Look at this dumb asshole that got the $2500-2600 (assuming queen mattress) plus $17/mo or 199/yr subscription mattress cover (eg not the actual fucking mattress or bed frame). What a broke piece of shit. Should’ve gotten the $2850-2950 pod 6
After briefly googling what this actually is and the costs involved I have 0 sympathy for anyone involved. This is 100% tech bro bullshit. A temperature controlled bed sounds neat, I guess, and I am always a sucker for analytics, but this is possibly the most consumer hostile bullshit I have ever seen. It is all of the worst practices of modern tech wrapped into a device:
Grossly overpriced? Check
$350 upsell for physical controls? Check
Tons of vague language about health benefits that extrapolate valid claims onto their product, suggesting their product has benefits beyond something far cheaper (eg temperature does impact sleep but a $10 fan or $150 window unit would likely be fine because research is generally about environment and not about the surface of the bed)? Zero research about the device itself and zero funding for them to get this product investigated? Check
Subscription required? Not technically, core functionality still works, but you lose all the analytics, all the “smart adjustments” of temperature (it basically will just hold a constant temperature throughout the night whereas the subscription will adjust it gradually based on movement) and the biggest point is that your warranty is voided and you lose all support if you don’t maintain a subscription
Also while I don’t know this for sure I am betting there is 0 chance that you can fix this thing if it breaks.
you still need a fucking mattress! You know someone buying this isn’t throwing it on a $400 ikea mattress. They’re going for the $3200 foam mattress. I am so mad about this
tbh until I read ur comment I just assumed this was a shitpost tweet making fun of the state of consumer electronics, not a real product
I bought a gleeb for my glibben needs but it has no interoperability with floob, so I bought an adaptor from Amazon with a weird brand name made of plastic... etc etc
This product is more for people that run hot during the night. Especially for couples where one runs hot and the other runs cold during the night. And the cold one doesn’t want to sleep with ac on all night. With this product the hot sleeper can just turn on the bed cooler on their side to cooldown. So a blanket wouldn’t help in that situation. There are other brands that don’t require internet or a subscription. And yes if you only buy this product to warm your mattress than you are stupid.
Especially for couples where one runs hot and the other runs cold during the night.
Without elaborating too much, this is my situation, and we solve this by having the room cold for him and blankets for me. Actually, the situation is much better when our insurance stops jerking us around about his medication that fixes his night sweating and other related problems, but we're American, so can't be helped.
It just seems like a lot of trouble when you can buy a blanket idk.
Honestly, I'm the one paying for a subscription service that doesn't help (insurance), so I guess I'm the clown here.
Well I did say that this is for people that don't like to have the AC on all night, like when the cold sleeper keeps complaining about a cold head or the noise. Like not everyone lives in the US where HVAC is the norm many people in the world have those big AC units hanging on the wall that can be pretty noisy.
Those things aren't too bad unless they need repair/replace....meanwhile you are recommending a solution that starts at like $2500 that only works while you're in the bed.
Most of the USA has HVAC, but not everyone. I grew up without it. We had in-window units and box fans. You get used to it quickly.
I'm sorry, I'm just not seeing this as anything but an expensive luxury (that doesn't have physical buttons unless u paid???). Seems pretty silly to pretend its anything but that.
While the IKEA mattress is fine for you or me, I really don't think this smart mattress is actually that expensive. I believe 5k and up is still relatively common for a high quality mattress.
When you annualise it over 10 years and between two people, if they're getting better sleep than they would have otherwise, who are we to judge how they spend their money? It's actually not that bad in terms of value. There are nights in the summer where I would gladly pay €200 to not be sweating into the sheets.
Obviously, relying on a company for an app to control your bed is the idiotic part. But the price itself is not outrageous for me.
Sorry, there is no quality difference in mattresses
that would warrant price difference above a few hundred dollars. This simple hasn't been true for almost two decades. No mattress should cost $5000.
So I wrote a lot of word salad there and maybe this point got lost:
This device is not a mattress
It is a mattress topper
So you buy your bougie $2500 mattress (because of course someone buying this is not cheaping out on a mattress) and fancy bed frame. Then you spend another $3000 on this. Then *another * 200ish dollars a year, in perpetuity, to make it work (not including electrical costs and water)
But at that point why not pay >€200 for a window unit air conditioner and the >€1 in electricity for the day to run it overnight? If you don’t have a window that can accommodate you can get ones that stand in the room. A dehumidifier. A fan. None of these require apps or subscriptions (yet), cost substantially less, and again the research about sleep temperature is about the environment, not the bed itself
It would be a bit pricey as a mattress... But it isn't a mattress, it's only a cover, you also need a mattress.
They used to sell a mattress, but they "improved" the product by cost reducing out the mattress part and making you buy that from someone else (while also increasing the price).
When I bought a Pod Mattress+Cover, it was on the higher end of normal-ish price for a mattress with no mandatory subscription fee.
Now you are paying $3k for just a cover and have to at least pay $17/month to keep it actually working.
he is very famous in the tech sphere at this point i think
He mostly makes videos going about tech articles and giving his mind about it but sometimes explaining some things about the choices he made on his setup/projects (i think the latter videos are better).
Famous enough even that some junior devs/viewers copy him. (i remember some rumors/sm-posts that senior devs dont like it BUT cant make anyone happy)
I personally dislike him* but there are a lot that like him.
::: spoiler *reasons for why i disliking him (its a wall of text, sorry, its not even productive)
I know that the first video i saw was really bad and got me into avoiding his videos.
Dont even know if it was because he talked bs or if i just thought he was weird.
Did not treat him like a credible source until i watched a better video a few months after.
So i was biased from the start
A while ago he made a video about an article/reportage where the creators asked him nicely to delete/change/share-revenue because it was like 95% their content and the rest him saying something and he completely flipped how they dare after he gave them so much exposure.
