The Eight Sleep Pod 4 is a Bad Sleeper's Dream — But It's Not Perfect
How much do you value a good night's sleep? Enough to stop drinking caffeine after midday? Enough to stay off your phone an hour before bed? How about buying a temperature-regulating, AI-powered mattress cover that cools down and heats up to improve your sleep?
The Eight Sleep Pod 4 is the wellness world’s new favourite sleep optimiser. Backed by a growing list of A-listers and sports stars spanning Mark Zuckerberg to Formula One's George Russell, it’s a smart mattress cover that regulates your body heat, while also tracking a bounty of sleep data and health metrics like your heart rate, heart rate variability and breath rate. It can even detect when and for how long you snore.
Sound good? Here's the catch. The new Eight Sleep Pod 4 comes with a predictably lofty price tag. Starting at £2,399 for the smallest size (double), the Pod 4 rises to as much as £3,949 for the ‘Ultra’ model in its largest size (emperor) and requires a £17 per month membership to unlock all the app insights. The question is: is it worth it?
Dubious of celebrity endorsements, sceptical of transformational claims and with a propensity to keep my wallet in my pocket, I tested one for a month to see if it’s worth the cost as a hot sleeper. Here's my unbiased Eight Sleep Pod 4 review.
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The Set-Up
Make some space in your recycling bin is my first piece of advice. The Eight Sleep Pod 4 arrived in two neat, yet bulky, boxes. It's evident that thought has gone into minimising the amount of unnecessary packaging involved, but the main boxes, interior boxes and styrofoam-like inners soon piled up once I removed all the components.
Packaging dealt with, then came the set-up. A QR code prompted me to download the Eight Sleep app, which ran me through the process, starting with placing the hub in my desired spot. Space is at a premium in my one bedroom flat, so I placed mine on the floor to the side of my bed, just far enough away from my bedside table so that I could still open the drawers – I'm sure Mark Zuckerberg can relate. Once plugged in, I then connected the hub unit to WiFi and activated my membership to unlock access to the app.
The mattress topper attached just like a fitted sheet. The fiddly part was coaxing the power/water cable through the slats of my bed frame to the cooling hub. But, after filling up the water tank a couple of times to prime the system, I was then ready to set my nighttime routine inside the Eight Sleep app. The whole process took no more than half an hour.
First Impressions
As a hot sleeper, I was looking forward to my first night with the Pod 4. It was a humid, 28°C day in London, so having set the temperature to the lowest it could go (-10, or the equivalent to 13°C), I was looking forward to the immediate relief of an ice cold bed. The reality was quite different.
The Pod 4 cools down by pumping water through thin tubes that run throughout the mattress cover. I'm not clued up on the physics of why this is, but the Pod 4 didn't give me an instant cold sensation when I first lay down. Instead, the cooling was gradual. It felt somewhat cool when I touched the mattress with my palm, but it was only when I lay down for a few minutes that I began to notice the surface of my skin become cold. That was my first expectation managed.
Then there's the rather noisy elephant in the room: the cooling hub. I'd heard that the previous Pod 3 was loud, but as someone who has no trouble blocking out the hum of a desk fan or outside noise when I sleep, I wasn't too concerned. What did get me was the hot air that pumps out the back.
The Pod 4's main cooling/heating hub looks like a desktop PC and emits hot air through a fan in the back of the unit. Because it was a hot day and I’d set the temperature so low, the hub was working hard to meet its target. Inevitably, all that effort produced a fair amount of energy, which generated heat, which the fan then pumped, continuously, into the room. The thing is, I'd placed the hub right next to my head.
Despite the sweat beading from my forehead, I logged a 97% Sleep Fitness score that night once I’d re-adjusted the temperature, sleeping for 8 hours, 11 minutes – two hours of which were spent in REM and just under two hours in deep sleep – according to the Eight Sleep app.
The remainder of the week’s data continued in this vein – producing similar scores above 90% and, anecdotally, I felt that I was sleeping well. However, despite the glowing stats, I soon ran into my third problem: the admin.
My one leg in, one arm out, pillow-against-the-curtain routine has served me well for years. Other than a tendency to overheat, I rarely struggle to get to sleep. The extra thought and decision-making that came with the Pod 4, however, was placing more on my mind during the early stages of falling asleep, which began to keep me awake for longer.
