I have been reviewing technology for more than 30 years. Some gadgets, like the original iPod, were brilliant from the get-go. Unveiled in 2001, it was so insanely advanced and futuristic that it almost looked like it had been left behind by a passing flying saucer. It practically renewed our hope for the future.
Some innovations aren’t quite there yet but are on the right lines – and I’ve gradually become less dismissive and more forgiving of this stuff. Take something that’s been going on in bed these past few weeks with my partner and I.
There’s been a massive push on my social media recently, and very likely yours too, for an extremely expensive new ‘intelligent sleep system’ from a slick American startup, Eight Sleep. We’re talking £2,300 to well over £4,000 for the complete kit and accessories.
The core component of their Pod 5 is a thick, heavy mattress cover containing a network of tiny water tubules, plus a mass of different concealed body sensors and other electronics. Next to your bed stands an elegant but large unit the size of an old-style desktop computer, connected by a thick hose to the mattress cover.
The bedside box contains a water reservoir and can pump either heated or chilled water round the mattress cover. Or – and this is the unique and quite genius bit – both hot and cold at the same time. So one sleeper can have their side of the bed heated up while the other’s is cooled down.
There are add-ons for the Pod 5 from a refrigerating blanket and pillows to a motorised base, which will automatically elevate the head of a sleeper the bed detects is snoring.
The intelligent bed also tracks you all night, tweaking the temperature for each of you as it sees fit, while also, by some magic, keeping tabs on your body vitals and reporting back to you both in a daily email at 9am to say what kind of a sleep you had.
When I first saw this bedroom tech extravaganza, it struck me as exactly what we needed to improve our precious Zeds. I’m often freezing in bed, even on mildly warm nights, while Sarah Jane is hot even when it’s cold outside. There are often small hours duvet wars over this temperature incompatibility.
The idea of a climate-controlled bed is not quite new. We had one to test about five years ago, but it had a noisy motor, and you could also hear the water glugging through the mattress pipes. But the Pod 5 seemed much more sophisticated.
So when the company contacted me to see if we’d like to trial a Pod 5, one of the many joys of being a gadget reviewer, I immediately said: yes please.
The setup was easy and well thought through in a way you rarely experience. The app was good. And the system worked exactly as advertised. I had already shortlisted it as my gadget of the year – which it still is – but at 2am on its first night, Sarah Jane woke me up.
“I’m absolutely freezing and I can’t turn this bloody thing off. I’ve even downloaded the effing app to try and warm my side up, but I can’t make it work.”
“I thought the whole idea was to cool you down?” I said from my gloriously toasty side of the bed. “But no problem, I’ll turn your bit up and we’ll get your access to the app sorted out tomorrow. We just need to experiment to get our ideal temperatures.” From my phone, I increased her side from 16c to 25c.
Five minutes later: “Now I’m too hot. And I can feel the water going through the pipes. I really, really hate this.” I turned her side off.
Ten minutes later: “Now I can hear it zizzing and doing things.”
“I can’t.”
In the morning, our first sleep quality emails arrived. Mine was fascinating in that the Pod 5 had harvested all this detailed information without making any visible bodily contact, and yet the data agreed almost exactly with both my Apple Watch and Oura smart ring (did I mention that I test technology for a living?).
I loved the fact that, first of all, I was sleeping so much better, and was so comfortable in my gently warmed bed that, while I normally spring out of bed at 6am like a child, I was now staying and often falling asleep for another hour or two, which meant I was waking up feeling much more energised.
I also loved the morning email from Beddy McBedface, as I called my new phone “contact”. If it gave me a high overall rating for my sleep – 95 out of 100 on one night – there was a kind of feedback loop which made me feel even better. If B McB’s rating wasn’t so good – 72 one morning, I would resolve to get an early night or two.
Sarah Jane, however, said she found it really creepy and intrusive that her bed was spying on her vital functions and then writing to her about it in the morning.
After three or four nights, we turned the Pod 5 off at the mains. I was about to send it back, but Sarah Jane, to my surprise, suggested we hang on to it. “I think it might be good when we get the first really hot, sticky August-type weather,” she said. “Let’s see if it handles that.”
That August heatwave, as it happened, came in May – with record temperatures. And sure enough, the bed came into its own.
On the first really sweaty night, I turned the cooling on my side down to its max, -10. Sarah Jane asked if she could try a bit of cooling. She agreed to -2, then upgraded to -3.
My night at the coldest setting was glorious. The air in the room was still unpleasantly warm, but a bottom sheet that felt distinctly cold to the touch and remained so all night completely compensated. It was a strange sensation, but delightful. Sarah Jane, having tried my side, then asked for -10 on her side too for Monday night.
Now this was a significant moment for me as a student of the human-machine relationship. Instead of dismissing the Pod 5 out of hand, she was willing, though belatedly, to give it a chance. I’d like to think this was because, living with me in a house with so many gadgets (she was previously a tech-phobic, antique-loving art historian) she has come to appreciate that some gadgets offer real, life-improving benefits, but only if you’re patient with them.
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