Owlet Dream 4+

App needs improvement

I only use the Owlet Dream Sock and although I am pleased with the sock itself and it’s designed purpose of helping keep my mind at ease while my baby sleeps, I am not impressed with the app itself. It takes several “refreshes” and even closing and re-opening the app in order to see the current sleep state. I wish the app would provide some sort of chart that shows awake, light and deep sleep patterns. My Apple Watch tells me more about my sleep patterns than the Owlet does for my baby. Lastly there should be some sort of turn off or check-in button when it’s having “difficulty getting readings”. There will be times where I’m holding my baby, I know he’s fine and even though I dismiss the notification the base will still continue to sound and it’s frustrating. Also I had to move the base to his actual changing table because otherwise when I take it off the base as I’m getting him ready for bed the sock will start alarming if I don’t put it on asap. I’ll snooze the base and it will literally go off in what feels like another minute. There could maybe be some sort of, ready to start tracking sleep button. Overall, the sock does it’s job of keeping track of my baby’s heart rate, oxygen level and sleep status but doesn’t do much more than that. You’d think for $300 the app would be better.

Sock itself is great, App is worthless

This app needs serious improvement. It claims to “clinacally proven, medical grade accuracy” which is true, as long as you can get the app to stay open long enough to load the levels. The app is constantly quitting while in the middle of “loading” my babies vitals and sleep state. It takes 10 or so minutes to update the current sleep state. And often times, I click on my babies profile to see the sleep state and it shows there is no sock connected, causing me to reset everything at 1:00, 2:00, 3:00 in the morning.

The range from sock to base is not designed for bigger houses. When we bring our babies from their room to the living room, the base will beep at you constantly because of connectivity issues. And our living room is the same distance as their room. Even if you turn the base off completly, it seems to still beep after a few minutes of getting readings. And when it is beeping at you, trying to open the app takes even longer so I’m sitting there overstimulated with a screaming baby and a phone & base that won’t stop beeping because the app takes FOREVER to load.

I love that this is designed to alert me and to keep my baby safe and I will say it has helped me get better sleep since my twins were born. But we spent almost $700 on these two owlet socks. For that money, this app should be working way better than what it is. Do better, Owlet. Do way way better.

Developer Response ,

Hello from the Engineering team at Owlet. We're very sorry to hear you're having trouble. We would like to help you figure this out. Can you please email us at ios_app_reviews@owletcare.com so we can assist?

Good idea, terrible execution

As the title says, the idea is a great one, but this company really benefits from a lack of competition and being the proverbial “first mover” in the space. The reality is this just another company selling cheap, foreign-made plastic-ware at premium prices to American consumers.

The base station is impossible to deal with and just randomly disconnects from WiFi. The process to reconnect it is an entire ordeal, to which I’ve resigned myself to just press the “Connect” button over and over and over until the thing finally connects to my home WiFi. There is no rhyme or reason to this at all. The mobile app has a mind of its own and is full of bugs and poorly thought-out features. One of the recent ones is that the base station will turn itself back on even after you’ve turned it off for the day. This leads to the infuriating experience of the base station going off at 1pm because the anklet is laying on the counter somewhere and the base station thinks it needs to alert you to the situation. Another poorly thought-out piece of technology wherein the machine thinks it knows bette than you do about what’s going on based on dumb logic and if/then statements.

At its best, this is an oxygen monitor for your infant, and I admit this is very helpful and brings a certain peace of mind when it works. At its worst, it is a foreign-made piece of junk with seemingly no quality control or user-minded product development.