I’m only half-joking when I say the eight-sleep temperature-controlled comforter has improved my marriage. It’s hard to get a good night’s sleep at my house. I am always cold and my spouse is hot. We fought over the thermostat every night. So when I first Commented on Eight Sleep Coverthis is a revelation. I can curl up and fall into a sweet sleep. My spouse can sleep like a penguin on a patch of ice.
The only thing I don’t like is the nearly $1,900 price and $19 monthly subscription fee. Fast forward two years, and alas, I’m in the same predicament again with 8 Sleep’s latest ridiculously expensive mattress topper: the Pod 4 Ultra, which starts at just under $4,700 for a queen-size bed. no Includes mandatory annual membership starting at $199.
I heard the screams of my mother’s ghost. $4,700! Are you crazy? Sleeping is free! This is a fair criticism, but OK Sleep is hard. The whole point of Eight Sleep is that it helps create perfect sleep conditions. The cover contains pipes that run water from the control center to heat or cool each side of the bed individually. It’s embedded with sleep tracking sensors, as well as a haptic motor for a silent alarm that causes the bed to vibrate at increasing intensity to gently wake you up. Finally, there’s an AI-powered Autopilot feature that adjusts the temperature while you sleep, so you can theoretically get a better night’s sleep. Since it’s a comforter, you can zip it over your existing mattress without having to spend money on an entire smart bed. (These fees can be as high as $10,000.)
The latest Pod 4 Ultra does it all, too—and it’s very good at it. so Why Is it so expensive? Some of these are good ole price increases, but the Ultra bundle also adds a base. It plugs into your existing bed frame, allowing you to adjust the height and position of your bed. The case itself has also been improved so it’s quieter, 20% thinner and has twice the cooling capacity. Sleep tracking now includes snoring detection – if you spend the money on the base, the bed will automatically raise the head area to reduce snoring. Eight Sleeps has also added touch controls through two “click areas” on both sides of the bed, allowing you to adjust the temperature, disarm alarms and adjust the position of the bed without using your phone.
I love these updates, it pains my budget-conscious soul.
Hear me out. i don’t know anyone need A fancy $2,000 base to adjust the height of their bed. In my 36 years on this earth, a pile of pillows on the headboard is usually enough. But the bed can be raised for You are sadly delightful. On a lazy Sunday, I turned on the reading height default and turned into a happy little shrimp while watching the latest brain-rotting drama. love is blind. Now, my nightly routine consists of reading a book, keeping my feet and upper back elevated, and my bed already warmed up to keep me comfortable. (It’s also the most comfortable way to doomscroll.) There are two other presets for relaxation and sleep, and you can set your own custom height, too.
Having a base can also provide you with excellent snoring relief. When enabled, the bed automatically raises when snoring is detected. It’s not perfect. Several times I woke up on a moving bed. Even so, I’d rather be slightly disoriented by a moving bed than grumpily wake my snoring spouse to quiet them down. Especially since I haven’t woken up yet every time. Sometimes I only know an adjustment occurred because it shows up in Eight Sleep’s morning sleep reports. Anyway, I now have solid proof that I snore a lot, a lot of Less than my spouse.
The main drawback, besides cost, is that the base isn’t ideal if you have crafty little pets. My cat Petey never considered the bed an enemy before, but now that he’s moved, he’s become public enemy number one. It moved and he lunged, claws unsheathed. I’m worried that one day he’ll poke a hole in the Pod 4 Ultra – a device that’s always filled with water. The cat also likes to explore under the bed, which led to an accident in which he nearly fell off the bed. Now, the house rule is that all cats must be considered before changing bed height.
I asked Eight Sleeps about its seeming lack of safety features. “We have not received any reports of harm to people or small pets from the Pod 4 Ultra Base,” said Sam Kang, vice president of hardware at Eight Sleep. “We also moved the base very slowly to allow time for any objects that might be underneath the descending section.” I still say you should err on the side of caution, especially since there are no warnings within the app.
The bed height is cool, but my favorite upgrade is the touch controls. The faucet areas are on either side of the bed and are textured so you can easily feel them through the sheets. A double click increases the bed temperature, while a triple click decreases it. A four-click sequence lets you cycle through bed height presets (such as reading, relaxing, sleeping, etc.). But it’s most helpful for taking a nap or eliminating a silent alarm. My device vibrates the side of the bed at 5:45 AM so I can get ready for my damn morning workout. All I have to do is roll over and pat the bed twice, and I won’t disturb my lover. Previously, I had to blindly search my phone, launch the Eight Sleep app, and then turn off the alarm that way. I can never go fast enough, and the “silent” alarm is actually quite loud the longer you leave it on. (The vibration is quite Powerful.
Other updates are less flashy but improve the overall experience. For example, the center is definitely quieter. When using the Pod 2 Pro, there is an occasional whirring sound when filling the waterbed. Not too loud, but loud enough that my spouse would comment. We didn’t really notice the Pod 4’s hubs unless we needed to refill the tank. It’s still a bit big – about the size of an ultra-thin gaming PC – but you forget it’s there after a while. The cover itself looks the same, but it’s now thinner and has redesigned ducting for better comfort and efficient cooling. I think I noticed when we first used the Pod 4 Ultra, but it didn’t make a huge overall impact. It’s hard to say if the cooling is also enhanced twice, but I do feel like reaching the desired temperature is slightly faster.
Expensive bed technology is inherently ridiculous. A mattress has only one purpose: to provide you with a comfortable sleeping environment. Adding technology overcomplicates one of the most natural things humans can do. But this is the age of optimization, and health influencers would have you believe that none of us sleep well. (Although, you Can This can be easily solved by purchasing supplements or products using the code in their bio. Otherwise how could it be possible Take over TikTok? maximize sleep has become a viral trend, which shows just how much the average person want to To sleep better. In this environment, a $5,000 smart mattress cover (it’s not even a mattress) could guarantee you the best night of fully-optimized artificial intelligence automated sleep. most In 2024, a health technology imaginable. This drives me crazy and I can’t even argue with the results! Yes, it could be fussy at first and it took me a few months to really notice how much my sleep improved. But the truth is, my spouse and I are both lifelong insomniacs who sleep like babies.
The last time I took bed this seriously was in my early twenties. After seven years of sleeping on a paper-thin, hard futon, I accumulated enough body pain that my doctor ordered me to buy a proper mattress. Almost overnight, the pain that had plagued me for years disappeared. No one was more frustrated than me that switching from a regular mattress to an Eight Sleep product would produce similar, albeit less dramatic, results. Not once, but twice.
Even so, I still struggle with the price. Especially since features like Autopilot, Silent Alarms, and Sleep Insights are all force-locked You pay an upfront annual subscription fee of $199. You can cancel after one year, as long as you agree to lose all functionality except manual temperature control. Eight Sleeps says it does this in order to develop, maintain and improve its smart features, but subscribing to your bed feels fundamentally wrong. Adjusting the temperature is the most important feature, but if that’s all you have, it’s not worth the entry price.
Yet, I was still tempted. This is why I hate that I love this bed. On the one hand, it continually solves a major problem my spouse and I have with sleep preferences. On the other hand, we still managed to sleep on a regular, not-so-smart bed in the past and can do so again. Even if we have to go back and fight for the thermostat. Originally so If the Pod 4 Ultra doesn’t perform well, this decision will be much easier to make. But that’s not the case! Now my question is figuring out how much a good night’s sleep is worth.
