The Snoo Smart Bassinet pitch focuses on safety and sleep. Its purported ability to help babies—and their caregivers—get more shut-eye has fueled its popularity with those who can afford the $1,300 retail price. But the Snoo is ultimately another internet-connected gadget. And new research suggests that, like so many internet of things devices before it, the smart bassinet has had troubling bugs.
The now-patched software flaws and potential attacks exploiting them seemed unlikely to cause real-world harm to infants. But they underscore the stakes in producing connected devices, and the importance of getting security right.
The Snoo is designed specifically to combat sudden infant death syndrome according to its maker the Happiest Baby Company, which launched Snoo in 2016. SIDS kills 3,600 infants in the United States each year in their sleep and is more likely to occur in babies that are sleeping on their stomachs. So the Snoo comes with a special swaddle designed to keep babies on their backs. There has never been a reported injury in a Snoo.
In addition to the swaddle, the Snoo also uses a built-in microphone, speaker, and motor to listen for a baby crying or fussing, and responds automatically with gentle rocking and soothing white noise. Caregivers can monitor those functions and track their baby's sleep with a mobile app that connects to the Snoo over Wi-Fi, rather than proximity-based Bluetooth. And a surprisingly powerful motor powers the bassinet's gentle rocking.
Those details concerned researchers from the embedded device security firm Red Balloon, who started looking into Snoo after buying one as a gift for their colleague. "You've got a steady internet connection and a motor that can put out a lot of power sitting underneath a sleeping baby," says Red Balloon founder and CEO ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
