The Elvie Rise: All-In-One Smart Bouncer & Bassinet, Reviewed by a Mom

In a nutshell:

Our tester loved the Elvie Rise’s unique ability to transform from a soothing bouncer to a lie-flat bassinet without disturbing baby. She also noted the bassinet’s luxury style and aesthetic appeal, easy setup and convenient app. However, this luxury style does come at a high price point.

Becoming a new parent is one of the most exciting times in a person’s life! But wow, the shopping list can become overwhelming. From bottles and clothes to gadgets you didn’t even know existed, it can feel like you’re buying everything just to get through the day (and night). That’s why we love a two-in-one device that makes your list just a little bit shorter.

Enter the Elvie Rise: Instead of adding a few more products to the pile, it combines a bouncer and a bassinet into one product. That being said, the convenience it offers isn’t cheap. With some help from our tester, Katelyn (and her 11-week-old daughter), we’ve put the Elvie Rise through some hands-on testing to see if it’s worth the price tag.

Overview of the Elvie Rise: All-In-One Smart Bouncer & Bassinet

How We Tested the Elvie Rise All-In-One Smart Bouncer & Bassinet

To gain a better understanding of how the Elvie Rise: All-In-One Smart Bouncer & Bassinet would work for your family, we took the following steps:

• We enlisted the help of an independent product tester. Katelyn T., mom of an 11-week-old baby girl, put together and used the Elvie Rise in her own home, in bassinet mode for daytime naps and in bouncer mode for waking hours. She also set up the accompanying mobile app to test out the bassinet’s smart features.
• We asked Katelyn to evaluate the Elvie Rise using the following criteria: ease of use, smart features and app, general features, effectiveness, style and design, size and portability, folding and storage, motion, play and entertainment value, quality and durability, ease of cleaning and overall value for money. For each of these categories, Katelyn gave the bassinet a score on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the worst and 10 being the best.
• We conducted exhaustive market research, scouring forums and external message boards and reading Elvie Rise reviews to discover what parents like—and dislike—about the combo bassinet/smart bouncer.

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Elvie Rise Review

The two modes

Of course there’s no shortage of bouncers out there that are easy to assemble. What really makes the Elvie Rise stand out is the fact that it can switch between two modes: bouncer and bassinet. When you put your baby in a soothing device like a bouncer or a swing, there’s always a risk that they’ll get so soothed that they fall asleep. And according to the AAP, baby should only ever sleep on a firm, flat surface—emphasis here on flat—which means even a reclined bouncer is a no-no. If baby falls asleep you have to transfer them immediately to a safe sleep surface. Which means, ironically, you risk waking them up.

The Elvie Rise is designed to circumvent this problem. If baby starts to nod off, all you need to do is gently pull up the handle at the bottom end of the bouncer. This will recline the bouncer seat to fully flat, while simultaneously raising the walls of the bassinet. As you do this, the built-in harness will automatically detach and retract into the slots until they’re no longer in baby’s way. This was a feature Katelyn loved—she says, “The restraint system for this product is incredibly cool! I love how the harness pops out in bouncer mode and automatically retracts in bassinet mode.”

There’s a click when the bassinet mode is fully locked in, but don’t worry if you miss it; there’s also a light on the Elvie Rise that will glow white as you transition between modes, and red if it isn’t locked in properly.

To go from bassinet mode back to bouncer mode, you just have to press the handle again and push the bottom end down (essentially reversing the process you performed to get it up). One very important note though: while you can go from bouncer to bassinet with baby still in place, be sure to remove baby from the Elvie Rise before you move from bassinet to bouncer mode. With the harness not yet clicked into place, there’s a risk of them falling out. Again, a white light will shine as you transition between modes and a red light will go on if it isn’t correctly locked in as a bouncer. When it’s in the correct position, you’ll be able to access the harness and clip your little one in safely.

If you need some extra help, the app gives you a tutorial on how to maneuver between modes. Elvie recommends trying out the transformation both ways a few times without baby in the Elvie Rise first, just to make sure you’ve got it down.

Bouncer mode

At a glance:

• You can choose between two different positions: newborn and infant
• The bouncer has a single back-and-forth motion, with adjustable speed
• Our tester believes the bouncer helped with her daughter’s fussiness and reflux

Katelyn’s little girl has been struggling with reflux and, as Katelyn puts it, “doesn’t tolerate being put down very well.” But when placed in the rocking bouncer, Katelyn’s daughter, "looked around, blew bubbles and chewed on her hand.” Katelyn adds, “I think this bouncer is good for babies with reflux because the recline isn’t too laid back, and helps give them a little bit of an upright angle, especially after a feeding. Overall, while my baby is fussier in general and sometimes wouldn’t sit for long periods of time, [she] enjoyed the bouncer!” When in bouncer mode, the Elvie Rise has two options for the recline: one for infants, and a less steep recline better suited for newborns.

