I Examined the Eight Sleep Pod 4 Cowl. Right here Are 8 Issues You Ought to Know Earlier than Shopping for Leave a comment

In case you and your associate can’t agree on bedding or the temperature of the bed room, you’re not alone. My associate — and fellow CNET sleep professional — Dillon and I’ve lengthy struggled with our opposing sleeping positions and preferences. These disparities have an effect on what every of us perceives to be the “good” bed room setup, and recently it is led to one among us kicking all of the covers off in the course of the evening from feeling too sizzling (ahem, Dillon).

If this sounds acquainted to you and your associate, then you realize it is exhausting to agree on the kind of mattress you need to sleep on and which bedding and sleep equipment to make use of. That is why Dillon and I have been inclined to attempt the Pod 4 Cowl by Eight Sleep, which lets you management the temperature individually on both sides of the mattress. We have been sleeping on it for about two months now, and what a journey it has been. 

Whether or not you wrestle with evening sweats, shiver beneath the covers, argue along with your associate concerning the temperature or search one other option to observe your well being metrics and sleep information, preserve studying to seek out out if the Eight Sleep Pod 4 Cowl is the appropriate transfer.

Video: We Examined the Eight Sleep Pod 4 Cowl

Watch us take a look at and overview the Pod 4 Cowl on YouTube!

What’s Eight Sleep?

Eight Sleep has been redefining sleep expertise for the reason that concept for the Pod originated in early 2015. The model now presents three fashions: Pod 3, Pod 4 and Pod 4 Extremely. The Pod 3 and 4 include the mattress cowl and hub, whereas the Pod 4 Extremely comes with the quilt, hub and adjustable base.

The model’s first bedding accent was the Eight Sensible Mattress Cowl, meant to trace sleep with out the necessity to put on a tool. It may heat your facet of the mattress however not cool it. The corporate rapidly discovered that that was its prospects’ primary request — a cooling answer. 

It is smart, provided that analysis exhibits it is a lot more durable to sleep after we’re too sizzling than too chilly. In keeping with a examine by Casper and Gallup, in america, 14% of adults reported being too sizzling “at all times” or “more often than not,” over twice as many who reported being too chilly. 57% of adults reported being too sizzling at the least sometimes whereas sleeping.

To deal with this, Eight Sleep now presents the revolutionary Pod 3 and 4 Covers. They will warmth and funky both sides of the mattress, with a formidable temperature vary from 55 to 110 levels Fahrenheit. The Pod senses your sleep patterns, routinely adjusting the temperature that will help you go to sleep, keep asleep and get up simpler within the morning.

Learn extra: I Sleep on the Eight Sleep Pod 3 Cowl Each Night time. This is How It Cured My Night time Sweats

How does it aid you sleep?

This adjustable temperature expertise helps you sleep due to your pure circadian rhythm. Your physique temperature usually fluctuates anyplace from 97 to 100 levels Fahrenheit over every 24-hour cycle (various relying on age, well being circumstances and so forth). We naturally go to sleep when our inner physique temperature lowers, which appears like the other is occurring — when your core temperature decreases, you really really feel hotter. When your core temperature will increase, you expel warmth and really feel colder.

Except they’ve particular cooling expertise, many mattresses take up and retain physique warmth, which might simply trigger you to overheat at evening when you are likely to sleep sizzling. Our our bodies naturally affiliate cooler temperatures with sleep and hotter temperatures as brisker, which is why being too sizzling causes you to get up — usually coated in sweat and pissed off.

Eight issues to know concerning the Eight Sleep Pod 4

Let’s tackle the elephant within the bed room. The Eight Sleep Pod 4 Cowl will not be low cost. A queen measurement retails for $2,649, and that doesn’t embody the month-to-month subscription (extra on that later). Earlier than making the funding, listed here are eight issues you need to know primarily based on our private testing experiences.

1. Tedious (but easy) setup course of

The setup course of was considerably time-consuming (it took us about an hour) however was rather more easy than I anticipated. The instructions have been clear and tremendous straightforward to comply with, so even dummies like us may determine it out.

Getting linked

Earlier than I get too far, listed here are three issues it’s essential to have for this to work: an influence outlet close to the mattress, Wi-Fi and a tool with Bluetooth.

The Eight Sleep Pod 4 Cowl is available in two heavy packing containers: There’s one for the quilt and one for the hub, which is the management middle of your Pod. It additionally features a neat zippable bag for secure and straightforward transporting down the street, if wanted. After opening the packing containers and scanning the QR code inside, it tells you precisely what to do — beginning with downloading the app and getting into the activation code. When you’re linked, you give the Pod a reputation. We went with The Pea Pod. Get it? Like two peas in a pod. Actual authentic, I do know.

