Hahahah wtf is this world anymore, beds getting fucked up because an internet service broke, this is the stupidest timeline.
this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2025
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Here i am with my primitive bed with zero electronics.
I get that the people who buy this stuff might not know what needing an always-online service to function entails, but what were the designers thinking?
Designers were probably thinking "well this is stupid but it's what I'm paid to do and I didn't decide to have a fucking bed be always online". The execs that made the decision are probably thinking "why didn't the designers think of this problem and prevent it? We should fire some. "
That assumes the execs didn't just contract out all the development and neglect to include an offline requirement.
The designers weren't going to get paid for the extra work so they didn't do it.
and neglect to include an offline requirement
Oh the innocence. Execs don't neglect that, they specifically ask for that. This bed doesn't work without a subscription so offline functionality would lose them money
The designers were thinking "we want to force users to a monthly subscription".
So against my preference, we bought one of these. Years ago and it wasn't so crazy expensive and the basic 'cloud' functionality was free. Over the course of the years of the initially decent warranty, the covers sprang leaks and so we got free upgrades carrying us all the way to a generation of the product where they replaced the crappy molded leak prone water mat with decent tubes that seem to be more resilient, all without needing to get in the subscription. As a consequence, I know about their evolution.
From the onset, they were hammered with "phone over the internet control is bogus, add a remote or buttons on the base or something", and they kept responding with vague "we are working a solution". Well, they ultimately did, they added earbud-style 'tap N number of times on the side to adjust things or dismiss alarms". Ok, super awkward and still no buttons, but at least it has local controls, right? Well, I go to try it and it just gives the long-buzz error indication. Turns out the app has to be used to activate the bed or schedule a start time before the local controls will let you control it. When they explicitly added a local control loop, they blocked it from working unless the cloud service said it was ok.
This is not "crappy developer stupidly doesn't know how to make local control work". This is "developer going out of their way to screw over a customer to force them to keep paying for every single month they want the product to keep working".
A shame, aversion to buttons aside, the hardware design is really quite good, quiet and effective and seemingly more leak resistant.
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These are the same people that elected trump AFTER seeing his stupidity for four fucking years.
When AWS went down, users lost access to the app that manages its water-cooled coils, leaving them stuck with whatever setting was last active.
That's ridiculous. The app should merely talk to the device over wifi, if available. The cloud should only be used to connect from outside the wifi network.
Why is everything so crappy?
IoT devs avoid MQTT and Multicast traffic like the plague.
i heard people got locked in, or out of thier house on thier smart"locks", and also ring cameras were affected because the ALARM SOUNDS WOULDNT TURN OFF.
But even that makes little sense as it should take commands locally and any telemetry should be done after the commands are issued. This method basically says “if we ever miss out on telemetry data, it’s just not worth it to us to give you what you already paid for. “
Because we have webdevs and think of them as devs. They are not devs. They are mostly idiots.
What do you mean? Webdevs are devs, just within a specific platform. And like any dev, they can suck or be great.
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A smart bed that can't function without checking in with mother ship? That's the dumbest thing ever. You can always tell the businesses that skipped testing lol.
Its a feature, make the product unusable if its not used as they intend. Take the sim card out of your car and watch it go into limp mode.
I don't have a smart car though, I use a bike. No registration, no tax, barely any regulations and fewer that are actually enforced.
They crave your data! They made it so that it cannot function without your sweet sweet sleep number!
I'm sorry, but why the fuck those exist and WHO THE FUCK is buying them!?...
I think coding a contingency for loss of internet connectivity has got to be as basic as preventing Little Bobby Tables from deleting your data.
But then you might be able to bypass the €25/mth subscription on your €3059 mattress cover.
This is spot on. Note these asshats eventually caved and added local controls when customers kept saying how horrible it was to use the phone. The local controls are explicitly disabled unless the cloud service has recently approved the bed to allow the local controls to work. You have to use the phone to enable the local controls. The phone can't do anything locally except tell it how to connect to wifi. If you don't have the subscription or grandfathered in before the subscription, the local controls do nothing.
Well, unless you jailbreak your cover with FreeSleep.
Wow, I didn't know freesleep was a thing. I wrote the sleep pod off due to the subscription snd cloud reliance. Looks like someone is working on a Home Assistant integration too! This is definitely something I'm going to follow.
I'm conflicted though, as I really don't want to give money to a company with such a terrible business model, but they're the only ones who make this kind of bed.
I'd research Chilipad harder if I were in the market again. At very cursory glance it seems like less of an uphill battle. I could be wrong and they could be douchey, or their engineering somehow sucks, but maybe they are good too.
FreeSleep is what I would do if they try to force the subscription on me, but I probably wouldn't buy the product hoping that I can change their firmware against their will. I don't want to give money to a vendor I would just be antagonistic with.
If they announced they formally endorsed use of FreeSleep as an 'advanced alternative', ok, but that isn't going to happen.
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You have upset the shareholders.
You are correct!
But you know what isn't as easy or basic as that? Convincing Product Managers and others on up the chain that you should be able to take some time to code and test to fix an issue they don't give a fuck about because it doesn't affect their metrics.
“Eight Sleep confirmed there’s no offline mode yet, but they’re working on it.”
There's an offline mode after all. Unplug it!
then they will have to cope of buying a 2000$ "normal" mattress. its the same people that bought 1800$ smart fridge from samsung. last december deal we purchase a normal mattress for less than 120$
And the air bladders have a leak that was usually dealt with by it being plugged in so it deflates and you’re left with a very flat and hard bed.
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anyone who buys a mattress that can't work without being connected to the internet deserves this
You can feel the smart in these.
People wondering why this was designed to need the cloud, it requires a subscription fee. Overpriced greedy product. Its actually a good idea (bed temp control), but too greedy
good. I hope that whole industry fails. plug in anything is bullshit. give me old fashioned!!!
- Invent incredibly dumb device.
- Brand it as "Smart" to lean into Dunning-Kruger effect sales.
- Profit!!
Man, reality is way weirder than i thought..
This is right up there with the Louvre security being connected to the internet and was hackable. Maybe some old fashioned alarms and guards would've been better.
Do you seriously think old alarms were unhackable?
Not being able to do it from a distance would probably be a boon to security.
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Can't just unplug them?
That would require thought. Something that anyone buying a "smart" device, lack.
First time I'm hearing of a smart bed.... who tf is buying this crap? I still see Teslas out in the open and drives me mad to no end.
NGL if you have the money, a Watercooled bed is amazing.
Getting one that doesn't work through the internet though, good luck.
Reading the comment from the guy about his bed was a sauna all night from the heat. Did he not just think to unplug it? I mean I’ve never seen one of these beds, what happens if you do??
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Bed goes up. AWS goes down.
why the fuck would you get a smart bed
So in my case (I didn't want to, but not my choice, but at least it was cheap and without subscription at the time), it was about the water cooling/warming. It's really nice and essentially inaudible.
I think Chilipad is a brand that does it without the online bullshit, though I didn't get to try that.
None of this should ever require an internet connection, and it's abundantly clear that's an anti-consumer hostile forced behavior Eight Sleep did.
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