Sweet Dreams: Smart Beds That Could Optimize Your Sleep

We spend a third of our lifetime asleep, yet until relatively recently the average sleeper had no idea of what was happening while they were catching some z’s.

A host of new consumer technology—from wearables to peripherals to mattresses themselves—aim to give users insight into their individual sleep patterns and enable them to make informed decisions to improve their nightly rest.

They also come with a range of new bells and whistles to ensure you have the most comfortable slumber possible.

We take a look at the latest smart bed tech that attempts to optimize your sleep—or in one case, your sleeping space.

A Complete Sleep

The Sleep Number 360 smart bed may be the world’s most advanced mattress.

Debuting at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, this responsive foam mattress not only tracks your sleep stats but automatically adjusts as you, or your partner, move throughout the night.

The Sleep Number 360 keeps tabs on your heartbeats and breath per minute as well as your restful, restless and out of bed periods. It combines this information into a SleepIQ, and offers insights, including tips on diet and exercise, for improving this score and achieving a better night’s sleep.

But better than even its amalgamated analytics is the Sleep 360’s intelligent amenities.

Like every Sleep Number bed, the 360 will allow you to set your "Sleep Number"—the precise firmness at which you would like your mattress. But what separates the 360 truly apart is that this brainy bed will recognize when you’ve switch sleeping positions—from back to side, for example—and will adjust your firmness accordingly, and automatically, to meet your new configuration.

The Sleep Number 360 also aims to end a main source of sleeping partner strife—snoring. The bed will recognize when one sleeper is sawing logs and will automatically (and gently) elevate their head rest to mitigate the issue.

Best of all, perhaps, is the mattress’s built-in foot warmer. The feet heater can be limited to certain regions of the bed, ensuring that one partner has delightfully toasty toes without condemning the other to a sleep of sweaty soles.

The Sleep Number 360 i10 model is currently available for $4,499 to $9,898, depending on size and features.

Shake Awake

The Beautyrest SmartMotion base is no slouch either when it comes to tracking stats.

Paired with the Beautyrest Sleeptracker app,  the SmartMotion base will monitor your heart rate, breathing and motion in real time, cataloging when you achieved REM sleep or when you were in a lighter slumber stage as well as how long it took you to fall asleep. When you wake each morning, an artificially intelligent Sleeptracker "coach" will survey your stats and offer personalized tips to reach a higher plane on snoozing.

Like the Sleep Number 360, the SmartMotion will let you combat your partner’s snoring—although not automatically. By pressing the Snore Relief button on your partner’s remote control, you’ll gently elevate their head and alleviate your problems.

What separates the SmartMotion from other smart beds is its "vibrant" nature. Yes, it’s a massage bed, with six levels of quaking comfort for your head and feet—but best of all, the SmartMotion can leverage its massage functions to serve as an immersive alarm clock, gently vibrating each morning to awake you at a predetermined time.

The SmartMotion Base is available for $999 to $1,799, depending on features.

Firmware Update

Perhaps you’re completely enamored with your current mattress…but are finding yourself a bit envious of the intelligent amenities and sleep tracking capabilities of today’s high-tech smart beds.

The Eight Smart Cover may be the right fit for you.

The Smart Cover seamlessly slips over your current mattress—it will work with memory foam, latex, innerspring, air or adjustable bases—and can immediately begin tracking 15 different sleep-focused factors, from bed temperature and breathing rate to room humidity and amount of movement.

In addition to presenting you with a complete readout on your night’s rest, the Eight can make automatic adjustments to optimize your sleep. The clever cover is able to communicate with other smart devices in your home, so if the Eight cover knows you sleep better at a certain temperature at 2 a.m., it can automatically set your smart thermostat to achieve the preferred degree. Or it can alter its own temperature—yes, the Eight is also a heated cover.

This connectivity also means the Eight can start brewing you a cup of coffee as soon as it realizes you’re about to arise from slumber, which is about as close as current technology will allow us to achieve automatic breakfast in bed.

The Eight Smart Cover is available for $299 to $319, depending on mattress size.

A Transformative Experience

Perhaps you don’t need sleep stats or feet warmers, but rather need a high-quality bed that will save on that most important real estate commodity—space.

Enter Ori.

Perfect for the square-foot-limited urban abode or a guest room, the Ori a multi-purpose sleep solution  takes advantage of modular robotics and is capable of transforming an environment at the tap of a button.

Developed by MIT scientists in conjunction with designer Yves Behar, Ori is a bedroom, a bookshelf, a media center, a workspace, a lounge and a closet—individually or in any combination, depending on your desired configuration.

The modular masterpiece is sure to catch on with anyone looking to make the most of their space, and while the Ori (inspired by the Japanese origami) can be controlled by the built-in remote or an accompanying app, it will also integrate with third-party smart home hubs, so you can simply tell Alexa to prepare the bedroom when you are ready to retire.

The Ori is currently available for pre-order at orisystems.com.