What To Know About Eight Sleep's $4000 Mattress Topper

Smart technology seems to touch every part of your life these days, and your sleep is no exception. Watches and rings can track your sleep and give you tips on how to improve it, alarm clocks can wake you up gently, and even beds seem to be getting smarter and smarter. Eight Sleep’s latest smart mattress topper is no exception to the smart tech craze.

Eight Sleep is a luxury “sleep performance” company that seeks to “leverage innovation, technology and personal biometrics to bring our members better sleep and more energy, every morning”. The company’s sleep technology has been used by influencers, athletes, and business people such as Formula One’s Lewis Hamilton, Sanne Violet and Mark Zuckerberg. (1)

Recently, Eight Sleep launched a new version of its flagship product – the Pod 4 and Pod 4 Ultra, which the company claims can give you up to one extra hour of sleep a night. (1) The company has attracted some attention given the price tag for the Pod 4 and 4 Ultra; the former retailing for $2,549 and the latter retailing for $4,049.

Co-founder of Eight Sleep Alexandra Zatarain told Sleepopolis that Eight Sleep “believe[s] that helping to make our society more sleep-fit is not just about getting people to sleep comfortably or sleep more; it’s about improving sleep quality so that the overall human experience and performance during waking hours can be enhanced” (2)

What Is Sleep Fitness?

You might not be totally familiar with one of Sleep Eight’s biggest points of focus: Sleep Fitness. According to Zatarain, Sleep fitness “is a state of overall health and well-being fueled by quality sleep. Being sleep-fit results in a feeling of restoration, elevated energy levels, and confidence. In short, being sleep-fit enhances performance in everything we humans do”. (2)

What Is the Eight Sleep Pod?

Eight Sleep’s flagship product, the Pod, is composed of four parts: The Hub, the Base, the Cover, and the Eight Sleep smartphone app. The Hub is what helps regulate the temperature of the Cover, with water flowing from the Hub to cool or warm the Cover. The Base fits underneath your mattress and allows for you to adjust your sleeping position. The Cover fits over your existing mattress, and helps regulate your temperature and tracks your sleep with sensors in the fabric. (1)

The Eight Sleep app allows you to view the data your Cover collects about your sleep and provides controls for the Cover.

To use the Pod, you will need to purchase a subscription to Autopilot, Eight Sleep’s AI companion to the Pod. This will allow you access some of the most important features that the Pod offers. Autopilot offers two plans, the Standard Plan which costs $15 a month, and the Enhanced plan, which comes in at $24 a month.

Zatarain called the Pod 4 Ultra “the most complete sleep experience on the market, combining the personalization of temperature and body positioning with non-wearable sleep and health tracking for up to two individuals in the same bed”. (2)

What Features Do the Eight Sleep Pod 4 and 4 Ultra Come With?

The Pod comes in four sizes: full, queen, king and Cali king, and should be able to fit any mattress. Some of the features on the Pod 4 and 4 Ultra are snoring detection, a vibration and thermal alarm, and you can control the Pod 4 and 4 Ultra without your phone. The Pod 4 Ultra has some extra features, like custom elevations for sleeping, reading, and relaxing, and “snoring mitigation” which automatically adjusts your sleeping position to prevent snoring.

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Eight Sleep. (May, 2024). Press kit. [Press Release]. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nzgN91YXb6d5EjecHZoeY3iY5OyaseOG/view
Zatarain, Alexandra. Personal Interview. July 1, 2024.