When it comes to the bouncing movement, Katelyn reported that it was a very smooth back-and-forth motion, which you could change to move either faster or slower, depending on what your child likes—the motion is meant to mimic how a parent would rock their child back and forth to calm them. That being said, it was the only motion, which Katelyn found to be a mixed bag. “In some ways, it’s refreshing for the controls to be very simplistic!" She says. “In others, especially for those of us blessed with colicky babies, it would be nice to have other options for how it moves to try out. A vibration function would be amazing too, especially for the price.” But one area where Katelyn had no complaints was the plush comfort that went into the design—she tells us, “The seat is amazingly cushioned, it almost feels like memory foam, and I think it cradled her little body nicely.”

Bassinet mode

At a glance:

• Our tester found the Elvie Rise’s mattress firm yet soft
• She also appreciated the breathable mesh walls
• The bassinet is static—the motion features from the bouncer don’t carry over to this mode

The bassinet mode is much simpler than the bouncer mode: It offers a safe space to sleep, and that’s it. At The Bump we’ve tested bassinets that have rocking motions and shushing noises for when baby gets fussy, but this is not one of those products. Which is fine, many bassinets don’t offer this functionality (and when they do, it’s usually for a lot of money), but it’s something anyone considering the Elvie Rise should know—it would be easy to assume from the way the company describes it, as an "all-in-one smart bouncer and bassinet,“ that the motion carries over between modes.

All that being said, as a straightforward bassinet, Katelyn found it impressive. "Overall, the function of the bassinet portion of this product is very simple, but well-done,” she tells us.

For one thing, Katelyn loved the look of the Elvie Rise in bassinet mode. “The neutral colors and high quality material would fit in any room in my home,” she says. “I really appreciate baby gear that is not ‘loud’ and brightly colored.” She also admired the firmness of the padding on the mattress, the bamboo sheets and the nylon and polyester fabric that makes up the sides. “Most parents would definitely appreciate the sides of the bassinet being breathable as well,” she says. “The material was incredibly soft and the cushioning in the seat was honestly dreamy. I wish I could sleep on it!”

As we’ve mentioned, Katelyn’s baby girl was unfortunately feeling a little on the fussy side due to her reflux at the time of testing, and doesn’t particularly like being laid down when put to sleep. But Katelyn says, “I felt that the high quality and softness of the mattress pad of the bassinet definitely helped her to be as comfortable as possible when we would put her into the bassinet asleep.” And because of the high quality construction, she expects that this is the type of product that could be passed down to other siblings to enjoy.

Setting up

At a glance:

• Setup was extremely quick and easy
• Long-lasting charge
• Fits in a room easily

If you’re worried that a device with two modes and smart features is going to be difficult to put together, Katelyn can set your mind at ease: it took her less than 10 minutes to assemble. “The Elvie Rise is incredibly easy to set up!" she tells us. "My husband took it out of the box while I sat nearby with the baby. Because the entire body of the bassinet is already put together, all it takes is putting the legs together and snapping the bassinet in.” She recommends watching a short tutorial if you get stuck, but emphasizes how effortless the process was, noting that she and her husband didn’t even need specialty tools—and really, what new parent needs to worry about whether or not they have a drill lying around?

If you’re using it as a bassinet, it doesn’t need to be plugged in to be used. As we’ve mentioned, there’s no motion in bassinet mode, so you can easily use it just as is. But you will need to charge it up if you want to access the sleep analytics. In bouncer mode, one full charge can get you up to four hours (about eight sessions) on the lowest bounce setting. “For us, it ran for several days off of its initial charge." The long cord with a magnetic plug gave her lots of options for placement, and she found that the size was good for smaller spaces. “The base is nice and sturdy but it doesn’t take up too much space,” she says. “Although the legs make an X, I didn’t feel that they stood out too much past the bouncer itself, so I was never concerned about tripping over them. I used to have a [bassinet] and it had this enormous X shaped stand that I tripped over a dozen times a day, but this was not like that at all.”

Using the app

At a glance:

• Limited smart features
• Intuitive app

You can download Elvie’s Soothe & Sleep app either before or after you get the device set up and ready for use—the app offers a step-by-step guide on how to assemble and use the Elvie Rise if you decide to install before you begin, but as Katelyn says, setup isn’t exactly hard. The app is available on both the Apple Store for iPhone users and on Google Play for Android. Katelyn found it super simple to find, download and pair with her phone, sharing that, “The app’s interface is very minimalistic, but that fits with the luxe and aesthetic quality of the bassinet itself. It connected to the bouncer via Bluetooth, which only took a few seconds.”

