Eight Sleep Review: Sleep Pod & Mattress

Eight Sleep is well-known for manufacturing one of the most high-tech mattresses and covers on the market. Since its founding in 2014, it has specialized in selling sleep accessories that not only function as comfortable sleep surfaces but also double as sleep trackers and temperature regulators, and their Pod covers are no exceptions. 

In this Eight Sleep Pod review, we'll discuss everything you need to know about Eight Sleep's Pod covers to help you decide whether they're the perfect smart mattress toppers for your home.

Eight Sleep's Best-Selling Product - The Pod Cover

Eight Sleep Pod 2 Cover

The Eight Sleep Pod 2 cover gives budget shoppers a reason to smile as they can now enjoy Eight Sleep's Active Grid technology without having to purchase the Pod Pro Mattress. This smart mattress topper syncs with an app to monitor your sleep data and suggests a custom mattress temperature schedule that will adjust at night based on its collected health and sleep metrics. And if you share your mattress with a partner, the cover also allows you to set separate schedules for the right and left sides of the bed. 

Eight Sleep Pod 3 Cover

There's no denying that the Eight Sleep Pod 3 is an expensive piece of sleep tech and its monthly subscription seems pretty steep. However, it's totally worth buying, as it comes packed with new internal hardware and a quad-core CPU, making it faster, quieter, and smarter than the previous Eight Sleep covers. Plus, the Eight Sleep Pod 3 Cover sleeps much more comfortably, offering a more even surface than Pod 2 covers. 

Eight Sleep Pod 3 Cover with PerfectFit

Commonly known as the ultimate sleep fitness machine, this cover is Eight Sleep's latest generation of pod covers. It's specially designed to bring dynamic cooling technology into your room, giving you the ultimate sleep experience and biometric tracking you crave. And unlike the Pod 2 and the Pod 3 covers, this Eight Sleep Pod Pro Cover can comfortably fit all bed sizes and is loaded with smart technology to make temperature regulation a breeze. 

Check out our table below for a summary of what each Eight Sleep Pod Cover model offers.

Getting the Pod Membership

As an intelligent system, the Pod Cover improves every single day by continuously learning from users, expanding its intelligence, and adding extra features on a regular basis. 

To deliver this intelligence, new features, analytics, and software updates, the membership model allows users to continue investing in an excellent customer experience and work with a professional team of experts focused on customer support and product improvement. While membership is needed for the first year, you can cancel at any time.  

This membership includes Temperature Autopilot, a unique feature that learns the user's sleep pattern and automatically adjusts the bed temperature. What's more, it gives users full access to Eight Sleep's library of Sleep Tools, including relaxing sounds, guided meditations, and breathing classes. With a 1 year subscription ($19 per month), the app provides data insights that highlight unusual health metrics. 

Other benefits of Eight Sleep's membership plan include:

• Vibration and thermal alarm feature
• Sleep and health insights
• Sleep tracking metrics
• Discounts of up to $500 off Pod upgrades
• 5-year extended warranty

However, non-members can still use the Pod Cover and enjoy its best features. For instance, the cover can still support thermal alarms, haptic alarms, both single and dual-zone cooling and heating, sleep tracking, and health tracking. Co-sleepers can also independently control all the Pod Cover features on their side of the mattress, not to mention review sleep data from their phone through the Eight Sleep app. What's more, the company offers non-members audio or video content each week to help them improve their sleep quality. 

How to Setup the Eight Sleep Pod Cover

The Eight Sleep Pod Cover can be a pain to put on as the process takes about 2 hours and needs a fair amount of effort. Fortunately, Eight Sleep walks buyers through each step with photo, written, and video instructions. 

The process basically involves putting the encasement and Active Grid on your mattress, setting up the Hub, and connecting it to your smartphone via Wi-Fi. You must then perform two priming cycles to get rid of air bubbles that might cause noise and affect performance. Before you get started, ensure you have a half-gallon of distilled water and about 5 tablespoons of 3% hydrogen peroxide at your disposal, as you'll need them to set up the Hub. 

To start, put Eight Sleep's encasement over the bed like a fitted sheet. Ensure you pull down on each corner of the bed and use your hands to smooth over any wrinkles on the surface before tucking the extra fabric under your mattress. 

The box comes with 3 tension straps that go under your mattress (2 horizontally and 1 vertically) and a hook. Now, get the straps into position without hooking them. Once this is done, unbox the Active Grid Cover, carefully put it on top of your sleep surface, and zip it to the encasement. Ensure the water tube is near the bed's head, hanging down your floor unkinked. Finally, hook the straps to the encasement and tighten them. 

