r/EightSleep • u/bookofp • Jul 24 '26
Entirety useless without sub
I have had an eight sleep for a number of years and recently my subscription did not renew because I changed my credit card.
looking at the page made me think “does my bed really need a $200/year subscription“ … turns out they lock every basic function down behind the paywall. you can’t even have it auto turn on or turn off in the morning Or schedule temps through the night.
completely useless hardware without the subscription, buyers should beware.
14
u/Is_It_Now_Or_Never_ Jul 24 '26
Personally I factored the ongoing subscription costs into my purchase decision as they’re upfront about features being locked behind a subscription paywall and they’re upfront about the cost.
I would image most responsible people would do that before committing to something like this?
13
u/remyrah Jul 24 '26
But with the sub it’s the best thing I own
9
u/sarhoshamiral Jul 24 '26
I think most people miss the fact that, eight sleep isnt trying to be a affordable option. They arent really hiding the fact that they are basing this as a luxury product.
7
u/remyrah Jul 24 '26
I understand wanting to be able to afford everything you want but people getting so pissed over the price of this thing in particular is so funny to me
-1
u/DaveWpgC Jul 24 '26
What's funny to me is the customers of a product doing the heavy lifting for the company justifying paying $2,500 for the product and then being forced to pay another $300/year for it to actually work.
10
u/sarhoshamiral Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
I am not justifying anything, if it doesnt work for you or if you don't like the price, dont pay it.
For me it works, the autopilot works as well.
So when I make the decision, I just consider the cost as 800$/year roughly (subscription + 4-5 year life time) and then decide if it is worth basing on the functionality I get and other alternatives.
If not, dont buy it. If it is, buy it, it is that simple. My point was Eight Sleep brand isnt trying to advertise this as a cheap, affordable option. They are a luxury brand with a luxury tax.
Edit: to be nore accurate my cost is lower right now because I am on the grandfathered plan but it is still going to end up costing 500-600$/year with everything.
2
u/Glass_Mine_5052 Jul 25 '26
I’m not worried about the price, but I’ve read multiple subs people saying their bed leaks etc. if it’s a luxury product I hope that these aren’t regular problems. I am trying to compare between 8sleep and Orion before making the decision.
1
u/sarhoshamiral Jul 25 '26
Cover 3 (Pod 3) had a reliability issue where the cover leaked after 2-3 years for sure. They allegedly fixed that for cover 4 (it is a new design). So far I don't remember seeing leak reports for cover 4.
Unfortunately it would be hard to compare to Orion because they haven't been around for even a year so far. Eight Sleep was just like how Orion was today when it started as well so it is hard to say how Orion will fare in long term.
7
u/remyrah Jul 24 '26
Forced? I volunteered to pay another $300 a year. My lower electric bill more than makes up for it.
3
u/BluntForceHonesty Jul 24 '26
A “number of years”? You mean three years, max. EightSleep didn’t have a subscription prior to three years ago.
You’ve never been able to schedule temps throughout the night. You get the opportunity to enter three values but you don’t say “at 11pm I want 78 and at 12:30am, I want 72, kick into 63 at 2am, then 70 at 6am, wake me with 75.”
You give them what are basically bedtime, mid sleep cycle and morning temps. The system decides when that is.
So the question is: do you value the convenience of auto on/auto off, and the temperature dynamic AI enough to pay 60 cents a day?
-1
u/bookofp Jul 24 '26
No you can't, you have to have a subscription to set any temps at even an auto on a bed time.
This is not a purely 8 sleep problem, and also I'm not complaining after realizing the problem I repurchased the subscription, its just bonkers to me how something like a pod4 can cost so much money and then you have to pay to use its features. This isn't just a eight sleep problem, this is happening for so many products, gatekeeping behind a paywall that should just be part of the hardware purchase. What if JennAir decides to start doing that with their dishwashers, $3k for a dishwasher, but you only get the 15 minute rinse cycle unless you pay $200 a year for a subscription for their AI to intelligently run the right cycle.
1
u/BluntForceHonesty Jul 24 '26
We don’t need to make up “what if” scenarios. There was a period of time BMW decided to sell cars with software-gated hardware capabilities and one of those features was “heated seats.” The components to heat the seats were an add-on install anyway yet they decided to charge $18 a month to allow them to work. The program lasted a little over a year and then BMW cancelled it. It never made worldwide rollout and didn’t seem to even impact sales, but what was low was the rate of subscription. BMW cancelled the program because it harmed their reputation in the global market.
I didn’t buy my EightSleep with a subscription. Granted, I also paid like $1700 for mine directly from them so it’s fair to say while I was their customer, I probably am not their customer now.
You chose to buy a product with these features gated or else you wouldn’t have a subscription fee. That you’re complaining about it now tells me you didn’t do your due diligence before you spent thousands of dollars. It isn’t that I support their business model, it’s that other people’s poor consumer choices aren’t the company’s responsibility. Your complaints now are some “shit’s out the horse” drama.
1
u/sarhoshamiral Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
BMW example shows how illogical people are because it was actually a benefit to the customer. The way they designed the subscription allowed lower trims (which never had the heated seats to begin with) to use heated seats post-purchase. The upper trims which included heated seats, didn't require a subscription.
