[HN Gopher] Smart Beds Helped Them Sleep on a Cloud. Then the Cl...
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       Smart Beds Helped Them Sleep on a Cloud. Then the Cloud Crashed
        
       Author : Animats
       Score  : 17 points
       Date   : 2025-10-26 18:57 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
        
       | jdenning wrote:
       | https://archive.is/fNNCg
        
       | 1shooner wrote:
       | >"I still plan to continue to use it," he said. "The main
       | friction point is, really, the mattress should work even without
       | Wi-Fi."
       | 
       | I appreciate the drifting semantics of names, but Wi-Fi and AWS
       | are really not the same thing.
        
         | HPsquared wrote:
         | No WiFi, no AWS (as far as the mattress is concerned). "Works
         | without WiFi" would be sufficient but not necessary for
         | functioning through the AWS outage.
        
           | omnicognate wrote:
           | Right, but during the AWS outage that took these beds out
           | presumably most of the owners had functioning WiFi.
        
             | HPsquared wrote:
             | Yeah, "works without any internet connection at all" is
             | perhaps overkill for an AWS outage but I'll allow it.
        
         | ashwoods wrote:
         | I'd venture to say that the person meant that these kind of
         | devices should be designed to work "locally first".
        
         | NoPicklez wrote:
         | I think perhaps they mean it should just run locally, rather
         | than without an internet connection at all
        
       | Youden wrote:
       | The architecture of Eight Sleep is that the "Pod" - despite
       | having a full Linux system running - is treated as nothing but a
       | sensor and actuator. Absolutely zero decision-making happens on
       | the device itself; it's all controlled by commands received from
       | the mothership via an AWS service.
       | 
       | My cynical take has always been that this is their justification
       | for charging a subscription fee for features that shouldn't
       | require one (e.g. an alarm clock or the ability to change the
       | temperature on a schedule).
       | 
       | There are a couple of open-source projects around jailbreaking
       | it:
       | 
       | - Probably the original attempt:
       | https://github.com/bobobo1618/ninesleep
       | 
       | - The much more polished and usable application built from that
       | starting point: https://github.com/throwaway31265/free-sleep
       | 
       | The latter is even able to do the signal processing needed for
       | heart rate on-device.
        
         | pedalpete wrote:
         | I found this to be a very strange architectural decision.
         | 
         | We work in the neurotech/sleeptech space
         | (https://affectablesleep.com) and have a subscription service
         | as well. We know when your subscription runs out, and have
         | built the device to run completely offline, and even have a
         | buffer of days if it can't connect to check you have a valid
         | subscription.
         | 
         | Say what you will about subscription services, but being
         | actively hostile to your user base because the device can't
         | connect to a service on one night, seems like very poor
         | planning.
         | 
         | I actually quite look up to 8Sleep as one of the better
         | companies in this space, so I'm surprised this happened to
         | them.
        
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       (page generated 2025-10-26 23:01 UTC)