> In addition to everything else, also love how a bed with the express purpose to increase sleep quality requires you to open your phone every time you want to adjust a setting.

Don't worry, they'll repeat over and over how their product was thoughtfully designed with exquisite craftsmanship by the re-animated corpse of Johnny Ive [1] until people believe it's true.

[1] I know he's not dead.

Also...

> ... Essentially all you need to do is unplug the rubber tubing from the Eight Sleep cover, which is available on eBay for a few hundred bucks, and plug it into a $150 aquarium chiller.

> That’s it. Aquarium chillers are somewhat of a misnomer, as they can also provide heat. They use thermoelectric devices to regulate temperature, either cooling or warming the liquid that flows through them, which is the same technology found in eight sleep.

How much do you want to bet the Eight Sleep is literally an off-the-shelf Chinese Aquarium chiller in a custom case marked up 15x, with a shitily-programmed computer bolted on to enable a $20/month subscription?

I mean this comment is slightly disconcerting to next generation of brilliant hackers sleeping on this bed and dreaming big of a Cloud controlled Toilet Paper Dispenser, Effececy®. It will always give right amount of paper based of amount and moisture content of just delivered product.

I rolled my own solution to this using a Boston Dynamics Spot (2nd gen). With the structured light scanner, YOLO v5 for classification, and a custom IK solver (BD's is too hard for me), I can just lay back like a baby once I'm finished and Spot takes care of everything.

This is a super funny idea if it works (in theory; I get it's a joke) and a SUPER funny idea if it malfunctions in particular ways.

Github issue:

My e-ass wiper mistook one of my testicles for poo and ripped it off. Please fix

Ticket raised, please accept complementary Neuticles eVoucher (includes shipping, log on via Q-code to specify required size).

Don’t fall for this. I purchased this product then they pushed a bunch of the basic features behind a paywall. The ‘vibrate on SMS’ is worth it if you do go that route and don’t mind proxying your phone comms through their servers, though.

I'm sure they do use a prefab thermoelectric assembly model that they designed their case around. It's usually cheaper.

I agree with this so much. Opening an app is the last thing I want to do to adjust something while I'm in bed. I have a zigbee lightswitch so I can turn the light off from bed, and sure I could open an app to do that, but it's so much better to get a zigbee button and stick it to the wall above my head and program it to control the lightswitch.

Unlike all the cloud garbage, my zigbee devices continue to function even when the internet is down. I have my zigbee hub (Home Assistant Yellow) on a battery backup, so all the zigbee devices with a battery keep functioning even when the power is out (like my automatic cat feeders)

Totally agree. I got a philips hue dimmer switch for next to the bed. One of the best things I got for the home automation. Just click it and everything in the house goes into night mode. no phone needed.

My room mate had one of these and I found out there was a script online someone put together on github I think to control it over a shell. Was hilarious because I kept turning off their light at weird times.

Yikes, does the hub have some kind of unauthenticated http server exposed to the LAN? Yet another reason I run open source software rather than buying the proprietary hubs.

You have to tap the button on the hub and then you have 30 seconds to send a specific package to create a user. So yeah, not super, but also not totally u authenticated

I kind of remember just connecting to the MAC of the lightbulb itself by finding it on my routers table and then plugging in the info to his script. You could change colors too by passing little JSON strings. Maybe things are different now as this was in maybe 2018ish

It probably would've been using the bridge's HTTP API. You likely authenticated by pushing the button on the bridge.

The lightbulbs themselves only have a Zigbee radio (and Bluetooth, but not in 2018). They communicate with the LAN via the wired bridge.

https://developers.meethue.com/develop/get-started-2/#

I’m doing this with some Tapo buttons.

And double tap turns on a fan.

Tapo is likely a security nightmare.

I’m still fairly upset that ambient devices never really took off. Nanoleaf at least made a remote like this. It’s a dodecahedron with an accelerometer, so you can program each face with a different setting. The simplest being to program opposing faces for two different light levels. You want to take a nap, turn the controller upside down.

There was a cool device I saw once, used for timing your work. You'd program the faces for different tasks (bug fixes, new features, etc.) and whatever you worked on, you'd have that face up, and when you changed tasks, you'd turn it to something else, and it would track how you spent your time.

