Eight Sleep Pod 3 Cover Review (2024)

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Full review and video transcript

Below, you’ll find the transcript of my video. I’ve made some minor edits so it’s easier to read and scan.

In the photo above, I’m adding more water to the hub. I only had to do this twice in ten months, and the app tells you when it’s needed.

Introduction

After sleeping on the Eight Sleep Pod 3 Cover almost every night for the last ten months, I’ve got a lot to talk about. Most of it’s quite good, but I also have some negatives, which is always the case.

Just to give you a very quick overview, the main points that stand out for me are the fact that we’ve had no problems with it – no leaks or major issues. And it’s been really quite transformational for my partner and I in terms of being able to have the heating on one side of the bed and cooling on the other side of the bed.

Below, I’m using the app to set the temperature. As well as setting the temperature timing schedule, you can manually adjust it any time you want as I’m doing here.

The negatives, the two main ones that stand out for me, are the fact that it does make some noise when it’s working. There’s always a bit of noise, though it depends on what setting you’ve got on. Secondly, there’s the membership fee, AKA subscription model, and I’ll cover that later in the video.

Just to be completely transparent from the outset, Eight Sleep did send me this one to test out, and also if you decide to get one using my link, I might make a commission.

But as you’ll see, I will be talking about the negatives, and Eight Sleep didn’t get to see this video (or article) before I published it. They had no input in what I’m going to say, and to be honest, they’re probably not going to like a couple of things that I’ve got to say anyway.

First thing’s first – where to put the hub

Let’s start with where you’re going to put the Hub. Just to give you a very quick overview of the way it works, essentially there are three main parts.

There’s the cover that goes over your mattress. I’m using an Emma mattress at the moment (they seem to have worked well together in terms of keeping the cover supported). Then there’s the hub, along with the app and autopilot function.

In the photo above, this is how my hub and pad looked after ten months. I have a mattress protector and bedsheet when I sleep, but you can still see it’s in good condition.

The dimensions of the hub is my first criticism. Great, isn’t it? Starting with a criticism! I really wish that it was a bit shorter and deeper so it could go underneath my bed frame.

I’ve moved it here so you can see it in the video, but this isn’t where I usually keep it. I tried between the nightstand and the mattress, and then also behind the nightstand. I ended up settling on behind the nightstand because I was worried that I was going to spill some tea on it in the morning and make a mess of it!

So it’s something to bear in mind – you need to know if you’re going to have the space and be willing to have this hub next to your bed. If you do, then it’s all about setting it up, so let’s go back in time 10 months, and I’ll give you a brief overview of how you set it up.

Installation, setup, and priming process

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The version I have is the Eight Sleep Pod 3 Cover with PerfectFit, which arrived in three boxes. I managed to set it up myself, but in hindsight, the first few steps would have been easier with some help.

The first step was to put the encasem*nt over my mattress and make sure it’s neatly aligned at the corners without any wrinkles, which was easy enough to do.

The most awkward step was getting the three tension straps into position under the mattress. Depending on the style of bed frame or how much stuff you have under your bed, you might need an extra pair of hands.

After that, you place the active grid over the encasem*nt. This part has the water tubes attached, so you need to drop them down behind the head of the bed. In my case, this was slightly tricky because I have a solid bed head, so I had to pull the mattress down at first to get them through and then shift it back up.

In the photo below, I’m installing the active grid which has the water tubes attached and the network of thin tubes throughout it to provide the cooling or heating.

Once you’ve got it all nicely lined up, the active grid zips onto the encasem*nt to hold it in place, and you then tighten the tension straps to make it even more secure. When the cover was in place, I then unboxed the hub. I think you can probably connect to the Hub before putting the cover on, but I did it the other way around and it was fine.

You then have to connect the water tubes to the back of the hub, as well as the little USB-C cable and plug it in. And then turn it on and download the Eight Sleep app.

Below, I’m attaching the water tubes to the hub. There are four tubes, but they are all neatly grouped in one large cord.

I found it was quick and easy to pair my hub with the Eight Sleep app, register my account, and start the priming process. This involved adding distilled water and hydrogen peroxide, but the more recent hubs have internal cleaning now, which is good because I was very nervous about spilling peroxide on my carpet!

The priming process took a couple of hours, and you need to be available to add more water when the app prompts you to. I made the mistake of setting mine up quite late in the evening, and the whole setup process took around two and a half hours in total.

The app gives you instructions to enter your profile, sleep, and temperature preferences to get you going. You can also send an email invitation to your partner if you’re sharing your bed so they can set up their side. And that’s it. As I said, the whole process wasn’t too hard other than getting the straps in place, but it did take a long time.

