AWS Outage Disrupts Eight Sleep Smart Beds
On October 20, a significant outage at Amazon Web Services (AWS) led to unexpected problems for owners of Eight Sleep’s premium “Pod” smart beds. Many users faced issues like overheating mattresses or beds that became completely unresponsive. This incident raises questions about the reliability of connecting home devices to the Internet of Things.
In the early morning of that day, the AWS malfunction affected numerous apps, games, and online services. However, it particularly impacted Eight Sleep’s Pod users, who found their smart beds malfunctioning across the nation. Priced over $2,000, these beds depend on cloud connectivity to control temperature and monitor biometric data. With AWS down, many users found they were stuck in the last settings before the outage, which was quite problematic as most were still in bed.
Reports flooded in from frustrated users, some complaining about their beds overheating, while others noted that their mattresses stopped functioning altogether. In several instances, smart beds froze, leaving customers unable to adjust them and frustrated over sleepless nights.
One notable post from tech enthusiast Alex Brown brought attention to the absurdity of the situation, revealing that his pod was locked at a temperature significantly above room temperature. “A backend outage means I’m sleeping in a sauna,” he wrote, noting that while Eight Sleep is working on an offline mode, no such feature currently exists.
Another user recounted their experience with a bed stuck in a tilted position, further emphasizing the need for alternatives that don’t rely on internet access. This isn’t the first criticism directed at Eight Sleep for its dependence on cloud services; a report in 2024 found vulnerabilities in AWS security that might have allowed unauthorized access to users’ devices.
As the AWS service issues persisted, Eight Sleep’s CEO Matteo Franceschetti reached out on social media to apologize and address user concerns. He provided reassurance that the company was taking immediate actions: restoring functionality once AWS was back online and developing plans to implement an outage mode to prevent future occurrences. By Wednesday, the company had rolled out an initial fix.