One Month In
After a month of using the Eight Sleep Pod 4, I soon got over (or worked around) these initial issues. And, by the end of the testing period, I was won over.
July and early August in London saw hot days and high humidity. Living on the first floor of a terraced house without a fan and a bedroom that faces the sun for the majority of the day, it was perhaps the best environment to test the Pod 4's cooling capabilities. And it delivered.
Cooling-wise, it's excellent. After a month of use, it became evident that I was waking less, sleeping for longer, spending more time than usual in REM and deep sleep, and my HRV readings were more often than not in the green. I find my 'readiness' and 'recovery' hard to tune into, but generally, my body more often than not felt strong and rested when I woke up. Even waking up itself was easier thanks to the fact that the pod automatically warms up in the morning to encourage you to wake naturally. The mattress' vibrating alarm was also less 'alarming' than my phone's 'hillside' jingle.
As for the admin, once I'd figured out the target temperature I like best, I was able to leave Autopilot – Eight Sleep's AI – to take over and automatically make adjustments as it saw fit. The app doesn't tell you exactly what it changes, although it does let you know how many adjustments it makes and how they improve your sleep. That, along with the tap pads on each side of the mattress, which allow you to raise or lower the temperature, helped to remove the distractions I was experiencing.
As for the hot fan and the noisy cooling hub, I still find it an issue even now. Through trial and error, I've figured out that having the temperature set any lower than -3 causes the fan and the thermal engine inside the hub to let out a pretty loud pulsating, whirring noise. Add to that the heat that the fan emits, which also ramps up beyond -3, and I was often finding myself settling with a warmer temperature than I ideally wanted.
As for the data inside the Eight Sleep app, I found it useful, but I've learned to take it with a pinch of salt. As I've found when wearing my Whoop, sleep data isn't always perfect, and, even so, it doesn't actually solve anything; instead, it highlights potential issues. For example, the HRV data outed me when I'd had a few pints, when it would register much lower than my usual scores. Overall, the data kept me mindful of my sleep habits and helped me to make informed changes that work with my lifestyle rather than completely dictating my schedule.
The Verdict
Given its eye watering price, my immediate reaction was one that I suspect is shared by many. In a time of rising costs and a list of subscriptions I could do with cutting down, the Eight Sleep Pod 4 is hard to justify considering (for me) it equates to just under three month’s rent, plus an annual fee of £204 to access all the app's insights.
However, the chances are that if you’re reading this article you probably experience some sort of sleep problem. Whether you struggle to nod off, are prone to overheating or have a spouse with different temperature preferences, the Eight Sleep Pod 4 is well placed to solve all of these issues.
It undoubtedly improved my sleep over the course of a month, even as someone who typically sleeps well, keeping my body cool during warm spells, helping me get to sleep quicker by lowering my heart rate and making me more mindful of my sleep routine. The ability for my girlfriend to dictate the temperature on her side of the bed was also a winner, saving many ‘differences of opinion’.
In the end, it all boils down to my first question: how much do you value your sleep? We spend approximately a third of our lives doing it. It supports healthy brain function, maintains our physical health, the state of our immune system and even our ability to learn and store memories. Have the means to afford one and a sleep issue to solve, investing in the Eight Sleep Pod 4 is a choice you’re unlikely to regret. But if not, there are plenty of other ways to improve the quality of your sleep that aren't as costly, and, potentially, just as effective.
How I Tested the Eight Sleep Pod 4
I used the Eight Sleep Pod 4 for a month, tracking how the quality of my sleep changed over the course of the testing period. I also compared the Eight Sleep data to the sleep insights collected separately from my Whoop. Throughout the testing period, I also assessed the quality of the mattress cover, how it felt to sleep on and how well it secured on to my mattress. I also experimented with different sleep routines and temperatures in the Eight Sleep app, including the AI-powered Autopilot setting.
Autumn Update – November 2024
It's now been three months since I initially trialed the Eight Sleep Pod 4, which means I've had the opportunity to test it during cooler weather. The loud whirring noise the unit was emitting in the summer is now less noticeable, partly because I've become accustomed to it but also because the fan has to work less hard now the nighttime temperature is below 10 degrees Celsius. I haven't felt the need to test the heated settings yet, but I expect to soon once the colder months arrive. As for my sleep quality, my average monthly sleep fitness has remained in 'Good', with it dipping into 'Pay attention' only on nights that I've been had a few beers.
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