I was also very impressed by the overall look and quality of the various parts and materials. It all looks very smart and well made out of the box.

Heating and cooling function

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In the photo below, you can see the kind of settings I have for the cooling. I don’t usually have it as low as -4 though unless it’s a really warm night.

Let’s talk about the heating and the cooling now. For me, this is by far the best bit about the Eight Sleep Pod 3 Cover. I really like how you can have the cooling on one side of the bed and heating on the other side of the bed, or mix them up and have them changing throughout the night.

For me, it’s fantastic to be able to have a cool surface to lie on. I’m a relatively hot sleeper. I actually thought I was more of a hot sleeper than it turns out that I am from looking at the options and what I find comfortable.

My partner is more of a cold sleeper. She definitely likes to have the warmth, and it’s actually May in England, early May, and she’s still using the heating on the Eight Sleep. So it’s just really fantastic that with just this one hub, you can have heating and cooling and mix it up throughout the whole night.

Under the temperature tab in the app, you have four main time periods you can set a temperature for: bedtime, early, late, and the thermal alarm if you want it. I use mine on the minus and plus settings because I’m used to it now, but you can change it to Celsius or Fahrenheit if you prefer.

That way, you can also see the minimum temperature is 13° Celsius or 55° Fahrenheit. And the maximum is 44° Celsius, which is 110° Fahrenheit.

Personally, I rarely go below minus three or above plus three because I find that’s the comfortable range for me. It’s also interesting how you can see a graph showing the percentage of users that find a specific setting comfortable (I’ve found this is a good way to double check if your chosen temperatures are ‘reasonable’).

Autopilot intelligent system

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The other key function is the autopilot, which is the intelligent part of the Eight Sleep. It apparently makes adjustments during the night based on multiple factors such as the room temperature, your preferences, sleep history, and health metrics.

Whatever adjustments it makes seem to be quite subtle though, as I don’t recall being woken up by any dramatic changes in temperature (more on the autopilot later).

Criticisms of the heating and cooling

As for criticisms of the heating and cooling, I think there are three things to consider. When you first set it up in the beginning, I found that it takes quite a long time to really understand what you like and what’s comfortable for you. I found it took a few weeks. They say it takes days for the system to learn about you, and that might be true, but it took me longer to learn about the system!

The second point is that with the autopilot, I don’t really understand what it’s doing sometimes or why. Sometimes you get a report saying that it adjusted the temperature multiple times in the night, and I kind of think, “Well, thank you, but why and when and how, and what was it doing?” So I think it would be nice to have a bit more information.

I wish there was a remote control

I also think it’d be really good if there was a physical remote control, especially when you’re changing seasons and you’re making bigger adjustments. I found this was an issue transitioning from the summer to the autumn, for example, as you don’t always get your new temperature selections right the first time.

You might go to bed and then after an hour and then realise it’s a bit too hot or cold. You then have to turn your phone on and make some adjustments. I think it would be really good in those moments if you had a physical remote control so you don’t need to turn your phone on and have it shining in your face.

Sleep tracking

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The sleep tracking of the Eight Sleep is one of its core functions and kind of intimately connected with the way that the heating and the cooling is done by the autopilot.

As well as having the tubes which run across the whole surface of the cover, you also have sensors that track your sleep and give you information about your sleep and other health metrics.

On the app, you can see your daily sleep stats, including a sleep fitness score out of 100, time slept, sleep quality, routine, time fell asleep and woke up, and your sleep stages. It’s also great that you can see your averages for the week, the month, six months, and the year.

Below, you can see how my sleep stages look on the app. I installed it in late June and filmed the video in early may, so it looks like there’s twelve months of data.

Comparing the sleep tracking with my Fitbit Versa 4

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Throughout the whole time that I’ve used the Eight Sleep, I’ve also worn the Fitbit Versa 4. Now, I know it’s not exactly gold standard in sleep tracking, but it’s one that I quite like – other than the latest graph interface, but that’s a different story!

So, I’m going to show you a few different days where you can compare the two trackers and the data that they’ve shown.

The first example is a night that I know I slept well. The Eight Sleep recorded 25 minutes more sleep than the Fitbit, even though my fell asleep and wake times were similar. The Fitbit seems to record more wakings and less REM sleep, but I don’t recall so many awake events myself.

Note: in the graphs below, the Fitbit data is presented differently from the Eight Sleep data. The Fitbit has a timeline that starts at the time it thinks you were in bed but awake, while the Eight Sleep states the time you fell asleep.