You’re probably thinking about Timeular? A neat device but like the 8Sleep also tied to a monthly subscription which is why I stopped using it :’)

No, it was dodecahedral or octahedral, I can't remember. I just vaguely recall it looked like a Platonic solid. I don't remember it having a subscription. I think it just communicated with BT to your laptop or something? Might've just been a kickstarter that didn't get funding.

Sounds good until you come home to a house flashing like a Christmas tree because your kid needed another D12 for their table-top role-playing game.

You see a bug, I see a feature

I've got a cube that's hooked into my Home Assistant setup that works similarly. Flipping the cube upside down turns my bedside light on or off, rotating it clockwise increases the brightness, and counterclockwise decreases it.

How exactly does it communicate these changes, if I might ask?

I did something similar using these: https://eu.aqara.com/products/aqara-cube-t1-pro (or rather, an earlier iteration). Just Zigbee, nothing too complex, and then you hook it into something which knows how to interpret the events it sends (or events + current state if you want it to be a little more contextually smart). I generally tried to centralise the smarts, dumb devices and a smart interpreter always worked out more robust than clever devices. It's amazing how many combinations of actions you can indicate just by shaking/tapping/turning/flipping - more than enough to do the things you commonly do with one actuator (a light or set of lights for example).

One that comes to mind is: flip over to turn on/off, flip over and back again to randomize (like a snow globe).

Check out the zigbee2mqtt page for the cube

https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/devices/MFKZQ01LM.html

kolektiv's parallel comment explains it perfectly.

And if a guest comes round and messes it, the lights dim, blood runs down the walls, nails come out of your head, and the furniture starts moving.

NO NO NO NO NO! Not the wed wun. Don't EVER push the wed wun!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_IE_0-Xlis

There are a bunch of Zigbee switches, rockers, etc (including the Aqara cube people mentioned) that you can use as rich controls.

Wow. I love that UI concept!

I like this idea, now I want to make one of those. Even a two- or six-sided one would be useful, and I can print different enclosures and reprogram the feather or ESP if I want to add sides.

I don’t think they sell it anymore, but I forgot it’s actually a HomeKit controller, so you could (try) to use it to control several devices at once. Since only one face is up at a time you would have to gang the behaviors, such as turning off several lights or turning them on.

Old CNet article: https://www.cnet.com/reviews/nanoleaf-remote-review/

See my comment to a sibling: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43132279 - there's a few simple little functional objects out there which make this kind of process quite easy.

That sounds cool, but I'm a little resistant to being asked to remember to charge my lightswitch.

That's unfortunately a big part of why mine is dead. The batteries are hard to get to. Also their iOS app is frustrating to use.

Could maybe be made low enough power that it can power itself via ambient light (like an old school calculator) or radio waves.

That would be cool, but I haven't actually seen it in anything other than an old school calculator so I assume the limitations are pretty significant.

I've seen energy-harvesting remote light switches for sale — they supposedly get enough energy from the physical act of flipping the toggle to send a few radio packets. I haven't used one in the real world though.

Some of the ones at my company require you to stab them with your fingers for 15 seconds like a maniac before they turn the light on.

And not true, at least for the newest version. V4 has touch sensors for adjusting the temps on the side of the mattress.

I do own of these and while I hate the price, the subscription, the fact that it didn't work for an hour last night due to the internet being down (first time ever really) but there really isn't a better option. I love the temp control and would use anyone else if they had a valid competitor, but sadly there isn't one (or at least wasn't when I bought mine). The alternative is to not have temp control which is pretty amazing.

The newer models have a touch control panel on the side. Different taps to adjust settings.

Not that this ameliorates all the other issues here.

I mean while you are opening your phone you might as well check latest savings by DOGE, wouldn't it help you sleep even more safe and sound?

What DOGE say they have saved, what has been saved, and how that looks in 5-10 years time are all very different answers.

Maybe there needs to be a red answer and a blue answer?

You can buy the new 3249€ Pod4: "Control without a phone" https://www.eightsleep.com/eu/product/pod-cover/