- Why: lets me drink tea because I hate cold tea. Bleck.
Under $1000:
- 49" ultra-wide monitor to replace my dual monitor
- Why: I use i3-wm. It works fantastically on it.
- 5.1 Soundbar for computer
- Why: I don't have to wear headphones constantly and also sound quality is so much better
- Mount 50" TV above my desk
- Why: Allows others to hang out in my office with me while I work / play games. Additionally, it allows me to turn something on without interrupting my monitor space.
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Breaking the rules:
Over $1000:
- EightSleep
- Why: Huge huge huge change in sleep quality plus it's really nice to be able to choose whether to get into a crisp, cold bed or a warm, toasty bed. The Autopilot stuff is interesting and does seem to work to keep you asleep but sometimes it can cause you to wake up especially in the transitional periods of the year (spring and fall).
I would agree. Except that now they seem to make it so that it is pretty pointless without a subscription. Kind of sucks that you have to pay $15/month to actually use the product after paying close to $2000 for the product.
I still use mine only because I was grandfathered in to be able to set temperature set-points without a subscription.
If I were to need another one, I would look for an option without a subscription.
That's just insane. And it's not a subscription you can ever stop paying unless you get rid of the 5000EUR bed itself. Absolutely a dealbreaker.
What if they increase the fee to 30EUR a month? Or 50EUR a month? That's guaranteed to happen once main product sales start slowing down and investors still want their quarterly gains.
I am kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop because the company has been nothing but amazing when it comes to their support. It has sprung a leak three times, about once every 18 months, and they've always replaced it with no additional payment.
I have a feeling next time it's going to involve a lot of cash being exchanged and I'll be faced with a choice.
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The subscription thing is very much a bummer. I hadn't figured out why they weren't shaking me down for it until I also put together the grandfathered in thing. It is extremely distasteful to have a required (?) subscription on a product that is this expensive.
I don't entirely get how spending $2k - $5k on a bed system (not a mattress!) isn't enough. Just pure fuckin' greed if I am being honest.
I get they need to make money and their product isn't a monthly or yearly re-purchase but it's just short-sighted.
Like let's be real honest here: their product almost certainly doesn't cost anywhere near $5k in materials. The margins on their product are likely already completely stupid. My guess-timate would be maybe $500 in parts. It's literally just a pump that heats or cools water that is app-controlled... not exactly anything crazy. If you look at something like Withings sleep tracker, it's $130 so even the fancy pants sleep tracking stuff isn't some crazy tech even if we take Withings' margins as the actual price.
EightSleep mattress cover is a GAME-CHANGER. Precise control over preferred temp, and detailed/accurate logging of sleep metrics == way better sleep, and knowledge of its relative quality (metrics for which let me measure the impact of different variables).
Never heard of them, temperature control sounds amazing.
How is this product from a privacy perspective? Is the data kept local or is it some cloud service that tracks all metrics?
How do they work thermodynamically? It should make the room hotter, but I guess you don’t notice because the surface you are touching gets colder? Is it a closed loop heat exchanger or is it evaporative?
I've never tried a cooling electric blanket. My wife has struggled w insomnia for a long time, and the eightsleep tracking was almost as much a draw as the cooling.
For hot drinks (teas, coffee & etc) I prefer a simple 0.7l thermos and small chinese teacup. Put the hot stuff in the thermos it will stay hot for at least 6 hours, put a bit of the hot stuff in the cup, since it's small it will get to a comfortable level of hotness in 30 seconds. Drink it slowly and refill. |
Works in the park/library too and you only heat the water once and don't need electricity to keep it hot!
A cheaper alternative to EightSleep is Sleep.Me… same concept with a heated/cooled water circulator + mattress pad, and they have an “autopilot” add on. I just manually set my temp schedules based on the season since I don’t like subscriptions for stuff like that, and I don’t want my sleep data on their servers.
I see that the cheapest Ember is now $130. My first-gen is about six years old, and the battery is about shot. I hesitate to drop another $150-ish on a new mug, but OTOH, is consistently hot coffee worth $25/year? Yeah, it probably is to me, so I'm going to have to suck it up soon.
You can buy only a replacement mug (without coaster/charger). Also, get in contact with customer support mentioning the battery, they usually offer a discount code.
I had to deal twice with them: coaster stopped working 2 years ago and more recently paint inside the cup came out. Both time, they replaced the broken part at no cost. Probably the first time in my life I'm using and happily recommending customer support of any kind.
They're often much cheaper at Costco if that's an option and you don't care about a specific color. They are a complete game changer though, especially if you're a new parent.
I've purchased two ember mugs over the years and end up not using them, a thin double walled glass mug paired with an always on water boiler has been amazing. A kettle is great in Europe because they boil so fast but in the US a boiler is the way to go.
Is there anything similar to 8sleep that doesn’t have all the bells and whistles and doesn’t require an app? I don’t care about any of the tracking or alarms or whatever else besides the temp control.
- Ember mug
Under $1000:- 49" ultra-wide monitor to replace my dual monitor
- 5.1 Soundbar for computer - Mount 50" TV above my desk ---Breaking the rules:
Over $1000:
- EightSleep