He also backlashed against another creator who defended the company and spoke out against him.
To my knowledge Theo still things he was the one wronged.
Less important to my reasoning:
He is actively working on an AI app thing (combines different AIs into 1 app)
:::
I have one of these and it’s one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. You don’t have to believe me. In any case, it just runs off of a Linux computer. You can install OSS firmware on it.
I genuinely believe that it’s nice to have a temperature controlled bed that gives you analytics. Like I said, those are cool things
The issue is that it’s wrapped in classic big tech bullshit. A sheen of “cool design” that looks lame to justify an outrageous price tag. That would not be the worst thing in the world if it wasn’t coupled with a ton of tremendously anticonsumer practices
I simply cannot see how anyone could justify giving a company who will void your warranty if you do not pay them continually for years after already paying them thousands at the onset. That is no longer a warranty, it is an ongoing service contract and it implies you never had a warranty or support to begin with. You gave them 3 grand for a product that they do not support. I can somewhat understand tying advanced server sided features to a subscription model. though really you should get at least 1-2 years of service with such a high price tag and honestly if there is a SBC can it really not run locally? Of course it can’t because looking deeper still they harvest your biometric data to sell it, of fucking course as if they weren’t making enough off the insane price tag and subscription costs. As if they weren’t checking off every big tech scumbag box already.
Also, so I can put Linux on it? So what? Fat lot of good that will do me when the pad starts leaking and needs a warranty replacement. It appears that if the pad fails and warranty is suspended that’s a 5-700 dollar replacement, plus shipping and restrictions on 3rd party repair. Do I just pay them $17 a month for a subscription I don’t use then as a service contract fee? Fuck that. You are a sucker who is being extorted by a company who disrespects you. They deserve to go out of business for their horrible practices.
I simply cannot see how anyone could justify giving a company who will void your warranty if you do not pay them continually for years after already paying them thousands at the onset.
I’m pretty positive this is against the law, so they might say it but it might be unenforceable.
if there is a SBC can it really not run locally?
Not sure what you mean by SBC
Also, so I can put Linux on it? So what?
No it literally is a Linux box. You don’t need to put Linux on it. People have managed to connect directly to the box. And so what? It directly refutes 80% of your points. If you can put FOSS software on it then you can do whatever you want with it without worrying about them harvesting your data, requiring it to be always online, charging a subscription, worrying about the “cool tech bro” app, etc.
If any actual alternative existed then yeah it’d be a no brainer to use the alternative. But no alternatives exist. And no, an AC in the window is not an alternative, and those things that blow air on you under the covers also aren’t an alternative.
Even if it’s against the law it doesn’t mean you won’t run into a massive amount of headache. do you really want to have to go to small claims just to get warranty fulfillment?
Single board computer. Linux box is more appropriate terminology apparently
The fact that you can defeat their software is great, genuinely, I’m happy to hear that you do that and I encourage you to develop or promote the alternative firmware that starves them of subscription revenue
The issue is every sale they make is validation of their terrible practices. You may roll your eyes at this and say “who fucking cares” but it matters. We are in a world where companies disrespect us more and more every single year because we as consumers have 0 impulse control. They develop a neat thing and tie it to abusive tactics and instead of saying “hey fuck you, that’s cool but come back when you can sell a version that’s repairable/that has a warranty that shows you stand behind your product/that has a reasonable need for a subscription and not just a subscription because you decided you want revenue forever/etc” we engage in our relentless consumerism.
Our politicians are complete failures at implementing any kind of regulatory oversight, especially in terms of consumer protections, especially on the tech industry. So it is on us to be responsible with our purchasing power and social pressure.
Waterbeds suck, honestly. They're great for people who have a very consistent body temp and don't have a partner. Get warm or cold in the middle of the night? Tough, it takes ages to change the temp of a huge mass of water. Partner with a different comfort zone? Too bad.
There was a girl at university that had a water bed and when I was in it I could not get out of it, you just sort of flop around in the middle. Also you have to faff around with special insurance, and get special sheets.
Buy some decent, quiet, pc fans and sew a wrap-around sheet, with holes at the foot end just for the small fans to nestle into. The idea is you lay on the bottom part, the top part is over you with whatever other light blankets, and the fans are by your feet, ideally one for each side with an on/off switch. They blow cool air into the sheets and help evaporate moisture. It’s the same idea as a lot of very expensive machines.
Build a small frame to securely hold the fans, ensure no obstructions, and hold the end of the airflow sheet, put the power supply somewhere far away, and you’ve basically built a $400+ cooling bed.
Watercooling seems like a smart idea, but yeah, as dumb as possible. It's fine to add smarts to it later, but the basic functionality should be 100% "dumb".
I got my fiance a heated blanket. It's got button controls and cost $40. Anyone who buys one with AI can't be just stupid; they've gotta have actually have brain damage or something.
Well, I run fucking hot, so I would love a mattress cover that can cool me down, without having to blast AC on myself all night, so there is that. On the other hand for the price of Eight sleep or whatever it's called I can buy at least 2 AC units.
Whether or not this guy is kidding I don't care, his video "Firefox is hard to love" made him seem like a dipshit looking for ragebate engagement for his shitty video. So I wouldn't be too shocked if he actually got himself in this situation.
Makes me recall something from years ago. My future ex-wife at the time was telling me about the drama when someone she knew's car key's battery had gone flat and they couldn't get into their car, and had to call RACQ etc.
I said 'you can still just put the key in the lock and turn it, you know?'. That apparently hadn't occurred to them.
"An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs. You should never see an Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order sign, just Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience." - Mitch Hedberg
I know, right? Thermostats have worked since (and were invented some time in) the 1600's, but now... no, no no... we've got to loop in "the whole internet" as a dependency (not to mention one's smartphone, and probably a payment system for an ongoing monthly subscription). Even with the incentive of being continuously paid, they can't keep it working, because it has gotten too complex and greed has gummed up the gears.
