Sleep is crucial, we know. Wake up feeling rested and you’re ready to face the world. So, when a gadget claims to be able to help you sleep, I’m interested.
Eight Sleep is the company behind a series of devices called Pod. Essentially this is a mattress topper and hub that can help to adjust your core temperature, with the aim of improving your sleep. Until now, the latest model was the Pod 5, but the company has just released Pod 6, a system with a hub that will fit under the bed for the first time. It promises improved performance, more sensors and a lower starting price.
Make no mistake, this is still an expensive investment (starting from £1,799), but the promise – that by controlling the temperature of the bed, you can sleep better – remains the same. As does the key principle that two people who share a bed should be able to choose their own bedtime temperatures. A new solo size means you can now enjoy the benefits on your own, too. This means a single bed is catered for, or half of a UK king or super king. Incidentally, if you buy a solo and later want both halves of the bed to enjoy Pod 6, you can add another solo at a lower price, without the need for a second hub.
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Eight Sleep Pod 6
Rating: 5/5
Why we love it
- Simple to set up
- Powerful and sophisticated
- Satisfying to use
- Can improve sleep through temperature adjustments
- Effective alarm functions
Take note
- Expensive
- Has a learning curve and fine tuning may be needed
Eight Sleep created the Pod to improve how we sleep. If you’re used to waking in the night in hot flashes or find it takes time to get to sleep, it may be the temperature in your bed isn’t optimal. Maybe your other half wants a warmer or colder room than you do. Or maybe you don’t have enough time to sleep as much as you should.
Eight Sleep created, it claimed, the world’s first intelligent sleep system. The right temperature can help adjust your core temperature so you wake up less often, get to sleep sooner or sleep more deeply.
Sleep stages change through the night, and not all sleep is equal. We need deep sleep and REM sleep but we sometimes only get mostly light sleep.
And better sleep can save you time: if you nod off sooner and sleep better, perhaps you can achieve the volume of deep and REM sleep you’d normally have achieved in eight hours in a shorter period, say seven hours.
How it works
The Pod 6 consists of two physical parts: a mattress topper and a hub. There’s also the Autopilot AI engine, which learns your sleep patterns and adjusts the temperature based on your sleep stage, the environment and even your activities that day.
The topper fits over your mattress (it comes in different sizes to fit every bed) and a grey pipe, looking like a smallish elephant’s trunk, snakes under the bed to the hub, a device which has been redesigned from scratch to look stylish enough that you won’t mind if anyone sees it. Even so, the fact that it tucks under the bed is a bonus.
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Setup is straightforward, essentially involving slowly filling the hub with water (compatible water jug supplied). This water is used to control the hub to warm or cool the bed beneath you.
To be clear, it’s nothing like a water bed, and you’re never aware of any liquid sensation underneath you. You also need to configure the companion smartphone app to assign who is lying on which half of the bed, so personalised temperature settings can be put in place.
Functions and autopilot
The app is crucial because it’s here that you decide whether you prefer the bed to start off warm or cold when you climb in at nightfall. You can also adjust how much cooler the bed becomes during the night, with separate temperatures for the first and second halves of the night, roughly four hours each – or you can leave these changes to happen automatically, governed by the Autopilot software. Autopilot can also send you a text each morning with your sleep score and more insights.
Discovering what works best for you is a matter of trial and error, I found. And the other person in your bed can take their own action to choose their own temperature preferences – so they need to sign up to the app as well.
Once you have set your bedtime, the Pod will warm or cool the bed appropriately in the hour beforehand. Sensors built into the mattress cover (again, you can’t feel any of these) track your heart rate, breathing, HRV and more. Autopilot even tracks your snoring and can differentiate between the two halves of the bed so that, sorry about this, you can no longer blame your significant other.
