Overview
My partner and I have been sleeping on the Eight Sleep Pod 3 Cover for about 10 months now, and I have to say—it’s been a total game changer for us. The thing we love most is how we can both control the temperature on our own sides of the bed. I like sleeping in a cool environment, while she prefers it warm, and this setup lets us both stay happy—without fighting over blankets or cranking up the AC.
The app that comes with it is pretty impressive too. It tracks your sleep and shows you health data like how long you slept, your heart rate, and how restful your night was. There’s also a cool “autopilot” feature that tries to adjust the temperature for you throughout the night based on how you’re sleeping. It’s smart, though sometimes I wish it explained more clearly what it was actually doing.
Now, I won’t pretend it’s perfect. The hub makes a bit of noise, and it’s not the cheapest thing out there. Plus, you have to pay a yearly membership fee if you want all the features. That might not work for everyone.
But if you often wake up too hot, too cold, or if you and your partner have totally different sleep temps, I think this is one of the most effective solutions out there. It really does help you get more comfortable sleep.
Pros
Keeps you cool or warm through the entire night—not just for a short time.
One hub can manage different temperatures on each side of the bed.
The autopilot feature tries to make smart changes while you sleep to keep you comfortable.
The app gives you tons of detailed sleep and health info.
Comes with a gentle vibrating or warming alarm (no loud noises needed).
Super easy-to-use app that shows your sleep history and trends.
Requires hardly any maintenance.
Cons
It’s expensive.
There’s a yearly subscription fee if you want access to all the smart features.
The hub makes a soft fan-like sound while it’s running.
No remote control—you’ll need to use the app on your phone.
Needs Wi-Fi to function properly.
Might make your mattress feel a little firmer than you’re used to.
The autopilot feature doesn’t always explain why it made certain changes.
Where to buy
The Eight Sleep Pod 3 Cover is only available on their official website: eightsleep.com. You won’t find it on Amazon or in stores. They currently ship to the US, Canada, UK, parts of Europe, the UAE, and Australia.
Introduction
After nearly a year of sleeping on the Eight Sleep Pod 3 Cover almost every single night, I feel like I’ve really gotten to know it. There’s a lot to love, but of course, I also have a few small complaints—like with anything.
The biggest win for us is that we’ve had zero problems—no leaks, no malfunctions. And the ability to heat one side of the bed while cooling the other? Total relationship saver.
You can easily set a temperature schedule through the app, or just make changes on the fly whenever you want.
That said, there are a couple of downsides. First, the hub does make a humming noise—kind of like a small fan. And second, there’s that ongoing membership fee. I’ll dive into that more later.
Also, for full transparency: Eight Sleep sent me this unit to try. If you decide to buy it using my link, I may earn a small commission. But they didn’t pay me for this review, didn’t ask to see it before I published, and honestly, I say a few things they probably wouldn’t love. But hey, honesty matters.
First thing’s first – where to put the hub
Before you even start setting the system up, you’ll need to find a good spot for the hub—the box that controls the water-based heating and cooling.
There are three main parts to the whole setup:
The mattress cover itself.
The smart hub.
The app that controls everything.
I’m using it with an Emma mattress, and it’s been a great combo. Even after 10 months, everything still looks clean and works well.
Now, let’s talk about the hub. It’s not huge, but I do wish it were shaped a little differently—shorter and deeper—so I could tuck it under my bed. I tried putting it in a few spots: between the bed and nightstand, beside the mattress, behind the table. I finally settled on keeping it behind the nightstand so I wouldn’t spill anything on it (I’m clumsy with my morning tea!).
So keep in mind that you’ll need a little bit of space near your bed for the hub, and ideally somewhere safe where it won’t get bumped or overheated.
Installation, setup, and priming process
The Pod 3 Cover arrived in three separate boxes. I did the setup myself, but I’ll be honest—it would’ve been easier with a second pair of hands.
Here’s how it went:
Put the encasement on the mattress. This part was easy. Just line up the corners and smooth out the wrinkles.
Attach the tension straps under the mattress. This part was a bit of a pain, especially if you have a heavy bed or stuff stored underneath.
Lay the active grid on top. This is the part with water tubes inside. You’ll need to drop the tubes behind the headboard. If your bed has a solid headboard like mine, it takes some extra fiddling.
Zip the active grid to the encasement. This keeps it snug and secure.
Hook everything up to the hub. The water tubes and USB-C cable all plug in neatly.
Plug it in and open the app. From there, the app walks you through everything.
The priming process is when you fill the system with distilled water (and hydrogen peroxide in older models). The newest version cleans itself internally, so you don’t have to worry about spills or chemicals.