I actually had a use-case for a smart switch (I wanted it to automatically turn off after a certain amount of time). In the end, I went back to a dumb-switch after a frustrating diagnosis, maybe I'm biased/lucky to never have had a light-switch fail, but I didn't even consider it as the potential fault until I electrically proved it...
Having slept outside in -40, in an unheated (there were attempts but the too late and too small a stove to make a difference), windy tent, when I had to open my bedroll with significant amounts of violence to even have a "bed" to sleep on — I would humbly like to disagree.
Even though some of these summer nights I would definitely want an actually cool bed, never have I ever dreamed of having to sleep in those circumstances.
No such thing as too cool — but definitely a thing as too cold.
That's a stupid product. Also, can't stand this guy. He's extremely obnoxious, shills cloud services, and seems to give opinions about things way out of his expertise.
Yeah! I watched a few of his things, and the vibe was always off. I told YouTube to stop recommending him. Then the honeypot controversy happened (he basically put their documentary on his channel in full length, they asked him to please remove it, he played the victim, effectively sicking his fan base on honeypot)
Meanwhile, I built the bed I sleep in. Literally. My bed is made from solid Douglas fir and southern yellow pine, hand made into a proper bed frame that will last multiple lifetimes if taken care of. Want the bed heated/cooled? Fill a rubber bladder with hot water or ice. There. No fucking app required.
I have been building stuff outside with treated lumber this spring, but working on some furniture would mean smaller projects with more attention to quality and detail.
It really is quite zen. While sanding is time consuming, it's also a very tactile, embodied experience. It's done as much by touch and feel as anything else.
We sleep on a mattress laid on a base with no frame, and it's perfectly fine. We took the habit while in Japan, where we used a futon. Now I can't imagine climbing in a bed. The only problem is the giant centipedes
Even if you use plain construction pine with a simple design, it'll probably last longer than you do. That's what we did.
We had a bed frame from a "nice" furniture store, and when I saw it going in, I knew immediately it wasn't going to last. Lots of parts with screws that were really shallow and would back out easily. They had to be shallow because the wood was so thin. Hard to tell when it's at the store, but watching the delivery people put it together, it was obvious.
Did a few things to keep it together, but once it broke beyond reasonable repair, I made a simple platform bed frame and called it good. Has lots more underbed storage space and you could probably build a tank on top of it.
Yup. The bed was my first big woodworking project, and I just made it out of some construction lumber as well, though with a lot of working. I built it off one of the Ana White designs.
Note that I bought a Pod earlier on and have been upgraded to Pod 4 from warranty due to leak. It was obnoxiously cloud controlled from the start, but originally was much cheaper than now and it included a mattress and there was no mandatory monthly fee to just use the damn thing. I will give them credit that the Pod 4 is quite comfortable, the cooling/heating is nice, and the device is nice and quiet. For the most part the hardware design hits it out of the park, except for their aversion to local controls, which seems mostly driven by their software bullshit.
So first, that hardware control they added isn't exactly awesome. People kept demanding buttons on the base or a remote or something. They smugly declared that modeling the earbud 'tap N times to do an operation' was the "correct" way because remotes are too easy to lose and no one would want to touch the base. Earbuds have to settle for that crap because of lack of surface area to control, your whole ass bed doesn't have to make concessions to crappy hardware UI. So now I have double tap, or triple tap that has different meanings based on context, and even then only if the bed is 'on' which you can only do from the app and it turns itself 'off' automatically, so you can't just 'cheat' and use the local hardware controls because those only are enabled at the behest of their bullshit cloud service.
For the software side, it's trying to force you to go to their servers for no damn reason for the consumer. It will only deign to talk to a smartphone long enough to get connected to their cloud presence, and only toward that function. It also wants to "auto-control" your temperature and will frequently decide it knows better than you how you want the temperature to be and auto-adjust. It general the whole thing reeks of "we are smarter than you, and we will be all weird about all sorts of facets of this thing".
And of course, it shows in their pricing. They got rid of the mattress and raised the price to $3,000 for just the cover and also now mandate a $17/month subscription plan on top of that for new customers (we grandfathered into the old situation, no monthly plan as well as what was a more reasonably priced product).
No way in hell would I buy it as it stands now, but if they at least enabled local control, ditched the monthly payment requirement bullshit and cut the price back, then I would be an unambiguous fan.
Agreed, I've got a normal-assed king size bed with a regular dumb heated blanket and different sheets for summer and winter. I'm sure as fuck not gonna pay some company a monthly fee to dictate the capabilities of my bed.
Frankly, I was super reluctant even back then, but I'm not the only one in the household so my vote is not the only one that counts.
In terms of water based temperature controlled bed, there were two options at the time I could see, Chilipad and Eight Sleep. I favored the local controls of Chilipad, but reviewers really seemed to prefer the Eight Sleep for noise and comfort of the pad, and at the time they were fairly competitive price wise with the cloud based control at the time being a nuisance, but not enough to overcome the review advantage Eight Sleep had. Also Eight Sleep had mattress included back then and that was a plus for them, since we needed a new mattress anyway.
I will say the comfort of the temperature control is fantastic, after trying a lot of solutions to try to get it done, water actually got it there. I am a big fan of the general product category. If one is into sleep tracking, I suppose this is the most comfortable way to do it, though I don't understand the general value of that use case personally.
Now, I'm still not happy about the cloud control facet, but I'm tolerating it so long as it is free. If they shut down my grandfathered status, then I'm going to FreeSleep up my device. If it should stop working, then I'll probably go ChiliPad if they haven't gone as badly. I can't imagine selecting Eight Sleep at it's price point and subscription model at this point in time, but back then it seemed a competitive choice.
One was a guy that picked up a used cover without the base station and hooked it up to an aquarium temperature controller, replacing all the brains. No biometrics, but who cares.
