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Comment by electroly | Hacker News Reader

I'm a two-time Eight Sleep customer and the CEO could post my sleep history specifically with my full name and I'd still use it. It's really comfortable. I think most of the detractors were never remotely in the market for such a product. Everything negative said about the product and the company is true, and they should do better, but it's not enough to scare me away thanks to how good the base product is.

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I also have an eight sleep mattress topper. I was unaware of the privacy issues here, but I feel the same as parent that I won't give it up. Having the ability to always have a cool bed has improved my sleep substantially. And the heating is great when you're sick.

Now if a competitor crops up that has better privacy and a better CEO, I'll swap in a heartbeat.

Note: I don't pay for the subscription, just the mattress topper

But is it more comfortable, then say, an old school analog expensive mattress? I can’t shake the feeling these companies are selling snake oil (that is not to say that old school analog mattresses aren’t overpriced either)

You may be misunderstanding the product--it's a topper that goes on top of your existing mattress. It doesn't replace the mattress. I do indeed have it on top of an old school analog expensive mattress. It cools/warms to the desired temperature without impacting the comfort from the mattress. I don't think there's much room for snake oil here: it pumps cooled or heated water through the mattress topper. There's no mystery.

So it's a fancy mattress topper with a water pump for $2k.

How does it feel? I have a nice foam mattress and I'd hate to buy one of these and have it feel like I'm sleeping on a bunch of tubes and plastic rather than foam.

I can't feel the tubes at all. It does have some electronics stuff on the sides that you can feel through the topper, but nothing on the top where you sleep. It maybe feels slightly firmer than the mattress feels without it.

> But is it more comfortable, then say, an old school analog expensive mattress?

Mattresses wear out, and people end up keeping them too long. Somewhere like walmart.com sells great mattresses for inexpensive prices. They are not related at all to what they sell in stores. Because they are inexpensive, as soon as they start to wear out, buy a new one.

If there was a similar product that does not upload any of your extremely personal data, like whether you're now in your bed, to some server on the internet, would you prefer it?

Sure, there are lots of ways it can be improved. I'd like it to be cheaper too. I'd be happy to switch to an alternative that is just as good but without the Internet nonsense, but SleepMe isn't it. I've got my eyes open for viable competitors for the next time I need to outfit a mattress or when this one dies. For now, Eight Sleep is the best one I've found.

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