It took about 2.5 hours total to get everything up and running. I made the mistake of doing it late at night—definitely do it during the day if you can.
Once everything’s set up, the app lets you input your sleep preferences and invite your partner to customize their side too. Everything felt solid and high-quality from the moment I unboxed it.
Heating and cooling function
This is hands down the best part of the Eight Sleep system. It works so well.
You can choose your temperature for different parts of the night—like when you first get in bed, early sleep, late sleep, and even during a gentle wake-up alarm. You can adjust the temperature in two ways:
Actual degrees (13°C to 44°C / 55°F to 110°F)
Or just a simple scale from -10 to +10
For me, anything between -3 and +3 is usually just right. On really warm nights, I might dip down to -4. My partner, on the other hand, loves heat and often keeps her side warm even in May.
One of the coolest features? You can have cooling on one side and heating on the other, and the system handles it with no problem. Perfect for couples who are opposites when it comes to sleep comfort.
The app even shows what temperature ranges other users prefer, which is a nice reality check when you’re still figuring out your settings.
Autopilot intelligent system
This feature is pretty clever. The “autopilot” looks at all kinds of data—like how you sleep, your past habits, the room’s temperature—and makes little adjustments during the night to keep things comfy.
What’s nice is that the changes are smooth. I never woke up from sudden shifts in temperature. But the downside is that the app doesn’t really tell you why it made the changes. It just says something like “temperature adjusted 4 times,” and that’s it.
I wish it explained a bit more about what it was doing behind the scenes. Still, when it works well, you don’t even notice—it just helps you sleep better.
Criticisms of the heating and cooling
Even though the heating and cooling features are excellent, I do have a few small complaints:
It takes time to dial in your settings. The system might learn quickly, but it took me a few weeks to figure out what felt best for me.
Autopilot is a bit mysterious. I’d like to know more about what it’s changing and why.
Season changes can be tricky. When fall hit, I had to go through a bit of trial and error to find my new perfect settings.
I wish there was a remote control
This is a small but real issue. If I’m in bed and suddenly feel too warm or cold, I have to grab my phone, open the app, and adjust the settings. That means staring at a bright screen when I’m half asleep—not ideal.
A simple remote with a few buttons would be perfect for those quick changes in the middle of the night. Hopefully that’s something Eight Sleep adds in the future.
Sleep tracking
One of the most important features of the Eight Sleep Pod 3 Cover is its built-in sleep tracking system. This smart mattress cover doesn’t just heat or cool your bed—it also watches how you sleep at night. It does this using tiny sensors inside the cover, along with its temperature tubes.
These sensors track your sleep automatically and show you lots of useful data in the Eight Sleep app. You’ll see how long you slept, when you fell asleep and woke up, your sleep quality, and what sleep stages you went through (like REM, light, and deep sleep). The app even gives you a “sleep fitness score” out of 100, which makes it easier to understand your sleep health.
What’s really helpful is that the app shows your sleep data not just for one night, but also averages over a week, month, six months, or even the whole year. This helps you spot long-term trends and improve your routine for better sleep over time.
Comparing the sleep tracking with my Fitbit Versa 4
I also wore my Fitbit Versa 4 while using the Eight Sleep, just to compare the sleep tracking data. Even though Fitbit isn’t perfect, it’s popular and well-known, so I thought it would be interesting to see how the two match up.
On one night, I slept very well. The Eight Sleep Pod 3 showed I slept 25 minutes more than the Fitbit said I did. The bedtime and wake time were similar on both, but Fitbit showed more awake moments and less REM sleep. I didn’t remember waking up that often, so maybe Fitbit guessed wrong.
Another night, I had trouble sleeping between 3 and 4 a.m. Both trackers showed a similar graph that night, which made me trust the data more. A third night, it took me a while to fall asleep. Again, Eight Sleep showed over 20 minutes more sleep, even though the timings were close.
Interestingly, Eight Sleep noticed when I was just lying in bed awake, while Fitbit said I was lightly sleeping. This shows that sleep trackers can give different results, and we don’t really know which one is fully accurate. But both can still help you figure out your good and bad nights over time.
Health metrics tracking
Along with sleep, the Eight Sleep Pod 3 Cover tracks other important health signs. You can see your heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), and breathing rate in the app. These numbers can help you learn about your fitness and recovery over time.
For example, after I stopped going to the gym due to a shoulder injury, I noticed my heart rate went up and my HRV went down. That’s not what I wanted to see—but it made sense based on my lifestyle at the time.
Even though these numbers weren’t good news, it actually showed me that the Eight Sleep health data is likely accurate, because it matched what was really going on in my life.