In the second example, I know I was awake for ages in the night, and this time the graphs do look quite similar. There’s only one minute difference in total sleep time. Both apps show a lot of time awake between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m., and the REM and deep sleep stages are very similar.

In the next example, I know it took me a long time to fall asleep. Although both devices were close in the time I fell asleep and woke up, the Eight Sleep again measured over 20 minutes more sleep.

Interestingly, the Eight Sleep correctly spotted when I was awake but lying in bed, while the Fitbit thought I had more light sleep. Even though they don’t always agree on the details, both devices clearly distinguish between a good and a bad night.

I don’t really know if the Fitbit sometimes underestimates my total sleep, the Eight Sleep overestimates it, or if the truth is somewhere in the middle. And that’s a fundamental issue with all sleep trackers where sleep stages are concerned, you just can’t easily verify them yourself.

I also used the Fitbit Versa during the 10 months before I had the Eight Sleep, so I can compare the 10 months before and after. So let’s take a look at that, just with two massive caveats. One is that two months before I started using the Eight Sleep, I moved house. And three months before that, I switched from a Fitbit Versa 3 to the 4.

It’s not the best comparison, but it’s what I’ve got, and it’s the kind of thing that I imagine most people would do if they’ve already got a tracker and then they start using the Eight Sleep.

The Fitbit’s average sleep score was 82.4 before and 83.4 after I installed the Eight Sleep, and the total sleep time was 6 hours 49 minutes before and 7 hours 10 minutes after.

That’s an increase of over 20 minutes per night on average, even if it was the combination of the new house and Eight Sleep rather than just the Eight Sleep. Just keep in mind this is a long, long way from being an accurate comparison, but I found it interesting on a personal level.

As interesting as it is to look at the sleep data, at the end of the day, you’ve got no real way of confirming whether the sleep stages tracking is accurate or not, and that’s the same for all sleep trackers.

I mean, sure, you can do the classic “gotcha, you said I was sleeping but I know I was in bed reading,” but that doesn’t really apply to the sleep stages. That means you just have to have a bit of faith in the company that the sleep stages tracking is accurate – if that’s what they’re saying the autopilot is basing its decisions on. That’s down to you whether you want to have that faith or not.

For me personally, I think a more important question is to ask yourself in the morning, “Do I feel like I slept well? Do I feel refreshed and ready to face the day with a smile?” And for me, over the last 10 months, I do believe that in general, I’m sleeping better.

I certainly have more nights of having seven and a half or eight hours sleep, which previously wasn’t so common for me. So on that front, I do believe that I’m having better sleep overall.

However, I still have bad nights. There are still nights when I might be feeling very stressed or I haven’t been outdoors enough, because I like to spend a lot of time outdoors, and that can impact my sleep. I don’t think the Eight Sleep is going to make up for that, so that’s important to keep in mind.

Having said that, one of the most important things for me is that it’s completely removed one of my biggest barriers to good sleep, which is the heating and the cooling that I feel from the bed. If it’s removed that problem, then it just makes logical sense to me that there’s going to be more nights of good sleep.

Health metrics tracking

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As well as being able to see your sleep tracking data, you can also see your heart rate variability, your heart rate, and your breathing rate. Personally, the most interesting health metrics are the heart rate and heart rate variability.

That’s because last October, I stopped going to the gym because I had an ongoing back and shoulder injury and I decided not to do such intense weightlifting. Since then, my heart rate has been slowly increasing, and my heart rate variability has been decreasing. It wasn’t great to start with, but it’s getting even worse!

Below, you can see how my heart rate variability appears on the app. I swear it was higher than that a few years ago!

As much as I’d love to be able to show you an increase in my heart rate variability over time thanks to the Eight Sleep, the reality is that that’s just not what’s happened to me. However, it makes sense considering what’s actually happened in my life.

It gives me some confidence in the accuracy of the Eight Sleep to see that the trends that it is picking up, although they’re not the trends I’d like to see, are the trends that should exist because of real events and the lifestyle choices I’ve made.

Daily routines and alarms

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Another key part of the app is the routines section. With the routines, I like how you can set an ideal bedtime and alarm for each day of the week (you can also group them by weekdays and weekends).

The temperature turns on an hour before your bedtime, which is great as you don’t have to get into a cold or hot bed and wait for it to work.

With the alarm, you have multiple options to choose from: a thermal alarm, different vibration alarms, or a combination of the two. My partner and I both set a vibrating alarm and temperature alarm, and it seems to work really well.

