to find a setting that works to soothe baby. This happens in about five seconds, and Graco has fine tuned their tech so other baby sounds, like babbling or happy cooing, won’t set it off.

Mallorie tested the cry detection sensitivity with a recording of a baby on her phone see how the bassinet would respond to varying levels of volume.You can see how it went for yourself at the 1:25 mark, but the result was pretty clear: the bassinet detected the cries, even on the lowest volume, and kicked into action with gentle rocking.

How to Control It

As we mentioned earlier, the SmartSense bassinet can be adjusted using a control panel on the bassinet itself. You can choose from gentle movement, white noise and music—or a combination of all three. There are three speed options that rock baby from head to toe, plus two soothing vibration options. As for sound, there are five music choices and five white noise options. If you want something a little more custom, the bassinet is Bluetooth enabled, so you can sync your own music to the bassinet. See what we mean at 2:33 in the video above.

One of the biggest distinctions between this bassinet and other smart bassinets is a feature called “immersive sleep,” which senses the beat of the music your baby is listening to and syncs it to the vibration and rocking of your baby’s bassinet (see how that works at the 2:45 mark in our video). So your baby will get a totally different soothing cadence if they’re more into, say, Ice Spice than Billie Eilish.

How Comfortable Is It?

Aside from its soothing features, the SmartSense Bassinet is also made with breathable mesh sides and a firm, flat sleeping surface to help create a safe, comfortable sleep space for baby. It also comes with a 100% organic cotton sheet and the mattress is made with organic cotton fabrics, too.

For added comfort, you can also use your own swaddles with this bassinet, so your baby can sleep in whichever sleep sack, swaddle or pajamas they like best (some smart bassinets only work in conjunction with dedicated swaddles that not every baby is a fan of).

How Long Can You Use It?

Like other bassinets, you can use it until baby can roll over or push up, which is around 5 months or 20 pounds.

Who Do We Recommend the SmartSense Bassinet For?

Babies don’t always wake up in the middle of the night for physical needs like a diaper change or feeding. Sometimes they wake up for no reason and just need a little help getting back to sleep. Because cry detecting bassinets often respond even faster than you can roll over to pick up your baby, they can be really helpful for those moments when your little one is on the edge of fussy, but not yet fully awake (and before they’re full-on yelling for you).

But, the price tag can make them cost prohibitive for many parents. The SmartSense bassinet comes in at about $100 more than some of the most popular bedside bassinets that don’t have movement or sound, so you get the best of both worlds: upleveled features and more affordability.

And while you might miss being able to control it from an app like the more expensive options, there’s another upside: you won’t have to invest in the pricey swaddles those come with. And the sleek, modern design and stylish wood grain finish don’t hurt either.

Bonus: SmartSense Swing

The SmartSense Bassinet is great for your sleeping baby, but if you need an extra hand when they’re awake, the SmartSense Swing has the same SmartSense technology—with even more motion options: swinging, rocking, cradling and gliding (you can see just how that works at 3:23).

Graco SmartSense Soothing Baby Swing - Rori

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All four of these motions mimic the way you move when soothing your baby, so they can help calm your little one. Plus, there are two vibration settings for additional calming and three recline positions so you can find just the right angle to keep baby comfortable.

There’s a five-point harness to keep baby snug and secure (plus: cozy organic fabrics that are super soft), and you can use this swing until about 25 pounds or when baby starts to try to climb out.

Watch our full video review to see the SmartSense Bassinet and Swing in action.

This article is sponsored by Graco. Babylist’s free site, apps and emails are made possible by our sponsors. We limit our sponsored content to relevant partners that offer products and services we believe in and use ourselves.