Another is https://github.com/throwaway31265/free-sleep Though no idea if, for example, Pod 5 implemented signed firmware or a future product will to block it, and it requires some disassembly and extra equipment to replace the firmware.
This product is already at 'e)', you can't buy it anymore without signing up for $17/month on top of the $3,000 price (excluding mattress or base). The local controls he mentioned are disabled unless their cloud server enables it for you, and it won't let those remote controls operate form more than a few hours without the cloud server saying they are ok to use again.
A good hardware design locked to a super douchey business model enforced by shitty software.
Maybe you don't live somewhere where the average summer temperatures are 30C or higher. I'm those places, this would be a great product; your alternatives are to swelter all night, or A/C your house. A self-cooling bed would be more energy efficient.
You're projecting your awake self onto this person.
Imagine this person, who is seems grumpy and cold and has probably been laying here for at least 15 minutes not wanting to wake themselves up by moving around and just now got out their phone and tweeted this.
The individuals at the company are the problem. The internet tends to comment like they don’t get this.
You make it sound like if you make and sell a thing, people are required to buy it. If you tried to sell me an AI bed that would not function without an active internet connection, I'd laugh at you.
The individuals at the company are the problem. The internet tends to comment like they don't get this.
Its actually the endless profit seeking that corporations must abide by in order to succeed that has led to shitty unnecessary tech and AI integration being in everything. The individuals working to make a living are only a symptom of that process. If they did not exist some other desperate soul would sell their labor instead. They might carry responsibility but they do not cause this issue.
You made your bed, now lie in it.
The cold, hard truth.
The cold, temperpedic truth.
his joke but less
his joke but more
The cold, extra firm truth
Damn that’s cold!!
Look at this dumb asshole that got the $2500-2600 (assuming queen mattress) plus $17/mo or 199/yr subscription mattress cover (eg not the actual fucking mattress or bed frame). What a broke piece of shit. Should’ve gotten the $2850-2950 pod 6
After briefly googling what this actually is and the costs involved I have 0 sympathy for anyone involved. This is 100% tech bro bullshit. A temperature controlled bed sounds neat, I guess, and I am always a sucker for analytics, but this is possibly the most consumer hostile bullshit I have ever seen. It is all of the worst practices of modern tech wrapped into a device:
Grossly overpriced? Check
$350 upsell for physical controls? Check
Tons of vague language about health benefits that extrapolate valid claims onto their product, suggesting their product has benefits beyond something far cheaper (eg temperature does impact sleep but a $10 fan or $150 window unit would likely be fine because research is generally about environment and not about the surface of the bed)? Zero research about the device itself and zero funding for them to get this product investigated? Check
Subscription required? Not technically, core functionality still works, but you lose all the analytics, all the “smart adjustments” of temperature (it basically will just hold a constant temperature throughout the night whereas the subscription will adjust it gradually based on movement) and the biggest point is that your warranty is voided and you lose all support if you don’t maintain a subscription
Also while I don’t know this for sure I am betting there is 0 chance that you can fix this thing if it breaks.
This thing is so dumb and if you buy it I will judge you. You could buy a 2001 Honda accord LX with 141,000 miles. for that price. That’s a reliable car. I had one and drove it to 200k, sold it and I’m sure it ran for a while longer. Maintain it well and you’ll get 250-300k out of that bad boy. Meanwhile your dumb water bed cover will break and leak all over which is apparently so bad people all worry about all the posts theyve seen about leaking and the social media team has to come share blog post about how they make them less shitty now. sorry if you got the first batch, i guess. But it’s okay because as dumb redditors point out you can give them another $500 to extend the warranty to 5 years. Just remember to keep that subscription active or that warranty is void you stupid piece of shit.
you still need a fucking mattress! You know someone buying this isn’t throwing it on a $400 ikea mattress. They’re going for the $3200 foam mattress. I am so mad about this
Edit: it also sells the biometric data its harvests about you to advertisers. Reddit posts show it uploads anywhere from 10-30gb of data per month, so it’s collecting quite a bit of data
No warranty without a subscription should be illegal
In countries with less Freedom^TM^ it almost certainly is.
Freedumb™️
tbh until I read ur comment I just assumed this was a shitpost tweet making fun of the state of consumer electronics, not a real product
I bought a gleeb for my glibben needs but it has no interoperability with floob, so I bought an adaptor from Amazon with a weird brand name made of plastic... etc etc
Just buy a blanket...?
This product is more for people that run hot during the night. Especially for couples where one runs hot and the other runs cold during the night. And the cold one doesn’t want to sleep with ac on all night. With this product the hot sleeper can just turn on the bed cooler on their side to cooldown. So a blanket wouldn’t help in that situation. There are other brands that don’t require internet or a subscription. And yes if you only buy this product to warm your mattress than you are stupid.
Without elaborating too much, this is my situation, and we solve this by having the room cold for him and blankets for me. Actually, the situation is much better when our insurance stops jerking us around about his medication that fixes his night sweating and other related problems, but we're American, so can't be helped.
It just seems like a lot of trouble when you can buy a blanket idk.
Honestly, I'm the one paying for a subscription service that doesn't help (insurance), so I guess I'm the clown here.
Well I did say that this is for people that don't like to have the AC on all night, like when the cold sleeper keeps complaining about a cold head or the noise. Like not everyone lives in the US where HVAC is the norm many people in the world have those big AC units hanging on the wall that can be pretty noisy.
Those things aren't too bad unless they need repair/replace....meanwhile you are recommending a solution that starts at like $2500 that only works while you're in the bed.
Most of the USA has HVAC, but not everyone. I grew up without it. We had in-window units and box fans. You get used to it quickly.
I'm sorry, I'm just not seeing this as anything but an expensive luxury (that doesn't have physical buttons unless u paid???). Seems pretty silly to pretend its anything but that.