We adopted the app’s prompts, simply placing the quilt on like a fitted sheet. The connecting hose (or “tentacle,” as Dillon calls it) goes on the head of your mattress, and it should lie flat towards the mattress with no kinks.

Filling the Pod

As soon as every part is plugged in and linked, the app alerts it is time to fill the Pod. The hub routinely detects as soon as you have inserted the complete tank and begins to flow into water by way of the tube system within the cowl. You may should refill the tank two or 3 times through the setup course of (for us, it was solely twice).

Organising your Autopilot profile

As soon as it is completed circulating, you are able to arrange your Autopilot profile. When you’ve got an iPhone, you may join the Eight Sleep app to the Apple Well being app, which we did (and would advocate doing). The app then prompts you to enter private information similar to peak and weight and asks questions concerning menstrual cycle, being pregnant, postpartum, menopause and so forth. I respect that it considers this as a result of these phases can considerably have an effect on your temperature at evening as a girl. 

It asks about every other sleep or well being circumstances you’ll have, similar to insomnia and evening sweats. You are prompted to reply questions on your present sleep patterns and each day behaviors, like train, whether or not you’re taking sleeping tablets and the temperature of your bed room. It finishes by asking how you want your mattress while you get in at evening and out within the morning, and now your Autopilot profile is full.

The app prompted me to “invite” Dillon to our Pod by emailing him so he may arrange his Autopilot profile and preferences — and voilà, we have been prepared for our first evening on the Eight Sleep Pod 4 Cowl.

2. Cool building and design

Dillon and I have been instantly blown away by the fabric high quality of the Pod’s hub and canopy. We love the smooth, darkish gray look of each items. 

Because the hub should be displayed close to the mattress, we have been happy with how nicely it blended with our bed room. It is also not as large as I believed it might be — at about 16 inches tall by 6 inches huge, it is fairly unassuming and straightforward to squeeze close to the nightstand.

The Pod 4 encompasses a new and improved cowl with a layer of contouring consolation foam that is 20% thinner than the Pod 3. This new cowl is designed to be imperceptible in order that it does not change the texture of your mattress. 

Since he tried one of many authentic Eight Sleep covers years in the past, Dillon seen this enchancment instantly. He defined that within the older fashions, you could possibly really feel the grid system of tubes working by way of the quilt, however because of this new design, you may’t really feel them anymore.

Every little thing appears extraordinarily sturdy and high-quality, from the hub and canopy to the water hose connecting them. The duvet matches properly round our queen-size mattress like a fitted sheet, providing a smooth, comfy really feel. It did a surprisingly good job of not affecting the texture of our dense reminiscence foam mattress beneath us. If something, it made the mattress really feel a twinge softer however hardly sufficient to note.

Caveat: The duvet’s materials attracts pet hair such as you would not imagine. So if in case you have cats or an particularly furry pup like our husky Charlie, you could need to preserve them out of the room throughout setup and when you’re washing your bedding.

3. Efficient heating and cooling

Now, Eight Sleep’s declare to fame is its cooling expertise, however the heating is simply as spectacular. You and your associate can every management your facet of the Pod 4 Cowl independently, permitting you to set it at no matter temperature works greatest for you with out affecting the opposite individual. Whether or not you are sizzling or chilly, it is a game-changer for companions with completely different wants and preferences. 

We cranked it to the extremes and rapidly realized it is no joke. This factor can get freezingly frigid and virtually suffocatingly sizzling. With my facet set at +10 (the best setting it could possibly go), I felt it heating up beneath me whereas Dillon’s facet cooled all the way down to -10, the bottom it could possibly go. We have been stunned at how nicely both sides saved the intense temperatures localized — I could not really feel chilly radiating from his facet, and he could not really feel the warmth from mine. 

In case you’re a sizzling sleeper, we will confidently say you will discover aid by sleeping on the Pod 4 Cowl. It rapidly will get shockingly chilly. On evening one, Dillon mentioned it was the coldest he’d ever been. He needed to enhance the temperature on his facet from -6 to -4 as a result of the chilly was maintaining him awake.

Throughout our testing course of, I discovered that I take pleasure in utilizing the Pod 4 Cowl when I’ve interval cramps. Because the Pod can get so sizzling, it appears like a large cozy heating pad, serving to to alleviate my cramps and sleep higher than I’d in any other case. I additionally imagine Eight Sleep may assist present aid if in case you have persistent aches or pains by cooling or heating in no matter method your physique wants.

