Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is a review of the free skill. There is a premium product offered for a monthly fee that i'll discuss below. The sounds from this skill are fine, and do the job, but unfortunately, the noise stops for a second or so every hour, then restarts, and this is enough to wake me, thereby ruining the app entirely. I can find no way to bypass this "feature" short of upgrading to the premium product. Now, what about the premium product? It apparently costs $1.99/month, and provides additional sounds, the ability to combine two sounds, and longer "loops" that presumably would eliminate the sound gaps I got with the free product. There is a free 14 day trial period, if you're interested in trying it out, but it is probably one of those things that will automatically start charging you if you forget to cancel. No thanks. I’ve been using the Sleep Machine iPhone app for many years - probably since I got my first iPhone in 2011. I believe it cost me $1.99 when I bought it, offers dozens and dozens (if not hundreds) of sounds and music, allows the user almost an infinite number of combinations and permutations of these sounds (including custom sound levels for each sound), has an integrated alarm (that I use every morning), works on the road when I don’t have my Echo devices with me, and most of all, has no monthly fee. I paid once, and that was all. It does require a connection between my iPhone and my Echo, and I'm using Bluetooth right now (used to use a direct connection, but am experimenting with Bluetooth - it works well, but does hiccup occasionally, so I might have to go back to a direct connection). Not the most convenient thing, but it's free. Had I been paying $1.99/month every month since 2011, my night time noise machine would have cost me $160 dollars, and this charge would continue ad infinitum, as long as I continue to use it. I realize there is a recurring costs associated with hosting a service like this, but as a user, all I can look at are the features of a product, and the cost associated with that product, and make a value judgement. For $24/year, year after year, the convenience associated with running a sleep machine on my Echo is nowhere near worth the vastly increased cost.