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This new model has many more sensors than Pod 5 – up from two before to 18 now. These sensors work with the Autopilot software to learn the patterns of your sleep. Then it can adjust the temperature depending on what sleep stage you’re at, helping to lower your core temperature, which gets you to a deeper sleep state. Eight Sleep says the warming and cooling happens 20 per cent faster on Pod 6 than on the previous version.
Using the Pod 6 certainly has a learning curve. It turns out that I enjoy a warm bed, so the initial setting found me waking up at 1am feeling decidedly chilly because the temperature went too low.
There are physical controls on the edge of the mattress topper, cleverly placed so they fall under your hand naturally as you reach towards the side of the bed. A long press on the top or bottom button tells the Pod to warm you up or cool you down by one increment. A press on the middle button, however, invokes the rapid cooling protocol, which drives the water to its coldest setting.
That’s not something that helps me sleep but when I tested it, it was pretty quick.
Performance
Warming the bed from too-cold-for-me to just right took around 20 minutes, though once I’d found my optimal temperature I could set this in advance and leave the Autopilot to do the rest. This was better than lying awake for 20 minutes.
I also learned one night that pressing the button too many times, while warming me much more quickly, also required me to turn it down again when I felt it getting too hot. The next night, with settings chosen better in advance, I slept very well.
There are settings that I wasn’t able to test effectively, as these were for pregnant and postpartum users. Eight Sleep says that more settings like these, for specific use cases, will become available in the future.
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You can use the Pod 6 as an alarm, which will wake you by vibrating your half of the bed. This was effective, but it was something you could feel on the other side of the bed, too, I’m told. If you prefer, you can set the Pod 6 to wake you using heat instead of vibration. Both kinds of alarm are quelled by a press on the middle button on the side panel. There’s even the option of an alarm that will wake you at the best time in your sleep cycle. You have to be prepared for this to happen up to 30 minutes before your set time, but it can result in you waking refreshed.
Pricing
The new solo Pod 6, which suits a single bed, or half of a king or super king mattress costs £1,799, while adding another solo cover for a second side is an extra £999.
Buying a Pod 6 that covers both halves of a double is £2,399 (£50 less than the Pod 5). A king size bed is £2,499, a super king is £2,699 and an emperor size is £2,899. Apart from the double, the Pod 6 prices are the same as for Pod 5.
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There’s also a subscription for the Autopilot software, required for the first 12 months, and it starts from £17 a month, covering both sleepers in the bed. If you cancel the subscription, the Pod still works but you lack the automatic nightly adjustments as well as sleep and health insights.
Key specifications
Buy now £1799, Eightsleep.com
Is the Eight Sleep Pod 6 worth it?
Eight Sleep’s Pod 6 offers significant improvements over earlier versions, from increased numbers of sensors, faster cooling and warming and a lower entry price than before.
It’s still expensive, but it’s a sophisticated product with excellent build quality and an accomplished app. Getting it to work just right takes a little perseverance but once you’ve cracked it, or left it to Autopilot to work its magic (and it does feel close to magic), it falls into place.
Is my sleep better? I think so. Certainly my sleep scores have improved and the amount of deep and REM sleep reported by the app has increased. Though Eight Sleep offers a 30-night risk free trial, I quickly became addicted to it. I went away for a couple of days during the testing period and I was eager to get back to my own bed, and Pod 6.
How I tested the Eight Sleep Pod 6
I have been using Eight Sleep Pod 6 for more than a month, every night. During testing, I looked at each part of the experience and considered the following criteria.
Why you can trust IndyBest reviews
IndyBest is The Independent’s expert-driven shopping section. We extensively test every product we feature to bring you unbiased reviews based on real-world testing, and we only recommend products that pass our rigorous tests. David Phelan is The Independent’s technology critic, who covers everything from interviewing major players in the industry to writing IndyBest reviews and other articles. Having worked for the title since 1997, David has an abundance of experience when it comes to bringing you insightful, honest reviews of all the latest gadgets and devices, from the Oura ring to AirPods.
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