Dillon and I additionally commented on its quietness. Regardless of its spectacular thermal energy, it is nearly silent (and 40% quieter than the Pod 3 Cowl). 

4. Alarms and scheduling

The Eight Sleep app helps you to set your customized each day and weekly schedules. Basically, this implies setting the temperatures you want throughout 4 phases of sleep: bedtime, deep sleep, REM and awake time. 

The time and temperature you set for bedtime means the Pod will routinely activate and funky or warmth so it is the right temperature for while you crawl into mattress. You sometimes need your deep sleep (early stage) and REM sleep (late stage) phases to be cooler. It’d take some trial and error, and you could want to regulate your temperatures till you discover the most effective settings for you. The app will assist alongside the best way.

The alarm settings are additionally fully customizable. Together with the time, you decide whether or not you need it to wake you up thermally or by vibration (or each, like I do). You may select what temperature you need to wake you up, and the app suggests whether or not it is probably to take action successfully. It’s also possible to choose the sample and power of the vibration alarm. 

I’ve actually loved utilizing the alarm characteristic. I get up rather more gently and peacefully than I did with my aggressive telephone alarm. To snooze or dismiss the alarm, all it’s important to do is double-tap the sensor zone on the facet of the Pod. This implies I am now not grabbing my telephone very first thing within the morning to close my alarm off, which inevitably results in me checking my notifications and messages earlier than my eyes are even open totally — and everyone knows that is definitely not the greatest option to begin the day.

5. Nifty contact sensors (no telephone required)

Let’s speak concerning the telephone factor once more. In case you’re tempted to scroll on TikTok or Instagram till it is nicely previous your bedtime (responsible as charged), then leaving your telephone out of the bed room utterly is a good way to keep away from the temptation altogether — and it’s doable to do with the Eight Sleep Pod 4 Cowl.

The Pod has contact sensors on both facet of the mattress. Tapping these sensors turns off your alarm within the morning, and you too can faucet them to regulate the temperature all through the evening as vital. Merely double-tap the sensor zone to chill your facet by one stage and triple-tap to heat it. It really works exceptionally nicely, and like I mentioned, you don’t should preserve your telephone within the bed room in any respect to regulate your settings as desired.

6. Sleep information and well being metrics

The Eight Sleep Pod 4 Cowl tracks and experiences your sleep phases and biometrics similar to HRV, coronary heart charge, breath charge and loud night breathing.

Sleep information

It tracks your whole sleep, deep sleep, REM sleep, the time you fell asleep and awakened and sleep latency, or how lengthy it took to go to sleep and get up. Every morning, it takes these numbers under consideration and supplies an total sleep health rating.

I used to be stunned to find that the Eight Sleep app doesn’t present the full time you spend in mild sleep or how lengthy you are awake all through the evening. Dillon and I are likely to get up rather a lot, so I used to be a little bit bummed to seek out that measurement is not included within the experiences. I believe that future updates or fashions of the Eight Sleep Pod will embody these numbers.

Loud night breathing

The Pod additionally tracks loud night breathing, detailing how a lot time you spend sawing wood. This snore detection characteristic was extremely correct for us. I will focus on this later, nevertheless it’s a neat ingredient of the Pod 4 Cowl that I believe could possibly be shared along with your physician when you suspect any potential sleep problems, like sleep apnea. 

In case you go for the Pod 4 Extremely with the adjustable base, it should gently auto-adjust the elevation of your head to cease the loud night breathing.

Learn extra: Greatest Adjustable Bases and Mattress Frames of 2024

Different well being metrics

The Pod detects coronary heart charge variability (the variation in time between heartbeats), coronary heart charge and respiratory charge. Over time, Eight Sleep learns your common vitals, offering data every morning about whether or not they fall inside or outdoors your regular ranges. It even recaps your resting coronary heart charge in 5-minute increments all through the evening so you may scroll by way of and analyze when there have been ups and downs that evening.

Although Dillon and I am unable to precisely show it to you, you will should take our phrase for it — these measurements appeared remarkably correct. Eight Sleep is assured about its accuracy, too, as they’ve discovered the Pod’s sleeping coronary heart charge monitoring to be 99% correct in comparison with the gold normal (ECG) and the respiratory charge monitoring to be 98% correct.

