Eight Sleep Pod

The most advanced sleeping system on the market providing personalized temperature control

Some of my friends have Eight sleep pods - these are sophisticated mattress covers connected to thermo-electric systems that can heat or cool one side of your bed.

I’ve now had my Eight Sleep Pod for over six months and am ready to talk about it.

Why did we get an Eight Sleep Pod?

I was interested in this for a couple of reasons:

1. I do not get much deep sleep. My wife on the other hand gets a lot (this is according to our Oura rings). I’ve never really figured out a way to get a “normal” amount.

2. We both sleep very differently - she sleeps very hot, I don’t. We have a wool comforter to help us and wool mattress cover. This has worked well, but still in the summer and winter we find that we are either too hot or too cold.

What is the Eight Sleep Pod?

At its basic core it’s a CPU tower that has a water reservoir and two thermos electric heaters / coolers. Heating or cooling liquid requires either a compressor (noisy) or a resistance hearer (no cooling). Thermo Electric is a technology that can heat and cool with minimal noise.

The Hub looks like a CPU tower.

What is thermo electric cooling and heating?

Thermo electric cooling and heating refers to a technology that uses the Peltier effect to either cool or heat an object or space.

The Peltier effect is a thermoelectric phenomenon in which an electric current passed through two dissimilar conductors creates a temperature difference between the two. In the case of thermo electric cooling, the electric current is used to pump heat from one side of the Peltier module to the other, allowing for cooling on one side and heating on the other.

Thermo electric cooling and heating has a few advantages over other methods of heating and cooling. For one, it doesn't rely on any moving parts, so it is a fairly reliable and low-maintenance technology. Additionally, it can be very compact, making it useful for applications where space is limited.

Pretty neat. Well, if you take this technology, pair it with a mattress cover with lots and lots of tubing for the liquid, what you end up with is a heating and cooling system for your bed! Neat.

In addition to that, the Eight Sleep Pod has all sorts of sensors and monitoring to regulate temperature during distinct phases of sleep and allow you to personalize your temperature.

What do I like about it?

In the summer, our top floor room is a few degrees hotter than the rest of our house, so this is a fantastic solution to knock down the sleep temperature.

In the winter, we get cold and like cozy temperatures when falling asleep and when waking up.

My wife and I have different preferences for sleeping.

I have in fact been getting more “normal” deep sleep. Much more than anything else I have tried.

What’s it like to set up the Eight Sleep Pod?

Well, it does take some muscle if you have a large mattress. In my case it took about an hour and two people to put on the encasement, then zip on the active grid and then prime the entire system. You need to feed the system distilled water with some hydrogen peroxide.

Once you set it up, it just runs on auto pilot each night. When you are away, there is an away mode you can enable.

Have we run into any problems?

We did. After a few weeks I noticed some irregular noises from our Pod Hub. Support swapped it for a brand new one and it’s been perfect ever since.

I have encountered many reviews of people that have complained of water leaks. I can see how that could be a massive concern. We have yet to encounter this, but I can see how pets and kids could cause the active grid to leak. My two friends that have these have not had this issue. Our son has a habit of jumping on our mattress, so we had to cut that out.

Buying an Eight Sleep Pod

I have a version 2 pod, and version 3 comes with some nice upgrades, but not enough for me to upgrade given the huge cost of this device. I will keep things as-is till it’s time to replace our mattress.

When purchasing an Eight Sleep Pod you can get it with or without their mattress. There is really no difference in the product.

Eight is always running specials and deals. I got mine for $250 off due to a referral from a friend. Below is a link you can use to get up to $450 off (for referring you I get a gift card worth $100). Feel free to skip all that and just get directly from them as I would recommend this product to anyone who has similar concerns that I do regarding sleep.