The sound of the vibrating alarm

Note: this section makes more sense in the video because I recorded the vibrating alarm sound so you can listen to it. The section starts at 10:59 if you’d like to listen to it.

The thing is though, you can hear the vibration on the other side of the bed unless you’re really fast asleep and not sensitive to noise or vibration. To give you an example, here’s a recording of the low vibration on the gradual pattern. Here’s the heavy vibration on high strength.

The lack of a physical remote control to turn the alarm off rather than using your phone app is again an issue. I think it would be great if there was a snooze and off button on either side of the Pod Cover.

Despite the lack of a remote control, I really like the alarm feature. My partner agrees as well and we both use it all the time now. We don’t use loud alarm tones, and it’s just fantastic to be able to fine-tune the vibrating alarm and the temperature that you like, and it works really well.

The feel of the cover and how it affects the mattress

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As for how the material of the Pod 3 Cover feels, I think adding a pad of any kind to your bed is going to have some impact. When you run your hands firmly over the cover, you can feel the grid network inside it, so I was quite concerned at first that it would be uncomfortable.

However, with the padding of the cover itself, a mattress protector, and a bed sheet, we don’t feel the grid much when we’re lying down. It’s still there if you focus on it, but we both got used to it.

I do think the mattress feels slightly firmer. Again, it’s not a dramatic change, and we’ve accepted this minor tradeoff. But if you’re more sensitive to a change in the feel of your mattress, it could be an issue.

The noise the Eight Sleep hub makes

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Note: this is a good section to listen to in the video as I recorded the noise the hub makes and also compare it to a desk fan.

Okay, let’s talk about the noise. Basically, if the Eight Sleep hub is switched on and doing any cooling or heating, there will be some noise coming from the Hub.

On gentler settings, I’d describe it as a quiet electronic white noise sound, while the fan seems to kick in when it hits around plus or minus six. This is how it sounds when cooling to minus three, for example. Here’s the Hub cooling to minus 10. And here’s a basic desk fan to give you a comparison.

Personally, I don’t mind because I use earplugs or audio anyway, so I never hear it. But if you need 100% silence to sleep and you don’t use those, then it could be an issue.

In the photo below, I put the Hub next to the bed so it was easier to photograph. I prefer to keep it behind the nightstand though to reduce the chance I’ll spill tea or coffee on it. That means the nightstand is a bit further away from the wall than I’d ideally like, but it’s better than spilling liquid on it I think.

You and a partner can access each other’s data

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One curious feature of the Eight Sleep Pod 3 Cover is that you can see your partner’s data on the app. Sometimes that opens up funny conversations, like for us, “Oh sweetie, it looks like you slept better than me. Can you make the coffee?”

I can imagine there could be some less funny conversations, or potentially useful ones, like you’re on a work trip on the other side of the world, open up the Eight Sleep app and realise that two people slept in the bed last night. Slightly awkward.

What about if you’re single and you meet someone? Are you supposed to tell them that you can see their health stats on the app in the morning? Or maybe even use it to vet potential partners? “Hmmm, not sure about this one’s heart rate variability.”

Personally, I’m not really bothered about the fact that I can see my partner’s data or they can see mine, but it is worth noting that from now on, for better or worse, your bed is going to become a bit of an undercover spy.

Cost and membership plan

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It’s time to discuss the cost of the Eight Sleep Pod 3 Cover, or rather the combined cost of the initial outlay and that membership fee.

At the time of filming the video, with the spring sale in the UK, it costs £2,195 for the King Size Pod 3 Cover. The Perfect Fit version costs a bit more. In the US, it’s $2,245 for the King Size.

However, you also have to choose a membership plan when you buy it. The standard comes with a two year warranty, and the enhanced comes with a five year warranty.

As an example, for the five year plan it’s £22 per month in the UK and $24 per month in the US, which is billed annually.

One of the main reasons Eight Sleep gives for having a membership/subscription model is to allow for continual improvement, upgrades, and new features.

To give you an example of a new feature, a few months ago, snoring detection appeared on the app with an update. This wasn’t available when I got the Eight Sleep, so it’s good to see that they do occasionally update it.

It’s not for me to say whether the Eight Sleep Pod 3 Cover is too expensive or not because everyone has their own income, budget, and priorities. But I do think it’s important to understand that initial outlay and the membership costs over the years.

It’s also very important to understand what happens if you decide to cancel it after a year, which you’re allowed to do, or if the membership runs out and you don’t want to renew it.

What happens is that you’ll only have one feature, which is the ability to set a single temperature throughout the whole night. There’s no sleep tracking, no temperature changes, no alarm. It’s just that one thing.