Katelyn appreciated how user-friendly the app was and told us she could intuitively figure out how to access the different functions and sleep analytics. “The sleep analytics offered were things like average time going to bed for the night, average amount of day sleep/night sleep, average nap length, etc… Very cool if you’re into data tracking!” Although it’s worth noting that these analytics aren’t as robust or complex as ones we’ve seen in other products. It only tracks when baby has been physically placed inside the bassinet, not when they rustle, or wake briefly or cry. So it gives you something very close to sleep tracking, but nothing you couldn’t just write down yourself by noting the time when baby is put down and picked up. (Although it is nice to have a device that does it for you—who has time to pull out their notebook when baby is crying?)

If you are taking notes though, Katelyn appreciated that additional sleep times could be added manually. She and her husband only used the bassinet for day naps, not for nighttime sleep, so to get a full picture of their daughter’s sleep habits, they needed to add those times in too. Although she did flag one annoyance in the process: chunks of time could only be added within a single day. “It was impossible to add time past midnight," she shares. "So, for instance, if I wanted to track that my baby slept from 9 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., I had to create a log of sleep for 9 p.m. to 11:59 p.m. on one day, then from 12 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. on the next day.”

In addition to tracking resting hours, the app can also control the bouncer remotely, allowing you to start, stop and tweak motion from your phone. Plus, the app can record the way parents rock their baby, and the bouncer will automatically repeat the movement (a feature the brand calls “SootheLoop”). Katelyn did feel that she would’ve liked a little bit more customization in this area: “I think it would improve SootheLoop if there were different kinds of motion that it could mimic, like a mom walking and bouncing baby. However, I realize that would probably necessitate a total overhaul of how the bouncer works, which may not be possible!” As a result, she found it more convenient to set the pace of the bouncer manually instead of using SootheLoop.

Fitting into your home

At a glance:

• Extremely stylish aesthetic
• Impressively easy to store
• Simple to clean

“Besides the ability to change into a bouncer, the bassinet’s design is one of my favorite things about it,” Katelyn raves. With a fashionable neutral color scheme and four wooden legs, it has an almost mid-century modern feel with its curved lines and organic-looking textiles.

And when it comes to storage and portability, the Elvie Rise scored big. In Katelyn’s words, “The bassinet is easy to take baby in and out of, and to walk around. It was very easy to carry from room to room, and I could definitely carry it in one hand.” And if you’d like to put it away for storage (and to use with a future child), the legs fold up to relatively flat. “The bouncer still takes up a decent amount of space when folded, but it is flatter," says Katelyn. She elaborates, “I don’t think this bouncer could slide under a couch, but could be stored in a closet or a large cabinet. Overall, for a product that is both a bouncer and big enough to be a bassinet, I feel that the folding and storage is very impressive!”

Importantly, even though the legs collapse and the seat/cradle changes positions, Katelyn found it to still be sturdy when her daughter was placed in it. She tells us, “I have owned bassinets in the past that would move a bunch when baby was kicking or moving, and I didn’t like that because I felt like it would actually wake them up to have the bassinet be sort of ‘shaky.’ I felt like that was not a problem with this bassinet, and it stood firm.” So, you won’t have to worry about a wriggly baby upending the bouncer.

If you’re planning to use this as the main sleeping or nap spot for your little one, you’re going to want to know if all that nice fabric cleans easily. Lucky for us (and slightly unlucky for Katelyn), Katelyn’s daughter did spit up while in the Elvie Rise. But she took it in stride! “It was a perfect opportunity [for me] to wash it and test how easy it was to do so," she says. "I felt that it was very easy to wash, which is so nice!” Katelyn also loved how seamlessly each component of the bassinet came apart when unzipping. According to the washing instructions, she could chuck it into the machine and then dry it on low instead of having to worry about air-drying. She didn’t notice any issues, like shrinkage, after all was said and done. And then, it was just a matter of simply zipping the mattress cover back up.

One mom’s verdict

The elephant in the room, of course, is the $800 price point, which Katelyn acknowledges may be out of some people’s budget. As bouncers go, it’s extremely expensive. As bassinets go, it’s extremely expensive. And if we’re being honest, you could probably buy a good bouncer and a good bassinet for less money totalled up. But Katelyn’s feeling was that this is a luxury item—and worth it. “The Elvie Rise absolutely comes across as a more luxe and premium product that justifies its price,” she says, adding, “As a bouncer alone, I would rate it as a high price point. However, since it functions as a bassinet as well, is so aesthetically pleasing, easy to move, wash and use, I think that while it may be out of budget range for some, it is worth its price.” From the sturdy frame to the minimalist aesthetic and thoughtful features like the magnetic charger, she thought the Elvie Rise was full of “small touches that spoke to the quality and thoughtfulness of the product.”

About the writer:
Emily Bagg is a current contributing writer and former senior content writer for The Bump, where she focuses on helping parents find the best products for their families. With years of experience writing about everything from baby names to toddler toys, Emily has a knack for staying on top of the latest trends in parenting, including what to look for when it comes to buying a bouncer—or a bassinet.