Monitoring your HRV tendencies over time is a wonderful option to monitor your cardiovascular and nervous system well being and see how sure life-style adjustments (like weight loss program, alcohol, train, stress and so forth) have an effect on your total well being and high quality of life. 

7. Autopilot and each day experiences

You may select to obtain each day notifications from the Eight Sleep app with a recap of your sleep tendencies, which I like to recommend doing. The notifications element your sleep health rating and the way lengthy you slept, together with a standout piece of details about your evening. 

After the primary evening of sleeping on our Pod 4 Cowl, I acquired a textual content from Eight Sleep with my sleep report, asking if I felt too sizzling or chilly and when. I replied that I felt too sizzling early within the evening. It responded that it will routinely modify this for the following evening to assist me sleep higher, and positive sufficient, it did. Shade me impressed.

One thing fascinating occurred on the fourth evening. In keeping with my Whoop band, I used to be severely overheating. Eight Sleep carried out auto-adjustments all through the evening to counteract my rising physique temperature, claiming that it elevated my deep sleep by 16%. This occurred a number of instances all through our testing processes, and the app exhibits when and what changes have been made. 

The Pod constantly learns your sleep patterns and private preferences, making changes all through the evening as vital to assist preserve you asleep. It’s actually cool. 

8. Excessive price ticket

I will not beat across the bush. The Eight Sleep Pod is dear. The Pod 4 Cowl at the moment retails for $2,649, and the Pod 4 Extremely is a whopping $4,699 — and these costs do not embody the Autopilot subscription. 

There are two subscription plans to select from: Normal ($17 a month or $199 yearly) or Enhanced ($25 a month or $299 yearly). The one distinction is that the Enhanced plan presents a five-year guarantee, which can exchange your Pod if any points happen (stipulations apply). 

Eight Sleep requires Autopilot for the primary 12 months (you may cancel anytime) and covers each sleepers if in case you have a associate.

Eight Sleep Pod Pricing

Mannequin	Worth (Queen Dimension)	Autopilot Subscription
Pod 3	$2,295	Normal: $17/month | Enhanced: $25/month
Pod 4	$2,649	Normal: $17/month | Enhanced: $25/month
Pod 4 Extremely	$4,699	Normal: $17/month | Enhanced: $25/month

How we examined the Eight Sleep Pod 4 Cowl

We totally acknowledge that many exterior components have an effect on sleep high quality, from weight loss program and train to stress and nervousness ranges to the climate and extraneous noises. Dillon and I did our greatest to maintain every part as constant as doable with our bedtime routines from the weeks main as much as and through our testing of the Eight Sleep Pod 4 Cowl.

We tracked our sleep with our Whoop bands for 3 weeks earlier than including the Pod 4 Cowl to our Casper Snow mattress, which we then examined and tracked our sleep on for 3 extra weeks. We did this for 2 causes: First for a constant comparability of our sleep information earlier than and through sleeping on the Eight Sleep Cowl, and second to check the accuracy between Whoop and Eight Sleep as trackers. 

Learn extra: Testing the Casper Snow Hybrid Mattress for 30 Nights

We used each characteristic the Eight Sleep app presents, analyzing our sleep and well being information every morning. We additionally adopted Autopilot’s solutions to make sure we’re utilizing our Pod to its fullest potential. As trackers, Eight Sleep and Whoop have been surprisingly comparable for probably the most half. Nonetheless, a sleep-tracking mattress cowl will naturally have a few downsides.

On the few nights when there was a big disparity between the 2, Eight Sleep was reporting both manner above or manner under our sleep totals. We imagine this was not at all Eight Sleep’s fault for a few causes. For one factor, it sometimes picked up and tracked our canine Charlie’s vitals and sleep information. Second, I’d generally lie nearer to the center of the mattress or on Dillon’s facet with him (and vice versa) — in order that’s on us. 

Our sleep information on the Eight Sleep Pod 4 Cowl

The graph under compares our whole sleep averages with and with out the Pod 4 Cowl. I used to be shocked to find that my whole sleep stayed practically the identical, taking place by 1 minute. Alternatively, Dillon’s whole sleep common elevated considerably, rising from 5:41 to six:33 hours for a median of 52 minutes extra per evening.

My eerily comparable whole sleep numbers are probably as a result of I did not want to make use of the Pod 4 Cowl fairly the identical manner that Dillon did. For your entire trial, we slept on the Casper Snow mattress, which has cooling expertise to stop overheating. This mattress did a wonderful job maintaining me cooler, in contrast to our earlier mattresses with cotton and wool covers. The coolness supplied by the mattress appeared to be sufficient to maintain me comfy. 

