Eight Sleep Pod 4 Review: Sleep better

Finding the right the temperature in bed can be difficult. Feeling too hot or cold makes it harder to fall and can wake you up prematurely. Because our mental and physical health depends on sleep, this is a problem. Eight Sleeps has the answer. The Eight Sleep Pod 4 is a temperature-regulating mattress cover that follows your body as you snooze, a hub that pumps chilled or heated water into the cover, helping you stay in nod-off land for longer.

When we tested its predecessor, the Eight Sleep Pod 3 (7/10, WIRED Recommends), I was wary of the billionaire biohacking buzz, but it won me over. Apart from the increased comfort the best sleep trackers They all told the same story: My husband and I slept longer and got more deep sleep with the Eight Sleep Pod and more REM without it. The Eight Sleep Pod 4 brings some welcome improvements, including greater comfort, quieter operation, and convenient tap controls so you don’t have to reach for your phone at night.

Photo: Simon Hill

Unfortunately, better sleep doesn’t come cheap. The Pod 4 Cover and Hub for a queen-size bed costs $2,599, but you’ll need a one-year subscription to Autopilot for an additional $199. If you already have a subscription, you can transfer it to the new Pod, but you won’t be able to purchase an Eight Sleep Pod without already purchasing an Autopilot subscription. The UK Super King I tested costs £2,699, with a year’s worth of Autopilot £199. It’s a real investment, but sound sleep can be transformative.

Hit the hay

The Eight Sleep Pod 4 Cover and Hub come in two large boxes. The mattress cover has a rubber tube inside and a soft, plush, dark material on top. It is elasticated to fit snugly on your mattress and the tube must be routed from the top to connect to the inside of the hub. The front of the hub is the size of a desktop computer with a big 8 logo. The hub is the brains of the operation and cools or heats the water and pumps it around the cap.

Setup with the Pod 4 was similar, but faster than with the Pod 3. You remove the cylinder from the top of the hub and pour water up to the fill line. The preparation process has been reduced from several hours to 10 minutes for the previous version. You connect the hub to Wi-Fi using the mobile app. The Pod 4 cover is more comfortable than the Pod 3 and the center is quieter. It never broke 30 decibels when measuring. It hums softly, a white noise sleep sound.