Than is not then
Internet of Things is a scam
While the IKEA mattress is fine for you or me, I really don't think this smart mattress is actually that expensive. I believe 5k and up is still relatively common for a high quality mattress.
When you annualise it over 10 years and between two people, if they're getting better sleep than they would have otherwise, who are we to judge how they spend their money? It's actually not that bad in terms of value. There are nights in the summer where I would gladly pay €200 to not be sweating into the sheets.
Obviously, relying on a company for an app to control your bed is the idiotic part. But the price itself is not outrageous for me.
Sorry, there is no quality difference in mattresses that would warrant price difference above a few hundred dollars. This simple hasn't been true for almost two decades. No mattress should cost $5000.
So I wrote a lot of word salad there and maybe this point got lost:
This device is not a mattress
It is a mattress topper
So you buy your bougie $2500 mattress (because of course someone buying this is not cheaping out on a mattress) and fancy bed frame. Then you spend another $3000 on this. Then *another * 200ish dollars a year, in perpetuity, to make it work (not including electrical costs and water)
But at that point why not pay >€200 for a window unit air conditioner and the >€1 in electricity for the day to run it overnight? If you don’t have a window that can accommodate you can get ones that stand in the room. A dehumidifier. A fan. None of these require apps or subscriptions (yet), cost substantially less, and again the research about sleep temperature is about the environment, not the bed itself
They sell a mattress as well. It’s a bit more integrated.
They do not anymore. They sell a cover, base, and blanket, but now require you otherwise acquire a mattress elsewhere.
The best mattress I've owned was like $1500 and has lasted me 15 years now. Even with inflation, your figure is quite high
It would be a bit pricey as a mattress... But it isn't a mattress, it's only a cover, you also need a mattress.
They used to sell a mattress, but they "improved" the product by cost reducing out the mattress part and making you buy that from someone else (while also increasing the price).
When I bought a Pod Mattress+Cover, it was on the higher end of normal-ish price for a mattress with no mandatory subscription fee.
Now you are paying $3k for just a cover and have to at least pay $17/month to keep it actually working.
Isn't he some semi-famous tech YouTuber? I would be surprised if he actually had bought this product.
he is very famous in the tech sphere at this point i think
He mostly makes videos going about tech articles and giving his mind about it but sometimes explaining some things about the choices he made on his setup/projects (i think the latter videos are better).
Famous enough even that some junior devs/viewers copy him. (i remember some rumors/sm-posts that senior devs dont like it BUT cant make anyone happy)
I personally dislike him* but there are a lot that like him.
::: spoiler *reasons for why i disliking him (its a wall of text, sorry, its not even productive) I know that the first video i saw was really bad and got me into avoiding his videos.
Dont even know if it was because he talked bs or if i just thought he was weird.
Did not treat him like a credible source until i watched a better video a few months after.
So i was biased from the start
A while ago he made a video about an article/reportage where the creators asked him nicely to delete/change/share-revenue because it was like 95% their content and the rest him saying something and he completely flipped how they dare after he gave them so much exposure.
He also backlashed against another creator who defended the company and spoke out against him.
To my knowledge Theo still things he was the one wronged.
Less important to my reasoning: He is actively working on an AI app thing (combines different AIs into 1 app)
:::
I have one of these and it’s one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. You don’t have to believe me. In any case, it just runs off of a Linux computer. You can install OSS firmware on it.
I genuinely believe that it’s nice to have a temperature controlled bed that gives you analytics. Like I said, those are cool things
The issue is that it’s wrapped in classic big tech bullshit. A sheen of “cool design” that looks lame to justify an outrageous price tag. That would not be the worst thing in the world if it wasn’t coupled with a ton of tremendously anticonsumer practices
I simply cannot see how anyone could justify giving a company who will void your warranty if you do not pay them continually for years after already paying them thousands at the onset. That is no longer a warranty, it is an ongoing service contract and it implies you never had a warranty or support to begin with. You gave them 3 grand for a product that they do not support. I can somewhat understand tying advanced server sided features to a subscription model. though really you should get at least 1-2 years of service with such a high price tag and honestly if there is a SBC can it really not run locally? Of course it can’t because looking deeper still they harvest your biometric data to sell it, of fucking course as if they weren’t making enough off the insane price tag and subscription costs. As if they weren’t checking off every big tech scumbag box already.
Also, so I can put Linux on it? So what? Fat lot of good that will do me when the pad starts leaking and needs a warranty replacement. It appears that if the pad fails and warranty is suspended that’s a 5-700 dollar replacement, plus shipping and restrictions on 3rd party repair. Do I just pay them $17 a month for a subscription I don’t use then as a service contract fee? Fuck that. You are a sucker who is being extorted by a company who disrespects you. They deserve to go out of business for their horrible practices.
I’m pretty positive this is against the law, so they might say it but it might be unenforceable.
Not sure what you mean by SBC
No it literally is a Linux box. You don’t need to put Linux on it. People have managed to connect directly to the box. And so what? It directly refutes 80% of your points. If you can put FOSS software on it then you can do whatever you want with it without worrying about them harvesting your data, requiring it to be always online, charging a subscription, worrying about the “cool tech bro” app, etc.
If any actual alternative existed then yeah it’d be a no brainer to use the alternative. But no alternatives exist. And no, an AC in the window is not an alternative, and those things that blow air on you under the covers also aren’t an alternative.
Even if it’s against the law it doesn’t mean you won’t run into a massive amount of headache. do you really want to have to go to small claims just to get warranty fulfillment?
Single board computer. Linux box is more appropriate terminology apparently
The fact that you can defeat their software is great, genuinely, I’m happy to hear that you do that and I encourage you to develop or promote the alternative firmware that starves them of subscription revenue
The issue is every sale they make is validation of their terrible practices. You may roll your eyes at this and say “who fucking cares” but it matters. We are in a world where companies disrespect us more and more every single year because we as consumers have 0 impulse control. They develop a neat thing and tie it to abusive tactics and instead of saying “hey fuck you, that’s cool but come back when you can sell a version that’s repairable/that has a warranty that shows you stand behind your product/that has a reasonable need for a subscription and not just a subscription because you decided you want revenue forever/etc” we engage in our relentless consumerism.
