Smart Beds: When Your Mattress Needs an Internet Connection
Humans have been sleeping just fine without technology for millennia. That changed on October 20, 2025, when an Amazon
Humans have been sleeping just fine without technology for millennia. That changed on October 20, 2025, when an Amazon Web Services outage turned expensive smart beds into overheating prisons.
Owners of Eight Sleep’s Pod mattresses, which retail for $2,700 and up, woke up sweating at 3 a.m. Some found their beds stuck in upright positions. Others couldn’t turn off the heating function. One user described sleeping in a sauna. Another posted that his bed was “bricked” and completely unresponsive.
The culprit wasn’t a manufacturing defect. It was a cloud computing failure hundreds of miles away in a Northern Virginia data center. Smart beds, it turns out, need constant internet connectivity to function. When AWS crashed, so did the beds.
What Smart Beds Actually Do
Smart beds promise to revolutionize sleep through technology. Eight Sleep’s Pod system wraps your existing mattress in a temperature-controlled cover filled with water-cooled coils. Sensors track your heart rate, respiratory rate, and sleep stages. An app lets you set different temperatures for each side of the bed.
The pitch sounds compelling. Your bed warms up before you get in, cools down when you’re asleep, and adjusts throughout the night based on your sleep cycle. The system can vibrate as an alarm, detect snoring, and even adjust temperature to reduce it. Eight Sleep claims over 50 clinical studies back their technology.
Other companies offer similar features. Some smart beds adjust firmness. Others elevate your head or feet. Premium models include massage functions, under-bed lighting, and integration with smart home systems. Prices range from $1,500 to over $5,000 depending on features and bed size.
Beyond the upfront cost, most smart beds require subscriptions. Eight Sleep charges monthly fees for features like automatic temperature adjustments, sleep tracking analytics, and health insights. Without the subscription, you’re sleeping on an expensive mattress cover with limited functionality.
When the Cloud Goes Down
The AWS outage began around 3 a.m. Eastern time. Within hours, Downdetector logged over eight million reports of service disruptions. Banking apps failed. Gaming platforms crashed. WhatsApp went dark. And thousands of smart bed owners discovered their mattresses had stopped working.
Tech enthusiast Alex Browne had programmed his Eight Sleep Pod to preheat nine degrees above room temperature before bed. When AWS crashed, the system locked into that setting with no way to override it. “Backend outage means I’m sleeping in a sauna,” he posted on X. “Eight Sleep confirmed there’s no offline mode yet, but they’re working on it.”
Other users reported beds stuck in inclined positions. The touch panels on the control hub became unresponsive or glitchy. Sleep tracking stopped entirely. Automated routines that gradually adjust temperature through the night simply disappeared. Some owners said their beds were completely “bricked” and couldn’t be rebooted without cloud access.
The issue lasted over two hours before AWS restored normal operations around 6 a.m. By then, thousands of Eight Sleep customers had endured uncomfortable nights because a server farm in Virginia had a software bug.
The Missing Offline Mode
The core problem wasn’t the outage itself. Cloud services fail occasionally. The problem was that Eight Sleep’s products had no meaningful offline functionality. Every feature, from temperature control to basic on/off functions, required constant connection to the company’s servers.
Even the physical controls on the device proved inadequate. Users described the touch panels as “extremely inconvenient at best,” designed more as app backups than standalone controls. When the cloud connection dropped, owners of $2,700 mattresses had less control than someone with a $20 electric blanket and a dial.
This design choice reflects a broader trend in smart home devices. Companies build products that depend entirely on cloud connectivity, often to enable data collection, push software updates, or enforce subscription models. The tradeoff is that when internet connectivity fails, the “smart” device becomes dumber than its analog predecessor.
Eight Sleep CEO Matteo Franceschetti apologized on X and promised to work “24/7” to make the beds “outage-proof.” The company quickly rolled out an “Outage Access” feature that lets the app communicate directly with the Pod when cloud infrastructure is unavailable. Users can now turn beds on and off, change temperatures, and adjust positions during future outages.
But the incident raised questions about why this functionality didn’t exist from the start. Ring doorbells and Blink cameras also went offline during the AWS crash. The difference is that a non-functioning doorbell is inconvenient. A malfunctioning bed that overheats while you’re sleeping is a safety issue.
The Subscription Mattress Model
Smart beds represent a shift in how companies think about furniture. Instead of selling a product once, manufacturers sell hardware plus ongoing subscriptions. Eight Sleep’s business model depends on monthly fees for premium features.
This approach works well for software. It’s less clear whether it works for mattresses. A bed is supposed to be a long-term purchase. You buy it once and use it for years. Adding recurring costs and internet dependencies changes the value proposition.
The subscription fees enable ongoing development and cloud infrastructure costs. They also create a revenue stream that survives long after the initial hardware sale. For Eight Sleep, that makes business sense. For customers, it means your mattress has operating expenses.
When asked why a mattress needs a subscription, Eight Sleep points to continuous improvements, data analysis, and personalized sleep insights. Critics argue these features could work locally on the device without requiring monthly payments and cloud connectivity.
Are Smart Beds Worth It?
The question of whether smart beds deliver value depends on what you’re optimizing for. If you struggle with temperature regulation during sleep, a system that actively heats and cools throughout the night might help. If you’re fascinated by sleep data and want detailed analytics, the tracking features provide information a regular mattress can’t.
But you’re paying a significant premium for these features. A high-quality traditional mattress costs $1,000 to $2,000. Smart beds start at $2,700 and go up from there, plus subscriptions. You’re essentially betting that temperature control and sleep tracking justify thousands of dollars in additional spending.
Some users report genuine improvements. Vodafone’s pilot program found employees using smart beds saved three hours of sleep time weekly, though it’s unclear how much of that came from the technology versus placebo effect. Other owners describe the beds as life-changing for managing night sweats or sharing a bed with a partner who prefers different temperatures.
The AWS outage added a new consideration to the cost-benefit analysis. When you buy a smart bed, you’re not just buying a mattress. You’re buying into a technology ecosystem that depends on consistent internet connectivity, reliable cloud services, and ongoing company support. If any link in that chain breaks, your expensive mattress stops working.
What This Means for Technology Adoption
The smart bed fiasco highlights broader questions about Internet of Things devices. As more everyday objects gain internet connectivity, we become dependent on infrastructure we don’t control. A power outage means you can’t use electronics, but at least you can still sleep on your mattress. Unless your mattress requires AWS to function.
This matters beyond mattresses. Smart thermostats, connected door locks, app-controlled appliances, all face similar vulnerabilities. The convenience of remote control and automation comes with the risk that a distant server failure renders your devices useless.
For entrepreneurs and business leaders evaluating smart home technology, the Eight Sleep incident offers a lesson. Always ask what happens when the internet goes down. If the answer is “the product stops working,” consider whether that tradeoff makes sense for your needs.
Smart beds aren’t going away. The market is growing as more companies enter the space and technology improves. But the October AWS outage proved that sometimes the smartest choice is the one that doesn’t need an internet connection to let you sleep.
