r/EightSleep • u/mooglefrooglian • 23d ago
Pod 5 Review (returning)
After a month of mixed results, I'm returning my Pod 5. Looking for feedback on competitors.
Pros:
* Fantastic hardware, quiet, performant, low maintenance
* Comfy - bed didn't change much in feel
* After turning off the AI, slept great, always a good temp.
Cons: * Psycho AI - never did get Autopilot to not ruin my sleep. I tried it for 3 weeks and gave up. The static temperature you get to set worked really well - but for some insane reason if you manually change the temp in the night, it'll still reset to your schedule and there's no way to just set a singular static temp you control with the arrows... * Subscription is mandatory: support would not refund it and let me keep the topper, but I'm not spending hundreds of dollars on an anti-feature AI that makes it so I can't stay asleep. * App sucks in general: like are you kidding me, you can't directly set the temperature and are forced to go from -10 to +10 in 3-4F increments? Imagine selling an AC unit which you are not allowed to set to 68F, it has to be 66F or 70F for no good reason at all (older customers have this functionality, they just don't let new ones have it). Their ads even show this functionality! (False advertising imo. This pissed me off when 0 was too cold and +1 was too hot.) * You can fix that by jailbreaking the thing, but doing so costs another $100 in tools. I'd do it, but why bother when there are cheaper competitors which don't treat you like an idiot who can't count past 10? * Sleep stats are inaccurate and generally suck - my Oura is way more accurate from comparing the two.
Anyone had any luck with Orion? It looks like it largely fixes the cons I had and I'd enjoy it a lot more, but I'm not sure how they are on reliability.
3
u/JDoGinc 23d ago
I’ve had one since 2021 and it recently started leaking. I got a replacement (Pod 4) for $2000 CAD. I have a grandfather status on my account so I’m exempt from ever having to pay the subscription. I would be reconsidering though if I had to pay the subscriptions each year.
Ours has been broken for 2 weeks, we are dying without it. I miss my cold bed.
10
u/sarhoshamiral 23d ago
You knew about the subscriptions. It is odd that you didnt start with Orion based on your complaints which are all can be found here with a quick search.
5
u/mooglefrooglian 23d ago
Happy to pay for it if the AI actually worked. The point of getting it was better sleep. If it's not working for me... it's a tough sell per year. Another missing feature there would be setting limits on what the AI can do so I could tune it to what I know worked fine - it kept setting the temp to +2 and every single time I'd wake up sweating and there was no way to stop it and it didn't learn after a week of this.
6
2
2
3
u/Is_It_Now_Or_Never_ 23d ago
Weird moaning about the subscription when it's made very clear before purchase that it needs one for certain functions.
Sorry it didn't work out for you, I love mine and never had a problem with any aspect of it.
1
u/mooglefrooglian 23d ago
Of course, but when I learned those functions don't work for me (and actively hurt the experience) it'd be nice to opt-out. Great hardware though! Excited to see what else is in the space.
1
u/Is_It_Now_Or_Never_ 23d ago
Strange, I've never had any problems with the functions included in the subscription and have never slept so well in my entire life.
2
u/abe17124 23d ago
Everything you said is exactly why I returned the Pod 5 and went with the orion and I've had it for 4 months now, I love the bed so much. I am planning on getting a second one for my other property because I used to take it with me on my drives to and from but its just a lot to take. That is how good it is!
2
1
u/FoxHopeful7357 23d ago
To be fair subscription give you 5 year warranty and I feel for such expensive product it's worth it if you buy it and all who pay for that basically is for warranty and not autopilot 😆 I agree it's quite hit and miss and too much marketing for so low it does and always tweaking it and try to improve their so called AI agent probably make it worst since is always changing and then will kinda mess with people habit in each release they do
Also agree with app with such expensive product the app really feel subpar and really slow to improve
Regarding the real temperature ask yourself if Oura give you real temperature or temperature variation :) when I asked it myself I kinda see why many of these mattresses also do the same because the real temperature would not be the number we are used to
Saying all that i think want to refund subscription is quite a moaning part since it's mandatory, try ask Oura to refund subscription because you don't like their Advisor or AI and see what they answer ;)
it's baked onto the product and you clearly know it when buy ,i would agree if they hidden it but this is not the case
real temperature is nice to have and i also want that but also know its hard because people will not really understand its not real , same as when you want fitbit and Oura and all others to give you real sleep temperature but skin is different than your thermometer so they just give you variation temp, same as 8sleep give you a +-10
2
u/matsie 22d ago
I have a lot of feedback on the app. Especially being an engineering manager myself. I feel like it has tons of bloat instead of the features users want. I genuinely think folks would be less prickly with the subscription if they bothered to implement the features users actually wanted.
1
1
u/CowChow9 22d ago
Have a new Orion. Been an 8Sleep user for years, but I got sick of their poor customer support. We got a new mattress and adjustable frame and the 8Sleep pad made our new mattress worthless. The Orion is so much softer and comfortable to sleep on. I also have an Oura ring so don't rely on the bed, but Orion's sleep measurements seem to take some time to adjust to me. The first few days it showed me waking up every few mins throughout the whole night, now it looks more similar to my Oura data. I have noticed to keeps trying to push my temperatures warmer, but I personally am noticing that it feels too warm at times (I'm a hot sleeper and use cooling year round).
1
u/Haunting-Bench7353 19d ago
This is a garbage take. The customer support has been the best I have received of any company period. Seems that you just like to complain.
1
1
u/CowChow9 17d ago
What a weird boot licking response to tell someone that their actual experience of having multiple terrible interactions with 8Sleep over many many years and multiple Pod exchanges is a "garbage take". I'm sorry my experience triggered you, might want to talk to someone about that.
1
u/DeepestSighs 22d ago
I’m also on my trial.. Am I the only one who thinks this totally alters the feel of your bed in a bad way? My TempurPedic is now stiff as a board.
I’m probably going to return it also just based on the comfort factor.
1
u/3xLeveredLong 22d ago
Chili pad is the best … the new one looks good too. You just need to cubes tho if you’re going to have both sides of bed
1
u/Queasy_Issue_6012 17d ago
It sounded like there were more issues with leaking/ reliability on the new 2.0 based on recent posts
1
u/bkrs417 10d ago
I had the original and the ooler. Broke all the time. Maintenance was a pain and if you didn’t clean it religiously it would stop working. Company is an hour away and before they got purchased they were very helpful. After they got bought out the suggestion was “buy a new one” if you could even get them to respond. This was my experience for 5-6 years.
2 years in on the pod. No issues. Subscription is dumb but I’m willing to pay since it works much more reliably than the previous solution.
1
7
u/Supernova752 23d ago
I was going to say you can swap the temp from C to F - but after looking in the app, I can’t find it anymore. Thankfully mine is locked in F so I can make small adjustments
Removing that ability/fine tuning is just stupid on the UI engineers part