It's now time to set up the Hub. With this device next to your bed, take the end of the water tube connected to the Active Grid and connect it to the Hub. Make sure it clicks into place. Also, check for kinks in the tube as they can interfere with water flow from the Hub to the Active Grid. Next, grab the USB connector on the water tube's side and link it to the corresponding port in the Hub. Lastly, connect the main power cord to the Hub and plug the other end into a nearby outlet. 

With the challenging part of the installation procedure out of the way, you can now fill the tank of the Hub with hydrogen peroxide and distilled water. All that's left now is to follow the simple steps to link the Hub to the app via Wi-Fi and prime your system. While this procedure can take about 90 minutes, you don't have to babysit the system the entire time. Plus, you can still use the cover while the process is taking place. 

What the Pod Cover Has to Offer

Imagine waking up on a toasty warm sleep surface in the dead of winter or an icy cold one on a hot summer morning. The Eight Sleep Pod Cover makes all that possible. 

Starting at $2,445 for a king-size model, the Pod Cover zips comfortably onto your existing bed and comes with a companion app that allows you to customize the temperature of your sleep surface to your liking. It quickly heats and cools on command, features scheduling to keep sleepers comfortable all night long, and has effective Smart Alarms to wake you up with a gentle vibration or drastic temperature change. 

While its operating noise is somehow inconsistent, the Eight Sleep Pod is quieter than many competing models. Users will also love the key sleep metrics it tracks. However, it's worth noting that you can only use some insights when you sign up for a subscription. Nonetheless, this cover's ability to alleviate temperature problems that may prevent users from getting a good night's sleep makes it an award-winning alternative worth every penny. 

The Tech - Sleep Tracking and Smart Home Integration 

Just like Eight Sleep's standard Smart Mattress, the Pod Cover will track your sleep pattern, among other things. By default, its system will give you key details about your prior sleep, including your respiratory rate, an overall sleep quality score, and other more targeted metrics, such as sleep time, sleep stages(from light sleep to deep sleep, to REM sleep), and awake time. 

And thanks to the graphs and charts available in the app, it's easy to monitor how different factors impact your sleep. You can even add tags for things like caffeine intake and exercising to better correlate your activities during the day with the amount of sleep you get. 

Another amazing feature of the Pod Cover is its sophisticated heating and cooling technology. Since it supports dual-zone controls, you can set the temperature for each half of the mattress independently. 

On top of that, this top-class cover takes its sleep tracking and temperature control tech a notch higher with its Sleep Insight and Autopilot features. 

Sleep Insights work like a robot coach, sorting through your data to offer sleep tips based on how well or badly you slept. On the other hand, Autopilot uses information gathered by its sensors to make your mattress colder or hotter as needed. 

Aside from your sleep data, you'll also receive a Health Report every morning that helps you understand your overall recovery status. 

Such kind of information will help you know when you're anxious or stressed when you had restless sleep, and even when your body is more susceptible to injury or illness. 

The Eight Sleep Pod Mattress

If you're looking to purchase a new mattress as well, you can consider Eight Sleep's Pod Mattress.

As one of the best smart mattresses on the market, the Eight Sleep Pod Mattress incorporates Active Grid technology paired with a user-friendly app to help regulate body temperature. It can also track your sleep, allowing you to know how you sleep in different stages and how to improve your sleep quality. Lightweight stomach sleepers and average-weight back sleepers will like the medium-firm feel of this Eight Sleep smart mattress. It should offer these individuals a nice balance of support and pressure relief. 

However, the Eight Sleep Pod Mattress might not be ideal for budget shoppers and individuals looking for an extremely durable mattress. Since it's an all-foam bed, you may need to replace it sooner than a latex or hybrid mattress. Side sleepers might also want to look for the best mattress for this position as they might find the Eight Sleep Mattress too firm for their comfort. 

Closing Thoughts

If temperature issues like excess heat and sweat or cold feet keep you awake all night long, the Eight Sleep Pod Cover is a life-changing smart solution. Loaded with smart technology, this cover outshines the competition with built-in sensors to monitor your sleep pattern, intuitive controls, automatic temperature adjustments, and convenient support for single- and dual-zone setups. Overall, the Eight Sleep Pod Cover is a top-class product that can improve your sleep, comfort, and overall well-being.