Hacker News Reader

Comment by aquaphile | Hacker News Reader

Thanks, though, for taking a look!

I used to know some of the Cybex people (it was a European company), and they congratulated us on beating their best safety scores at the time. Now Cybex is owned by an Asian conglomerate (Goodbaby).

The Kioma difference in materials quality and performance is both quantifiable and qualitative. We have to charge a price that covers our work in design and production costs. But I completely get it if the Kioma seat is too expensive for your preferences.

As a side note, if you want to be blown away by prices check out the $10,000 cribs (https://nurseryworks.net/collections/cribs/products/gradient...), $1000 bassinets (https://www.happiestbaby.com/), and $5000 strollers (https://silvercrossus.com/category/strollers/).

Thanks for the feedback!

View on HN

You can tell that guy's not a parent, haha. It's a shitload of money, but at least in this case I know that I'm getting value out of it. It's very easy to piss away a fortune on badly-made Chinese plastic trash in the world of baby accessories.

>>You can tell that guy's not a parent, haha.

I find it really interesting that you reached that conclusion. Me and my wife spent what feels like an absolutely insane amount of money on a car seat, definitely more than any of our friends have spent(the beforementioned Anoris-T, because as far as I can tell it is the best seat you can buy) and the idea of spending $1000 on a car seat just doesn't fit in my head. It's just too much.

>> but at least in this case I know that I'm getting value out of it

Really? how?

Agreed, my only thought on the $1000 price tag was that I already have a seat that is well rated and don’t want to throw away or donate a perfectly good $800 car seat/stroller system.

Like cheap end car seats when we looked were in the 200-400 and nicer ones were in the 600-1200 range.

There are many brands of car seats available at Walmart/Target for ~$100, plus or minus $25.

What’s the value? Lol I’ve used the same $250 one for 3 babies now and 0% of them would have noticed “high end materials”.

Luxury balls, bargain babies.

Just a note that the infant ones have a 5-year lifespan from date of manufacture. Not sure if it’s the nylon straps or the foam mechanical characteristics.

We were gifted a hand me down and I had to cut the straps and bag it.

We ended up handing down the two infant sized ones we got that were the same model.

Also any car seat involved in a collision needs to be disposed of.

I dislike waste but you don’t mess with car seats and helmets.

I am a parent, and in my opinion, spending $1k on a car seat is completely unreasonable. (We bought ours used as part of a package deal with some other used baby stuff. It would have been nowhere near $1k when new.)

What do you think about spending $1k on a phone?

My question is why it's $1000 and not $999.

It depends.

The thing about the baby market is that, because it’s driven by emotional decisions, there are buyers at every price point - and it isn’t even directly related to wealth. Some people get into debt trying to make this harsh world safer for their newborn, even though safety benefits taper off as the price increases.

For me, I picked the lower bound and my wife picked the upper bound on the price range we were looking at. She is frugal above all else, I am safety conscious above all else. We met in the middle and found one that suited.

It required some negotiation to begin with though, because her upper bound was lower than my lower bound - and was firmly in the “dodgy unbranded wholesale, sold on a website with an invalid SSL certificate, claiming to be UK based but registered to a Chinese address” territory.

When buying used car seats, remember to check the "use before" date that is marked on it. They only claim to achieve the designed strength/protection for a number of years. At least in Europe.

What is that based on other than them wanting to sell more seats? I'd imagine the materials don't erode, otherwise how safe can it even be in the first place?

Nothing. It's a marketing gimmick to depress the used market. The only way they "expire" is if the regulations change, which does not happen often.

I thought that was an American thing since I couldn't find it on our car seat

So ours has a manufacture date and I know people look at it and if it's older than 3-4 years they won't buy it off you, but as far as I can see that advice isn't anywhere in the manual of the seat. Maybe some seats "expire" in some way, but it sounds like an urban myth.

Don't think it's an urban myth, this article shows a car seat with an expiry date next to the manufacture date.

https://psychoautos.com/why-does-my-car-seat-have-an-expirat...

Is there a standard safety test for this stuff? When I did some research a couple of years ago (my daughter is 1.5 years old now) I found some test by an european institution that had the Axkid One+ on top, so I bought that one.

The US standard is FMVSS 213. In Europe, seat manufacturers currently must comply with standards UN R44/04 or UN R129 (i-Size).

As a parent - the only way I’d buy this is if I knew I could resell it later and it’d hold its value.

What is the “expiration date” on your seat?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com