Daily routines and alarms
The Eight Sleep app has a really handy “Routines” section. This lets you set different sleep and wake times for each day of the week. You can even create separate schedules for weekdays and weekends.
Here’s the cool part: the bed starts heating or cooling one hour before bedtime, so when you lie down, it already feels perfect. No more waiting for your bed to warm up or cool down!
You can also set a smart alarm using vibration, temperature, or both. My partner and I use both, and we love it. The vibration is strong enough to wake us, but gentle—no loud, annoying sounds.
The only downside is that you can’t turn off the alarm with a physical button on the bed. You have to use the app. I think having a remote or snooze button on the cover would make it even better.
The feel of the cover and how it affects the mattress
When you add the Pod 3 Cover to your mattress, it does change the feel a little. If you press on it with your hand, you’ll notice a grid-like pattern from the water tubes. At first, I was worried it would feel strange when lying down.
But once we added our mattress protector and bed sheet, the grid feeling nearly disappeared. We barely notice it now. The bed does feel slightly firmer than before, but it’s not uncomfortable. If you’re very sensitive to changes in mattress feel, it’s something to keep in mind.
The noise the Eight Sleep hub makes
The Eight Sleep Hub, which controls the heating and cooling, does make some sound. On low settings, it’s quiet—more like gentle white noise. But on high cooling or heating, the fan kicks in and gets louder.
If you’re someone who needs complete silence to sleep, and you don’t use earplugs or white noise, the hub’s sound might bother you. I use earplugs or relaxing sounds, so I never hear it.
We keep our hub behind the nightstand to protect it from spills and to reduce noise. It makes the nightstand stick out a bit more, but it’s a good safety move if you drink tea or water near your bed.
You and a partner can access each other’s data
If you share your bed with a partner, the Eight Sleep app lets you see each other’s sleep data. Sometimes this is fun—like when we joke about who slept better and who should make the coffee.
But it can also lead to serious or awkward moments. For example, what if you’re on a trip and you see that someone else slept in your bed? Or if you’re dating someone new, do you tell them their sleep is being tracked?
We’re okay with sharing our data, but it’s something to think about. When you use the Eight Sleep Pod, your bed becomes a bit of a “smart spy.”
Cost and membership plan
Let’s talk about the cost. The Eight Sleep Pod 3 Cover isn’t cheap. At the time of writing, the King size version costs £2,195 in the UK and $2,245 in the US. The “Perfect Fit” model costs even more.
On top of that, you need to pay a monthly membership fee. There are two plans. One gives you a 2-year warranty, and the other gives you 5 years. The 5-year plan is about £22 per month in the UK and $24 in the US, paid yearly.
Why is there a subscription? Eight Sleep says this lets them keep adding new features and improvements. For example, snoring detection was added after I started using it.
If you cancel your membership, most features stop working. You’ll only be able to set one temperature for the whole night. No sleep tracking, no autopilot, no alarms. I wish there were more features that stayed after paying for a few years.
Power consumption tests
Worried about your electricity bill? Good news: the Eight Sleep Pod 3 Cover uses very little power.
I tested it for 16 days using our usual temperature settings. The total cost was just £2.71, which comes out to about £59 per year. That’s very reasonable for something that runs every night.
If you max out the cooling for eight hours, it costs about 44 pence per night, or around £161 a year. But most people won’t use the highest setting every night, so your real cost will likely be much lower.
Pros
Here are the best things about the Eight Sleep Pod 3 Cover:
Smart temperature control that adjusts during the night
Each person can have their own side set differently
Autopilot helps improve sleep based on tracking data
Tracks sleep and health metrics like heart rate and breathing
Offers gentle thermal and vibration alarms
Easy-to-use app with clear graphs and long-term data
Very low maintenance (just refill water occasionally)
Cons
And here are some things that might be a downside:
High starting price
Subscription required for full features
Hub can be noisy on higher settings
No remote control to turn off alarms
Needs Wi-Fi to work
Bed feels slightly firmer
Hard to know if autopilot temperature changes are truly helping
Verdict
In the final photo, you’ll see I don’t sleep directly on the Pod 3 Cover. I use a mattress protector and sheets, which helps hide the tubes and make the bed feel normal.
As a smart bed cooling and heating system, the Eight Sleep Pod 3 Cover works really well. We loved it in the summer, winter, and those in-between seasons too. Having separate controls for each side of the bed is a big win for couples.
The sleep tracking feature is harder to judge. You can’t easily check if it’s 100% accurate. But if the autopilot is really adjusting the temperature to improve your sleep, then that’s amazing. You just have to trust it’s doing what it says.
The main downsides are the price and the noise. If you can afford it and don’t mind a little fan sound, then this might be the best bed upgrade you’ve ever tried.