Our politicians are complete failures at implementing any kind of regulatory oversight, especially in terms of consumer protections, especially on the tech industry. So it is on us to be responsible with our purchasing power and social pressure.
I remember Louis Rossman (yes you read that right) promoting something similar
Did he really? That's kinda surprising. Do you have a link?
looked up the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulgWSfedC7E
Cant find the update :(
Correction: he doesn't promote it and calls it his potentially stupidest purchase
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulgWSfedC7E
I initially thought this was a satire comment, on a satire product.
The fact it is real makes something feel fundamentally wrong with the world.
It's... it's not satire?!
Welcome to the future! 🤢
HOLD ON IS THIS NOT SATIRE!? I THOUGHT IT WAS FUNNY
Same! Life becomes a parody of itself.
This is beyond "white people's problems". This is rich idiot's problems.
Not even first world problems, this is rich fuck problems lmao.
What do you mean? I have my Amazon prime robo pants put themselves on me one leg at a time like any average human.
Relevant comic
https://imgur.com/fLbqpFs
Zeroth worth problems?
That's not a smart bed, that's an internet-connected revenue-extractor.
It's smart relative to the person who bought it
It gets better, there's a monthly fee :)
I want a bed that can cool itself. That sounds awesome. But make it work "stupidly" instead of being "smart."
You want a water bed. But be careful, they get COLD.
Waterbeds suck, honestly. They're great for people who have a very consistent body temp and don't have a partner. Get warm or cold in the middle of the night? Tough, it takes ages to change the temp of a huge mass of water. Partner with a different comfort zone? Too bad.
also they weigh a literal ton, so you have to be sure your floor can handle it.
Oh, right, I forgot about that aspect.
They're also pretty uncomfortable for a lot of people. I hate waterbeds
There was a girl at university that had a water bed and when I was in it I could not get out of it, you just sort of flop around in the middle. Also you have to faff around with special insurance, and get special sheets.
Not worth it.
Buy some decent, quiet, pc fans and sew a wrap-around sheet, with holes at the foot end just for the small fans to nestle into. The idea is you lay on the bottom part, the top part is over you with whatever other light blankets, and the fans are by your feet, ideally one for each side with an on/off switch. They blow cool air into the sheets and help evaporate moisture. It’s the same idea as a lot of very expensive machines.
Build a small frame to securely hold the fans, ensure no obstructions, and hold the end of the airflow sheet, put the power supply somewhere far away, and you’ve basically built a $400+ cooling bed.
You want a bedjet. I have one, Iove it.
Watercooling seems like a smart idea, but yeah, as dumb as possible. It's fine to add smarts to it later, but the basic functionality should be 100% "dumb".
I hate that I can't tell if this is satire or not.
Same. I genuinely cant tell if poking fun or legitimate complaint about products he actually bought.
I hate this reality.
The product is real, I looked it up.
I got my fiance a heated blanket. It's got button controls and cost $40. Anyone who buys one with AI can't be just stupid; they've gotta have actually have brain damage or something.
Yeah, the baffling part to me is these people didn't see how the bed being Internet connected could be a problem.
If you have an internet connected bed you deserve to sleep cold
"AI controlled" 🤪
When did having basic microprocessors become AI controlled?
It's such a stupid buzzword and it pisses me off. aI controlled fan. Sandwich made by AI recipe. It's like when everything was HD. HD sunglasses.
I have updated to 4K sunglasses. So much clearer
Age of Empires had AI before it was cool.
I mean, every time I update my glasses it feels like everything is UHD for a couple of days.
And you weren't gonna tell us that they can fix glaucoma??
🥇🥇🥇
A gold medal for each paragraph. If I could I'd buy you Lemmy Lanthanum.
The new term for algorithm these days is AI.
AlgorIthm
AI is when there's no buttons and you just have to hope the software gives the output you were hoping for
Unplug it, you techbro-adjacent dumb bitch
its not dystopian, just a shit product
im here with my silly, un-epic Normal Mattress™ that doesn’t have any temp control. it is somewhat cold right now, and I don’t feel that’s dystopian
Well, I run fucking hot, so I would love a mattress cover that can cool me down, without having to blast AC on myself all night, so there is that. On the other hand for the price of Eight sleep or whatever it's called I can buy at least 2 AC units.
Oh nvm it's 3K usd with "100%" off, yeah that's 3 ac units, one for all my rooms
Yeah I've never seen these temp controlled beds as anything other than "Oh that's a neat idea, bet I can make that myself'
Should've upgraded to the Pod4, which will get a "upgrade" after the Pod5 comes out which removes features so you go buy a Pod6.
https://www.eightsleep.com/product/pod-cover/
It's real. I was legitimately expecting to feel foolish for believing it.
There's one born every minute.
I clicked on this, and it's immediately asking for my email. No big surprises there.
This however is the copy:
With the big glowing confirm button labelled "Get my surprise" and the dark pattern barely visible skip link "I don't want a surprise".
I was aware of the existence of these things but had never paid them the slightest mind, this is just.. ick.
The cooling functions sounds great, without the supscription ai shit
Yeah, this sounds like a great idea, with some AI bullshit thrown in.
haha funny joke. wait wdym this isn't some random twitter account making up unrealistic funny scenarios? whatt
Looks inside: A bunch of
ifsWhether or not this guy is kidding I don't care, his video "Firefox is hard to love" made him seem like a dipshit looking for ragebate engagement for his shitty video. So I wouldn't be too shocked if he actually got himself in this situation.
There are way more videos like that. I quickly developed a severe dislike for him and his clickbaity JavaScript clout content.