Dillon had a barely completely different expertise. “The Casper Snow does an excellent job of staying temperature-neutral, however I did not really feel it was actively cooling. I wasn’t overheating, however I additionally by no means acquired that chilly feeling that I would need to really feel after I’m in mattress since I am an excellent sizzling sleeper,” he defined. 

Dillon saved his facet of the Pod 4 Cowl a lot cooler all through the evening than I did. For probably the most half, I had mine set to -2 and Dillon had his set to -4. I attempted maintaining my facet as little as his and rapidly discovered it was a lot too chilly for my liking. 

Be aware: Dillon and I’ve continued utilizing the Eight Sleep Pod 4 Cowl since our preliminary testing, and I imagine it is improved my sleep high quality much more than throughout these first three weeks. It might take just a few weeks of trial and error and testing completely different temperatures earlier than you discover the settings that work greatest for you.

Moreover, as Autopilot continues studying about us and our sleep preferences and patterns, it turns into more and more efficient. Do not be discouraged if the Pod does not appear to enhance your sleep high quality instantly. We propose sticking with it diligently for at the least a few months to provide it a full probability.

Given his spectacular outcomes, Dillon’s sleep information was rather more enjoyable to dissect. His whole sleep common elevated from 5:41 to six:33 hours, gaining practically an hour extra sleep than he had been getting with out the quilt. His deep sleep elevated from 1:12 to 1:25 hours, and his common REM sleep elevated barely from 1:28 to 1:36 hours. The period of time he spent in mild sleep additionally rose from 3 to three:30 hours, so he was getting a half hour extra mild sleep than normal. His awake time additionally elevated by a couple of minutes from 1:02 to 1:09.

Sleep latency

The Eight Sleep Cowl additionally tracks sleep latency. I want I had my numbers for this earlier than sleeping on Eight Sleep to check as a result of I imagine it helped me go to sleep sooner. It sometimes takes us some time to go to sleep; on common, Dillon and I lie enjoyable in mattress for about an hour earlier than really falling asleep. With the Eight Sleep, my common sleep latency was 32 minutes and Dillon’s was 42 — a little bit of an enchancment if I needed to guess.

Loud night breathing

As we have touched on in our 30-night mattress critiques, Dillon tends to snore when mendacity on his again. I haven’t got proof, per se, however I imagine Eight Sleep tracked our loud night breathing exceptionally precisely. The app supplies the minutes and share of time you spent loud night breathing, which, for Dillon, averaged 39 minutes and diverse fairly a bit — from a low of three minutes to a excessive of 1.5 hours. Like most individuals, his probability of loud night breathing adjustments drastically relying on his sleeping place, how drained he’s, and so on. 

This can be a nice characteristic for monitoring how a lot you snore every evening. You may even share the information along with your physician when you imagine loud night breathing or sleep apnea is affecting your total high quality of relaxation. It is price mentioning right here that sure wearables might be simpler in notifying you about potential respiration interruptions, similar to the brand new sleep apnea detection characteristic within the Apple Watch.

Our remaining ideas

Aly’s conclusion: “The Eight Sleep Pod 4 Cowl is a formidable sleep tech product that can critically cool you down when you’re a sizzling sleeper. Along with being nearly undetectable and silent as you sleep, it supplies nice perception into your sleep information and biometrics. It might probably additionally assist forestall sleep divorce if the temperature is a typical level of competition for you and your associate at evening. I don’t love the excessive price ticket and month-to-month subscription value, however I believe it’s price it if in case you have the means and if the aforementioned are recurring points for you.”

Dillon’s conclusion: “I’ve no complaints concerning the Eight Sleep Pod 4 Cowl. Even when you don’t really feel such as you essentially want it, it positively does not detriment or detract out of your sleep setup in any manner. It is improved my sleep drastically and I believe the Autopilot characteristic does an excellent job of monitoring and adjusting to maintain me asleep. The one draw back is the associated fee.”

Who ought to get this?

The Pod 4 Cowl is perhaps for you if:

• You’re an excellent sizzling (or chilly) sleeper 
• You’ve tried different cooling sleep merchandise or equipment and might’t discover aid
• You and your associate can’t determine on a temperature at evening
• You’ve gotten the funds

The Pod 4 Cowl may not be for you if:

• You’re solely trying to make use of it as a sleep tracker
• You don’t sometimes sleep too sizzling or too chilly
• It’s manner out of your funds