Eight Sleep Pod 4 Review

Table of Contents

• The Eight Sleep UVP (Unique Value Proposition)

• Biometric Data & Sleep Tracking

• Heating & Cooling

• Autopilot

• Comfort

• Haptic Vibration

• Sleep Quality Impact

• Overall Value

I made a big purchase a couple of months ago - an Eight Sleep Pod 4.

If you don’t know, The Eight Sleep is considered “The Ultimate Sleep Solution” (their words, not mine). They claim to create the ultimate environment for deep restorative sleep by regulating temperature throughout the night.

Their website makes these four claims:

1. Better sleep* (*clinically proven)

2. Fall asleep faster

3. Stay asleep longer

4. Increase your deep sleep

As someone who struggles with sleep, specifically falling asleep due to feeling too hot. I’ve been intrigued by the Eight Sleep for years but never pulled the trigger.

I was skeptical, especially at its lofty price tag.

But I pulled the trigger at the beginning of September after coming into a little extra money.

So now, with the stage set. Here’s my honest review.

The Eight Sleep UVP (Unique Value Proposition)

Eight Sleep’s claim to fame is that it provides feedback on your sleep and adjusts your environment to perfect your sleep experience.

This is pretty awesome. In the health and wellness space, Eight Sleep is the only device I know of that is both insightful and therapeutic.

Let me explain. Wearables like Oura, Whoop, and even watches like Coros and Garmin are designed to collect biological and performance data and provide clear insights on your health and leading health metrics (sleep, VO2 max, stress levels, recovery, HRV, etc.), but they don’t do anything for your body.

They’re great tools, but they’re insightful and informative.

Conversely, The other side of health and wellness gadgets are largely therapeutic. Devices like Normatec sleeves, Hyperice Hypervolts and Theraguns, Sleep masks like Manta, red light alarm clocks, and even super shoes are all created to provide some therapeutic effect.

In short, these items treat or enhance you, but they don’t give you feedback on how that item helps you.

Meanwhile, the Eight Sleep does both.

It provides biometric health data on your sleep and makes adjustments to improve those metrics. It’s a closed-loop system that continually builds on itself.

Very cool. And no other sleep technology does both.

UVP Rating: 10/10

Biometric Data & Sleep Tracking

I have used an Oura Ring for the past three years to track my sleep.

I have really enjoyed the Oura Ring for a few reasons. First, the battery life is awesome. Unlike my Apple Watch which needs to be charged every day, the Oura ring goes most of the week before needing a 20-minute charge.

But my Eight Sleep data has been very comparable to my Oura ring so I trust that it’s accurate.

Here’s a look at my sleep data from last night.

As you can see, I get the same metrics from my Eight Sleep that I do from my Oura Ring. Things like:

• Deep Sleep

• REM Sleep

• HRV

• Resting Heart Rate

• Breath Rate

• A “Sleep *Fitness* Score”

But the Eight Sleep also has a few other data pieces like time snoring. Kinda cool.

Data & Insights Rating: 9/10

Heating & Cooling

As someone who sleeps hot, I was excited about this feature.

If you take the Eight Sleep base away, which adjusts the height of the mattress (I didn’t buy it), and just buy the cover. Temperature regulation is the primary therapeutic effect Eight Sleep provides.

With the ability to set a bed temperature as low as 55°F and as high as 110°F, the Eight Sleep app lets you set different temperatures throughout the night. The first as you’re falling asleep, the second late at night, and the third as you wake up. They recommend starting cool, moving colder to support deeper rest, and then warming in the morning to help you wake up.

My baseline settings look like this:

The temperature settings work well. The best way I can describe the feeling is that feeling you get when you move to the cool part of the bed from a hot part.

There is an “ahhh” feeling. With the Eight Sleep that just doesn’t go away. It’s pretty great.

It also certainly gets cold. I’ve had to adjust it a few times because I’ve woken up FREEZING and I’ve woken up a little sweaty because of the heating function.

The one thing I’ll call out is the way it cools.

The Eight Sleep uses water to cool the bed and not air like many of the competitor cooling systems. But because water doesn’t conduct temperature as much as air, your bed doesn’t get cool just the mattress

What I mean by that is you still generate heat, your top blanket can get warm, and your feet can still get hot. The Eight Sleep Pod really just makes the mattress cold and you only feel that where you’re touching it.

It took some getting used to and I like it now, but it’s worth calling out.

Temperature Control Rating: 8/10

Autopilot

Autopilot is a $ 25-a-month feature that gets tacked on after purchase.

To be honest, this was one of the main reasons I didn’t want to buy it. I understand the desire to create MRR (monthly recurring revenue) as a business is advantageous. That’s why everyone from Eight Sleep, to Oura, to my Loftie alarm clock adds on a small monthly fee.

But $25 doesn’t feel small, especially on a $2000+ device.

But something changed my mind. The concept of “Sleep Fitness”.

I pay $15 a month for Zwift and bike once or twice a week. I pay $199 for my gym and coworking space and spend roughly 20 hours there a week. But I spend over 50 hours in my bed.

If I think of it as a “gym membership” it’s a solid deal.

But is it worth it…

Honestly, not yet.

Autopilot makes adjustments to give you sleep, but that’s about all it does. Every morning I wake up and see it make 10-30 “adjustments” throughout the night, but I don’t know what they did.

The daily recap looks like this:

I want Autopilot to be more experimental and give more data. I want to run tests and see how tests change my metrics. I want to see how tagged events play into my sleep and what changes it makes based on them, but currently, it’s very, very, basic.

I’m hoping the team at Eight Sleep innovates here. If they don’t they won’t be getting a renewal on year 2 - from me, or anyone else.

Auto Pilot Rating: 3/10

Comfort

I didn’t have a previous version of the Eight Sleep Pod, but the reviews said it was uncomfortable to feel the tubing through the cover when you lay on it.

That doesn’t seem to be a problem with the Pod 4. We had a really comfortable mattress and I think it actually made our bed more comfortable. The water tubing is encased in some type of memory foam that feels great to lay on.

You can feel the tubing when you touch it, but not when you lay on it.

Comfort Rating: 10/10

Haptic Vibration

Another thing was excited about was the haptic vibration to help wake you up.

The concept is that alarms are “alarming” and the way they wake you up causes some unease, even if you don’t notice it. Eight Sleeps Pod has a built-in vibration feature that helps you wake up slowly and doesn’t wake anyone else up in the process.

To my disappointment, it’s more like two cell phones built in around your shoulders than a full bed vibration.

Not what I was expecting or what I thought it was going to be, but it does what its supposed to do. It wakes you up gently and doesn’t disturb other partners in the bed with noise.

Comfort Rating: 5/10

Sleep Quality Impact

To me, this was the real question: “Does it actually help my sleep?”

Surprisingly… a resounding yes.

Check out my Oura sleep score before and after getting my Eight Sleep Mattress early in September. It saw a dramatic improvement in my health metrics and I definitely feel more rested in the mornings!

Impact Rating: 10/10

Overall Value

Was it worth it?

I think this is a personal decision. I love it and am certainly not returning it. Like I said, it’s improved my sleep - not just in the data - I actually feel better when I wake up. It has made my bed more comfortable, and I was able to buy it with some unexpected money.

TLDR - it’s improved my sleep and my life. I can say that about very few products.

I think determining whether the Eight Sleep is right for you comes down to price and what you’re looking for.

If all you want is sleep data, skip it and get an Oura. It’s awesome and a fraction of the cost. But if you’re serious about improving your sleep and willing to invest in your sleep like you do in any other fitness category, pull the trigger. You won’t regret it.