Shoots self in foot
Bleeds out and dies
Fuckin AI
... Maybe unplug it?
Then it would just be a bed!
Makes me recall something from years ago. My future ex-wife at the time was telling me about the drama when someone she knew's car key's battery had gone flat and they couldn't get into their car, and had to call RACQ etc.
I said 'you can still just put the key in the lock and turn it, you know?'. That apparently hadn't occurred to them.
I sleep in a racecar bed because I'm a big boy.
I'm firmly against racecar beds. In fact, I want the opposite of a racecar bed. I want a racecar bed.
I feel the same way about taco cat.
I want an aerogavin bed.
My mom’s gonna get me a radio so I can talk to all the other car beds.
Yeah, but it's a sweet car bed. Did you get the CB radio installed yet so you can talk to other car beds?
To re-enable the Eight Sleep app, please drink verification can
I've never even heard of a heated bed. Bitch, it's called a blanket. You get under it and your body heat will keep you warm.
I believe the problem is that it's actively cooled, so it won't get hotter under a blanket.
He could always unplug it though...
"An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs. You should never see an Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order sign, just Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience." - Mitch Hedberg
Mental note: tie string tether to my Pod 3 power cord.
For a minute, I thought this was satire.
It isn't?
EDIT: After some searching, turns out it is not.
https://www.eightsleep.com/uk/
What kind of a moron would spend £3000 on something that then needs a subscription to work?
A Tech Youtuber who probably got it in a sponsorship deal for free
Which I'm kinda glad they exist to:
Test wacky things
Be a punching bag for the jokes
But they are also the reason other idiots buy these products.
More punching bags
I know, right? Thermostats have worked since (and were invented some time in) the 1600's, but now... no, no no... we've got to loop in "the whole internet" as a dependency (not to mention one's smartphone, and probably a payment system for an ongoing monthly subscription). Even with the incentive of being continuously paid, they can't keep it working, because it has gotten too complex and greed has gummed up the gears.
My electrician is currently trying to sell me on smart light switches. Apparently the main benefit being that you can control them remotely.
Who the fuck needs to be able to turn the light on when they're not in the room? It's not like they need to warm up anymore, they're all LEDs.
I actually had a use-case for a smart switch (I wanted it to automatically turn off after a certain amount of time). In the end, I went back to a dumb-switch after a frustrating diagnosis, maybe I'm biased/lucky to never have had a light-switch fail, but I didn't even consider it as the potential fault until I electrically proved it...
Lemme tell you about a famous car company
Right? We all know there's no such thing as a too-cold bed.
Having slept outside in -40, in an unheated (there were attempts but the too late and too small a stove to make a difference), windy tent, when I had to open my bedroll with significant amounts of violence to even have a "bed" to sleep on — I would humbly like to disagree.
Even though some of these summer nights I would definitely want an actually cool bed, never have I ever dreamed of having to sleep in those circumstances.
No such thing as too cool — but definitely a thing as too cold.
I was certain it was until I read the reply below
That's a stupid product. Also, can't stand this guy. He's extremely obnoxious, shills cloud services, and seems to give opinions about things way out of his expertise.
Yeah! I watched a few of his things, and the vibe was always off. I told YouTube to stop recommending him. Then the honeypot controversy happened (he basically put their documentary on his channel in full length, they asked him to please remove it, he played the victim, effectively sicking his fan base on honeypot)
a physical knob vs "state-of-the-art" AI
rule of thumb, "will this work without internet?"
because
a: sometimes WiFi is spotty in some places around there house
b: it means they need a server, and who knows how reliable their server is
c: if they go out of business the product you bought is now garbage
d: privacy concerns
e: who knows when they decide to go for a subscription based model and charge you again for what you bought, or to access the features you want
Meanwhile, I built the bed I sleep in. Literally. My bed is made from solid Douglas fir and southern yellow pine, hand made into a proper bed frame that will last multiple lifetimes if taken care of. Want the bed heated/cooled? Fill a rubber bladder with hot water or ice. There. No fucking app required.
Username definitely checks out.
You make a sweet headboard on that bad boy?
Of course!
#
Fuck that's a nice bed.
You should see the guest bed I built after it!
I might have to do this.
I have been building stuff outside with treated lumber this spring, but working on some furniture would mean smaller projects with more attention to quality and detail.
Sounds zen as fuck!
It really is quite zen. While sanding is time consuming, it's also a very tactile, embodied experience. It's done as much by touch and feel as anything else.
Hey Ron.
We sleep on a mattress laid on a base with no frame, and it's perfectly fine. We took the habit while in Japan, where we used a futon. Now I can't imagine climbing in a bed. The only problem is the giant centipedes
Even if you use plain construction pine with a simple design, it'll probably last longer than you do. That's what we did.
We had a bed frame from a "nice" furniture store, and when I saw it going in, I knew immediately it wasn't going to last. Lots of parts with screws that were really shallow and would back out easily. They had to be shallow because the wood was so thin. Hard to tell when it's at the store, but watching the delivery people put it together, it was obvious.
Did a few things to keep it together, but once it broke beyond reasonable repair, I made a simple platform bed frame and called it good. Has lots more underbed storage space and you could probably build a tank on top of it.
Yup. The bed was my first big woodworking project, and I just made it out of some construction lumber as well, though with a lot of working. I built it off one of the Ana White designs.
Note that I bought a Pod earlier on and have been upgraded to Pod 4 from warranty due to leak. It was obnoxiously cloud controlled from the start, but originally was much cheaper than now and it included a mattress and there was no mandatory monthly fee to just use the damn thing. I will give them credit that the Pod 4 is quite comfortable, the cooling/heating is nice, and the device is nice and quiet. For the most part the hardware design hits it out of the park, except for their aversion to local controls, which seems mostly driven by their software bullshit.