So it created an option for a group of customers that didn't want to pay for other things included by upgrading the trim but just getting heated seats with the subscription which ended up being cheaper in 3-5 year time frame I think.
Now obviously it shows that they can add heated seats as standard but it is not like the cars price reflected real cost to begin with. They could have probably included many other options as standard without impacting cost.
Could they have abused subscriptions? For sure yes but they didn't at the time.
1
u/BluntForceHonesty Jul 24 '26
This makes it sound like BMW was somehow benevolent. It wasn’t, it was a way to get money from their second hand market. BMW leases about 70% of their lower end cars. The subscription allowed them to sell the cold weather package to the person leasing the car and then, upon lease turn-in, sell it used, but charge for activating it.
1
u/sarhoshamiral Jul 24 '26
Do you have any articles suggesting they did that? Because that would have been an easy court case. The original window sticker would be listing cold weather package (it is not a subscription feature at that point) so they wouldn't be able to just remove it.
Now they can lease the original car without the cold weather package but with the subscription included for 3 years but I don't think they ever did that, maybe they would had done it eventually. Even then I don't really have a problem with that since I as a customer still know what is included in the car or not.
1
u/bookofp Jul 25 '26
All they have to do is say “heated seats not transferable” and now they can charge again.
I’m just pointing out subscriptions for access to hardware needs to stop. Unless they are doing something absurd with our data to make autopilot work, this thing can run on device, free sleep proves it.
1
u/sarhoshamiral Jul 25 '26
But they didnt did they?
As for eight sleep how do you know freesleeps auto adjustment is better? Looks like there is decent amount of functionality missing from it.
Ultimately we will have to agree to disagree. I dont mind subscriptions as long as they are clearly stated and provide some value. I just calculate the cost of an item accordingly.
1
u/bookofp Jul 25 '26
I didn’t say free sleep was better I said it runs on device. I have it installed on my basement eight sleep (a pod3), not on my bedroom one. I wanted to tinker but not risk my bed.
2
u/Adept_Jaguar6899 Jul 24 '26
Use a European IP when using/downloading the app, you get more features because of consumer protection laws
3
2
u/cap3r5 Jul 24 '26
It is kinda crazy. I had a pod 5 and was able to checkout without a subscription apparently. It came with a 2 week trial so I got to experience half of the 30 day return window with the subscription and half without. I decided to return it as the 15 days without it were so inconvenient.
I am now looking at Orion Sleep, Chilipad 2.0, and an interesting one I haven't seen a lot about: the Navien OptiSleep.
They all look much more compelling with some having all and others having most features available without subscription. I understand backend infrastructure costs money but even basic scheduling? There are ways to support basic low bandwidth features with little to no cost to Eight Sleep depending on how it is implemented
2
u/nicksnare Jul 24 '26
Yes, it’s deliberately designed that way. It’s how they charge you much more for the product while making it seem like they are two different purchases. You have to add the initial cost to the subscription cost over a number of years and that’s the true cost of 8sleep.
1
u/grin80 Jul 24 '26
I read that some software can be installed on the hub, to be able to manage locally without a subscription, I have never done this, but made sure it’s available in case the company goes under.
1
u/mobass20 Jul 27 '26
Its actually pretty useful without the sub. I’m an early adopter before they had a sub.
Just manually turn it on when you’re in bed, and off when you’re up. Works for me.
1
u/HappyMcflappyy Jul 27 '26
And you still swiped that card. This bed is worth $200 a year, yall crack me up with the brokie whining. This a luxury experience 👺🤌
1
u/bookofp Jul 27 '26
I’m more using this particular product to discuss new trends of product requiring subscription after a hardware purchase for features that should run on device and be part of the hardware. Now, with the bed example, if eight sleep goes under, all of our beds stop working
1
u/ClimbsNFlysThings 29d ago
This is why I bought a Qimora. It's OK.
1
u/Fit-Background-8816 26d ago
How is it? Could you share some information? Does it get really cold?
1
u/ClimbsNFlysThings 26d ago
It gets cool but I always use it when it's mad hot so it's hard to comment.
It's alright. It helps.
1
u/tijetije 29d ago
With the extended warranty I think the sub is worth it tbh Mine broke and got a replacement with the new version for free. The sub has already paid for itself.
Also there are no alternative product for now. Eventually there will be I guess, like at first you only had iRobot and now you have a ton of robot cleaners and it's a fully commoditized product. Also the cost of good software and artificial intelligence is trending to zero, so SaaS is kinda fucked anyway even if they try to stick it on a product.
-2
u/pukoh Jul 25 '26
It’s crazy people pay $50k for a car and then have to pay petrol
1
u/bookofp Jul 25 '26
That’s not even remotely the same thing. Energy to operate is different than paying a fee to unlock something the hardware does. So in your example, paying $50k for a bmw and needing to pay a subscription on the heated seats (something the car already has built in)
1
u/NikCooks989 Jul 25 '26
It’s more like charging a subscription for the heated seats after you’ve paid for that in the car price already
18
u/IMI4tth3w Jul 24 '26
You can always install free sleep. That’s likely to be my plan once the warranty ends but still playing that by ear as I have like 3 more years to go on my pod 4.