White Noise Apps With Cry Detection, Compared

If you only want a sound to start when crying starts, White Noise Baby does it for $0.99 once on iPhone. It is the cheapest way to get the basic behaviour.

If you want your phone to tell you, Hush is the one here built for that: a spare device by the crib listens and your own phone gets the alert.

If you want a sleep log in the same app, Sound Sleeper has both, with a one-time lifetime price among its options. Its listing does not say which purchase unlocks the Listen feature, so check before you pay.

If you want the sound itself to respond, Growbaby is the only app we found that describes changing the sound while the baby settles rather than playing one recording. It also costs the most if soothing is all you need, which the section on where it is worse spells out.

Hearing a cry is the part all five share. What follows comes in three kinds, and it is the real difference between them.

Start a sound. Sound Sleeper, Hush and Boba the Nanny start your chosen sound or music when crying begins. It plays the same way whether your baby is winding up or nearly asleep.

Restart a timer. White Noise Baby restarts its sound and its shutoff timer, and the timer fades the volume to silence at the end. That is a fade, and it is a good one, but the sound does not change with your baby.

Follow the baby. Growbaby builds a soundscape while your baby is unsettled, softens it as they settle and fades it out once they have. That is our own description of our own app, and how it works is on the adaptive soothing page.

None of the five claims to know why your baby is crying. Apps that say they can tell hunger from pain from a cry are a different category, and we did not include them.

Price, if soothing is all you want. Soothing is part of Growbaby Pro, at $15.99 a month or $79.99 a year. White Noise Baby is $0.99 once and Boba the Nanny $4.99 once. If you will never use the rest of the app, those are better value.

It does not alert you. Growbaby soothes on the phone in the room and stops there. If you want a notification in another room, Hush is built for that.

Two caregivers. One subscription covers two people looking after one child. If a third person regularly looks after your child, check how each app shares before you pay: Hush, for one, says its premium works on up to three devices.

It is new. Sound Sleeper and White Noise Baby each have well over a thousand App Store ratings. Growbaby has a handful, so there is far less outside evidence about how it does in other families’ nurseries.

Every app here is a way to play sound, not a safety device, and none of them changes how your baby should sleep. On their back, on a firm flat surface, with nothing else in the crib: our safe sleep guide has the reasons behind each rule.

Volume and distance matter more than which app you pick. Our guide on whether white noise is safe for babies covers how loud is too loud and where the phone should sit, and the same rules apply to all five.