My view of this is that if you’ve been paying a membership fee for a few years and then you decide not to continue, after the initial outlay, it would be good if there was a little bit more functionality, not just that one set temperature.

Power consumption tests

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If you are concerned about the cost, on the bright side, I found that the power consumption is actually pretty good for the Eight Sleep Pod 3 Cover.

I ran the Pod 3 Cover through my power meter for 16 days with our usual settings, which is mostly between zero and plus or minus three. On a tariff of 28 pence per kilowatt hour, it cost £2.71 after 16 days. It was only meant to be a two week test, but I had man flu and forgot to turn it off! With those settings, it would cost us around £59 for a year, which I thought was really good.

And when I maxed out the cooling for eight hours, it came to 44 pence, which would be £161 for a year.

Pros

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Here are the main pros and cons as I see them. Starting with the pros:

• It provides consistent cooling and/or heating at different stages in the night.
• One hub allows independent temperature controls for partners.
• The autopilot makes adjustments to help you sleep.
• You get detailed sleep tracking and health metrics data.
• There’s a thermal and vibration alarm.
• The app is easy to use with clear graphs and historical data.
• It only requires infrequent maintenance. I literally just had to add a little bit of water twice during the whole 10 months.

Cons

As for the cons:

• The high initial price.
• The annual membership fee to access nearly all the features.
• The hub will make some noise next to your bed.
• There’s no physical remote control.
• It needs Wi-Fi to work. T
• The cover may make your bed slightly firmer.
• It’s hard to confirm if all the autopilot decisions are appropriate.

Verdict

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In this final photo, you can see that I don’t sleep directly on top of the Pod 3 Cover itself. You could in theory, but I think you’re supposed to use your normal bedding. I have a mattress protector over the cover as well, both to protect it and disguise the tubes a bit more.

My opinion is that as a bed cooling and heating system, the Eight Sleep Pod 3 Cover works really well. We absolutely loved using it in the summer, and also in the winter, And in the in-between months – if they even exist in the UK anymore!

What we found is that having the ability to cool one side and heat the other side just allows for so much flexibility in terms of the bedding choice and the temperature that you set the room at, which is fantastic.

As far as the sleep tracking goes, which is important for the autopilot function, it’s kind of difficult to judge whether it’s accurate or not because you just don’t really have a way of telling.

Yes, you can compare it to other sleep trackers if you’ve got any lying around, or multiple sleep trackers if you want to go that far. But for the everyday person, you just kind of have to have this faith that it’s doing what it’s supposed to be doing.

And that’s really important for the autopilot, because if it is going to be making these adjustments in the middle of the night to keep you at just the right temperature and ideally improve the sleep stages, that’s an amazing function. And if it works, incredible. But you don’t really have any way of checking whether it’s doing what it’s saying it’s doing. But as a concept, it’s amazing.

As far as the criticisms go though, there are those two main points to bear in mind. One is the noise: you’ve got to be able to tolerate some fan sounds, and if you don’t use earplugs or any kind of headphones or other audio, then it could be an issue.

And then the second thing is the price. Obviously, this is a luxury product that’s going to be prohibitively expensive for a lot of people, and even some of the people that can afford it might just not like that whole subscription/membership thing. So I’ll leave that one to you to decide.

And that’s it for the review. I hope you found it useful.

Extra points not in the video

• While I can hear the noise of the hub on gentler settings because it’s next to my side of the bed, my partner says she can hardly hear it. Maybe I’m just more sensitive to noise though…
• If you want to experiment with moving the position of the hub, you can just disconnect the tubes from the back so you can reposition it on the other side of the bed.
• It comes with a draining tool to remove the water if you need to remove the Pod 3 Cover or put it on a different bed. I haven’t done this yet as I plan on using mine for the foreseeable future, but give it a go later this year to see how easy it is.
• The plastic casing of the hub seems to be quite robust. After filming the video, I accidentally knocked a heavy glass (fortunately empty) onto the top of the hub and there was no dent or mark.
• The tubes are also very robust. I had a picture frame that fell off one night and landed on top of the tubes behind the back of my bed. There was no damage to the tubes or the fabric around them (some kind of modal or polyester I think). There was a lot of broken glass from my picture frame all over the tubes to hoover up though, so I recommend not having them directly underneath anything that can fall on them!
• The tubes are quite bulky, which means they take up some space under the bed, reducing storage space by around half a foot if you like to keep anything under your bed.

Your thoughts and questions

If there’s anything I missed in my review, feel free to ask in the comments below.