Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress Review: Optimize Your Sleep By Improving Your Sleep Fitness With AI
I spent 25 years as a mattress designer and manufacturer and my Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress review takes a look at arguably the most advanced mattress ever designed to improve sleep. It’s no wonder many performance athletes and serious fitness experts conduct their own research and purchase this “intelligent” mattress.
If you’ve never considered your mattress to be an integral part of your health regimen, think again. Sleep disorders and failure to optimize your sleep could be setting you up for failure.
Some of the most serious potential problems associated with poor sleep or chronic sleep deprivation are high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attack, heart failure or stroke. Other potential problems include obesity, depression, reduced immune system function and lower sex drive.
You could also be experiencing fatigue, poor decision making skills at work, and for performance athletes and fitness enthusiasts, failure to perform at peak levels.
My review takes a deep dive into what might be the first sleep system to offer the benefits of so-called “sleep fitness”. The Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress, in a nutshell, is an all foam memory foam style mattress equipped with a system that filters temperature controlled distilled water through a body proximity layer to warm or cool you.
To precisely regulate sleep, it’s outfitted with a small external pod that regulates temperature to help deliver restorative and rejuvenating sleep, according to the manufacturer. Using an app from your android or IOS device, you control all of the settings at the touch of a fingertip.
Using AI, the system can learn your sleeping preferences and adjust the temperature of the capillary filled water circulating layer inside the mattress to help you optimize your deep and restorative sleep.
How The Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress Works: Optimizing Your Sleep
Once you setup the mattress (takes about 15 minutes after unrolling the sealed components) and attached the pod unit, you simply add 3 liters of distilled water, much like you would in a coffee machine at home.
The instructions included with the system are easy to follow, too. The pod unit has one hose circulates the chilled or warm water to the mattress.
A very thin layer called the active grid, located just beneath the outer covering of the bed features capillary like channels which move across the mattress, remove heat, cooling, or warming you undetected.
The mattress can be adjusted and controlled so that you choose your ideal temperature range, which improves overall sleep quality, reduces pain and muscle fatigue, and it tracks sleep metrics, too.
We sifted through over 1,000 reviews by owners and evaluated their experiences to create this review.
Let’s get into the details, the technology, and the practical side of this so-called “sleep fitness” mattress option.
Do So-Called Cooling Mattresses Work?
I’ve reviewed a lot of mattresses that claim to cool you down using “open cell” foams, gel and memory foam as well as endless versions of cooling fabrics.
While they may offer some minimal relief, if you are a hot or a cold sleeper, and the symptoms affect your ability to sleep, The Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress is technologically genuine attempt to improve your sleep.
The Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress is the only mattress of its kind that actively cools or warms using an AI based system that communicates with your body and micro-adjusts temperature based on a variety of incoming data.
How It Works, What’s Inside, Why It’s Unique: My Report
When I review a mattress that has multiple layers and additional technology pieces and parts, like air beds or water chilling tech, I like to keep it simple and straightforward.
Many online review of these kinds of mattresses bog you down with heat maps, bowling balls, and kettle bells to simulate human body experiences.
I’m going to go through the features and benefits in our Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress review, and pepper in my 25 years of mattress design experience to help keep it interesting.
From the bottom up, this mattress is built much like most all foam mattresses, and has a denser layer of high density foam that serves to support and keep your body buoyantly support so that your spine stays properly aligned.
The overall height of the Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress is 12″, which is fairly standard, making it easy to get in and out of bed.
Above the foundation layer, you’ll find several 1-2″ layers of body contouring and pressure relieving foams that cradle and elevate specific areas of your body, and contribute to pressure relief, effective lateral weight distribution, and add a sense of plushness.
It’s similar to many memory foam mattresses in feel, except for the water circulation system near the top.
I did not find this mattress excessively soft, in fact, it’s quite supportive, and I felt a good “pushback” form underneath, no bottoming out or digging around to turn.
If a foam mattress is designed properly, turning should be effortless, and sitting on the edge of your mattress should be comfortable, with no sliding off.
I found The Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress to deliver on the support and comfort.
Active Grid Cooling Allows Precisely Controlled Temperature Control
What’s really amazing about The Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress is the amount of sensors built into the “active grid”
layer which contains the water filled channels that are connected to the pump unit in the pod.
The active grid layer includes multiple sensors like piezo films, ballistocardiographs, and temperature sensors for both the mattress itself and the environment in your bedroom. The technology is sensitive enough to detect heartbeats and breathing patterns, yet thin enough to remain undetectable while you sleep.
This data helps the Pod unit track your sleep to continuously adjust temperature to your personal needs.
Your skin surface temperature as well as the ambient temperature of your bedroom influence both how deeply you will sleep and how long you remain in REM sleep, which boosts cellular regeneration and recovery, tissue healing, immune system efficiency, and many other factors.
There are many studies, including a study by NIH that describes the importance of lowering skin and body temperature to improve natural circadian rhythms, increase melatonin production, and get more restorative REM sleep.
The Eightsleep Pod Pro Mattress is probably the first mattress I’ve reviewed that gives you the ability to precisely control temperature and other body functions using their easy to use app ( I setup mine in 2 minutes).
You can easily setup the app, which communicates with the pod unit placed adjacent to the mattress. Using the app you’ll be able to:
- Control surface temperature on both sides of a full, queen, king, and California king mattress.
- Schedule on and off times for temp control.
- Monitor sleep metrics like sleep stages, sleep time, toss and turns, and more.
- Monitor daily health and heart rate, including respiration rate, heart rate variability- all indicators of sleep fitness and physical wellness.
- Set and use the brands GentleRise smart wakeup alarm, calmly awakening you slowly.
- Each user can use the app corresponding to their side, or setup for solo sleepers.
Improve Your Sleep, Improve Your Life
Priced at $2,995 in queen, it may seem a little pricey, but big box retail brands often sell for $3500 and up.
Considering the technology, and the components of the mattress itself, and the response from actual owners who review their The Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress, the price is in line.
The product is ready to ship within 3-4 days after you place your order, includes a 100 night no questions asked trial period, free shipping, a 2 year factory warranty.
The mattress is 12″ tall, and is available in all standard sizes, and you can order a matching solid wood platform style foundation that is upholstered to match the side of the Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress.
We’re going to take a look at how actual owners feel about their Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress.
The body contact surface of the Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress is a jersey and TENCEL fabric blend that is smooth, silky feeling, and allows for heat transfer. It’s also removable and machine washable.
The outer encasement has great curb appeal too! It’s kind of a shame to have to put a sheet on it (you don’t necessarily have to)…
How Owners Feel About Their Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress
After searching and evaluating actual owner reviews for the Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress, I found that virtually all of them rated their mattress at or above 9.0 out of 10 for support and comfort, with many specifically addressing the improvements they received from adjusting the temperature that optimized sleep for them.
In other words, owners who ranked their mattress with higher scores used the technology and integrated it into their regular fitness regimen, much like they would their gym or workout routine. They believed the benefits of sleep could be improved by using the technology within the Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress.
As a result of my own review, and considering how over 100 owners perceive the benefit of the Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress, I’m giving a 5 out of 5 star rating for overall performance and benefit.