So first, that hardware control they added isn't exactly awesome. People kept demanding buttons on the base or a remote or something. They smugly declared that modeling the earbud 'tap N times to do an operation' was the "correct" way because remotes are too easy to lose and no one would want to touch the base. Earbuds have to settle for that crap because of lack of surface area to control, your whole ass bed doesn't have to make concessions to crappy hardware UI. So now I have double tap, or triple tap that has different meanings based on context, and even then only if the bed is 'on' which you can only do from the app and it turns itself 'off' automatically, so you can't just 'cheat' and use the local hardware controls because those only are enabled at the behest of their bullshit cloud service.
For the software side, it's trying to force you to go to their servers for no damn reason for the consumer. It will only deign to talk to a smartphone long enough to get connected to their cloud presence, and only toward that function. It also wants to "auto-control" your temperature and will frequently decide it knows better than you how you want the temperature to be and auto-adjust. It general the whole thing reeks of "we are smarter than you, and we will be all weird about all sorts of facets of this thing".
And of course, it shows in their pricing. They got rid of the mattress and raised the price to $3,000 for just the cover and also now mandate a $17/month subscription plan on top of that for new customers (we grandfathered into the old situation, no monthly plan as well as what was a more reasonably priced product).
No way in hell would I buy it as it stands now, but if they at least enabled local control, ditched the monthly payment requirement bullshit and cut the price back, then I would be an unambiguous fan.
Agreed, I've got a normal-assed king size bed with a regular dumb heated blanket and different sheets for summer and winter. I'm sure as fuck not gonna pay some company a monthly fee to dictate the capabilities of my bed.
Why the fuck would anyone buy this?
I hate that there is (apparently) an actual market for this product. We live in a society of idiots.
Uhh no offense to you since I kind of included you in the idiots category there.
Frankly, I was super reluctant even back then, but I'm not the only one in the household so my vote is not the only one that counts.
In terms of water based temperature controlled bed, there were two options at the time I could see, Chilipad and Eight Sleep. I favored the local controls of Chilipad, but reviewers really seemed to prefer the Eight Sleep for noise and comfort of the pad, and at the time they were fairly competitive price wise with the cloud based control at the time being a nuisance, but not enough to overcome the review advantage Eight Sleep had. Also Eight Sleep had mattress included back then and that was a plus for them, since we needed a new mattress anyway.
I will say the comfort of the temperature control is fantastic, after trying a lot of solutions to try to get it done, water actually got it there. I am a big fan of the general product category. If one is into sleep tracking, I suppose this is the most comfortable way to do it, though I don't understand the general value of that use case personally.
Now, I'm still not happy about the cloud control facet, but I'm tolerating it so long as it is free. If they shut down my grandfathered status, then I'm going to FreeSleep up my device. If it should stop working, then I'll probably go ChiliPad if they haven't gone as badly. I can't imagine selecting Eight Sleep at it's price point and subscription model at this point in time, but back then it seemed a competitive choice.
begrudgingly updating controls forcing server/auth AI temperature modifications
Sounds like they are circling the drain IMO.
Wonder If I can pick up a mattress/pad on the cheap after they go under and DIY a solution.
I've seen two things.
One was a guy that picked up a used cover without the base station and hooked it up to an aquarium temperature controller, replacing all the brains. No biometrics, but who cares.
Another is https://github.com/throwaway31265/free-sleep Though no idea if, for example, Pod 5 implemented signed firmware or a future product will to block it, and it requires some disassembly and extra equipment to replace the firmware.
rule of thumb, "will this work without internet?"
because
a: sometimes WiFi is spotty in some places around there house
b: it means they need a server, and who knows how reliable their server is
c: if they go out of business the product you bought is now garbage
d: privacy concerns
e: who knows when they decide to go for a subscription based model and charge you again for what you bought, or to access the features you want
This product is already at 'e)', you can't buy it anymore without signing up for $17/month on top of the $3,000 price (excluding mattress or base). The local controls he mentioned are disabled unless their cloud server enables it for you, and it won't let those remote controls operate form more than a few hours without the cloud server saying they are ok to use again.
A good hardware design locked to a super douchey business model enforced by shitty software.
...just buy a normal bed, idiot
If you can't hack the bed I'm not sleeping with you ever again
Is your futon open source ? I have driver issues with my stack of hay
Invest in orthopedic mattress and linen sheets instead of this crap.
Maybe you don't live somewhere where the average summer temperatures are 30C or higher. I'm those places, this would be a great product; your alternatives are to swelter all night, or A/C your house. A self-cooling bed would be more energy efficient.
I just took a trip down south in the US and obsessively monitored the weather back home and pined for it haha.
92F (33C) where I was at, 68F (20C) at home.
I thought this was a writing prompt for some future dystopian hell but, no, turns out it's our current dystopian hell.
So that black mirror episode wasn't fiction?
Obviously the heating coil, power source and variable resistor combo was too dependable for our planned obsolence society.
Get a hot water bottle.
Correct, this could be used in the dystopian scifi genre.
This reads like one of those "oh no! The escalator is not moving, what shall we do!?" situations.
You're projecting your awake self onto this person.
Imagine this person, who is seems grumpy and cold and has probably been laying here for at least 15 minutes not wanting to wake themselves up by moving around and just now got out their phone and tweeted this.
yooooo theo!!!! its him -
Shit primarily on the people at the company making the joke product, and secondarily on the dumbass who bought one.
The individuals at the company are the problem. The internet tends to comment like they don't get this.
You make it sound like if you make and sell a thing, people are required to buy it. If you tried to sell me an AI bed that would not function without an active internet connection, I'd laugh at you.
Its actually the endless profit seeking that corporations must abide by in order to succeed that has led to shitty unnecessary tech and AI integration being in everything. The individuals working to make a living are only a symptom of that process. If they did not exist some other desperate soul would sell their labor instead. They might carry responsibility but they do not cause this issue.
"the Internet" is commenting exactly that way...