Smart Bed Startup Luna Joins YC S15, Has Raised $1.3M in Private Funding | Hacker News Reader

Smart Bed Startup Luna Joins YC S15, Has Raised $1.3M in Private Funding

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53 pointskatm20 comments

Hi everyone! This is Matteo, co-founder of Luna. Happy to answer any questions and hear your feedback and comments about what we are building.

Hey there Matteo, thanks for taking questions from the crowd.

I'm somewhat of a sleep technology enthusiast, mostly because I've always had trouble sleeping (and getting reliable metrics on my sleep). I created a web site called http://sleepyti.me a few years ago to help me wake up refreshed -- which works pretty well -- and that's what led me to this question.

Does your "sleep cycle" technology detect movement to wake the user up (similar to my Jawbone UP's "smart alarm,") or does it actually calculate the cycles based on time asleep? Or something else entirely?

I'm not sure if one method is better than the other (heart-rate and/or REM detection would really be best), but I'm interested in the approach you guys took.

Thanks in advance, and awesome work on your product!

Hi David,

We have heard about sleepyti.me from so many of our backers that use it or have used it in the past. It's an awesome and easy-to-use solution. Would love to chat 1-1 about sleep technology and what you have learned so far.

The way Luna works right now is through piezo sensors that pick up presence in bed, movement, heart and breathing rate and we use this information to determine your sleep phase quite more accurately than most of the products in the market - specially when compared to accelerometer-based solutions.

The detection of sleep phases is used for several of our features - from sleep tracking to the smart alarm.

Thanks for your feedback! M

Congrats Matteo! Well done :)

Why do I need this? Smart thermostats and coffee makers can be scheduled. It doesn't take a lot of effort to flip a light switch. I can buy an electric blanket for $87 on Amazon. How do you justify charging $179 for this?

Looks like another over-engineered product for tech yuppies.

I used to use an electric blanket and would always forget to turn it off and even worse - drift off before turning it off - waking up in the middle of the night piping hot. Plus, setting a temperature that is best to sleep at, not just nice when you get into bed, could have a huge impact on sleeping. I'm all for it.

This would happen to me as well! I tried all the different heating blankets and covers and that was a recurring issue. We hope to solve this with sensors and software.

Hey Matteo! A couple things that would make me buy it at any price:

- Sleep apnea detection and tracking (maybe already can do this?)

- Cooling, although this must be hard. Heat is many people's biggest problem in bed, and think of the A/C energy savings too.

- Chemical sensitivity; I'd want to know what materials it's made of, since I spent a lot on a chemical-free bed. (Please no 'chemicals' comments from anyone.)

Ditto on cooling. I must be the worst person environmentally for sleep. I like it cool in the room, the weight of a comforter, and still some cooling control. (Always have a foot or feet exposed for some cooling.)

Oh, First World Problems...

We hear you on the cooling feature and hope to integrate that in a v2. It's a huge technical challenge - and the reason why there is no other solution in the market that works. For now you can connect with your home thermostat, AC or fans so the can be set at the right temperature when you are in bed.

I don't use my bed just for sleeping. My bed is sometimes my desk, my closet or my couch. I work, watch tv and sometimes just hang out on my bed. I wonder how Luna would work for someone like me.

It would be a shame to have the lights turned off every-time I lie down on the bed. Or have my coffee maker brew a fresh batch just because I picked up my laundry from the bed in the morning.

Maybe it's just not the right product for you.

Option one: turn off those features? Option 2: Set things up so they only activate in the right time window?? (Not sure if that's possible, but sounds like it should be.)

Sure you can set triggers as you prefer and need. Everything is customizable to your routine. If you don't have a very clear pattern in your routine you might want to skip certain integrations and trigger events only for the moments when you actually fall asleep or wake up (which Luna can detect) vs. getting in or out of bed. And also set a time window for them.

I imagine the Luna, in addition to being geared towards couples who want their sides of the bed at different temperatures, is also geared to people who don't sleep well who want to improve their sleep routine. The first thing any sleep doctor will tell someone with sleeping issues is that the bed should only be for sleeping and sex, and most especially you should never work at a computer or watch TV in bed. Of course, this sounds like it's not an issue for you, but for the target market of people who want to improve their sleep, using their bed just for sleeping is step #1.

I love the idea here, and the market. I've tried a lot of the current products from other vendors, and haven't been completely happy, mainly due to mechanical issues (Beddit falls off my bed, Im not going to wear a wristband, and Zeo, my favorite, with the EEG, is out of business...)

I think it's still waiting for the 'iPod' -- hopefully this is it.

We hope so too! That is how Luna got started. I have problems to sleep and I used many other products before and encountered similar mechanical problems and I would just forget to use them. That is how we decided on a more seamless form factor that could 'live' with you forever and you wouldn't have to do anything.

Hope it helps! I will look forward to your user feedback in the future.

-M

I have SleepIQ from sleepnumber, was $299 add on for lifetime subscription. It's interesting but fairly limited. They do have an undocumented API ( https://github.com/erichelgeson/sleepiq ). I could hookup something to poll the API and fire events (sleep/away/restless/etc) but it'd be nice if it was a push vs pull and hook it into existing SmartThings hub or something.

It'll be interesting to watch this as the little and big companies are entering this market at about the same time.

Sleep IQ is definitely the most similar product in the market. We admire what they have done and believe we can take it a step further with more advanced technology and also a product that can fit any mattress regardless of the brand.

The integration with SmartThings is a good point and we hope to see more competitor products moving in this direction as the smart home ecosystem continues to grow. We just announced our integration with SmartThings recently and have already heard from many customers that want to see us integration with Wink next.

I can think of at least one thing some people do in their beds that would be awkward to have recorded for posterity.

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