There are two major sticking points for this blissful night of sleep. The first is the device’s astronomical price of more than $3,500 for a queen size. This includes a one-year subscription to the Elite Autopilot plan, which is required to use all the features of the Pod 5. The cost of the device with the Standard plan is about $3,250, but either way, you functionally need a subscription to enjoy the device’s benefits.After the one-year membership, the Autopilot plans range from $200 to $400 per year, with the cost varying depending on the length of warranty (two years with the standard subscription and five years with higher levels) and access to certain health-tracking features. You need to have at least a Standard subscription to use most features of the Pod 5 (the Elite subscription adds only advanced features, such as cardiovascular and respiratory monitoring). For $2,000 more, you can get an adjustable base that lulls you to sleep with soundscapes through built-in speakers and automatically elevates your head to deal with snoring.The second sticking point — and it’s a big one — is that if the cloud stops working, so might your Pod 5. A relatively short Amazon Web Services outage in October 2025 led to a number of users reporting issues with the product. Some Eight Sleep owners reported finding themselves drenched in sweat or stuck in an upright position.Eight Sleep product owners, including myself, were caught unaware that the Pod needed to be connected to the cloud to have even basic functionality. At the time, Eight Sleep claimed it was working to cloud-proof the Pod and has since rolled out a “Backup Mode” that should stop this from happening again. It might be a one-time error, but $3,000 is a big price to pay for something that might go bump in the night.Despite these sticking points, I am still a full Pod 5 convert and would not want to be without it. In fact, my first trip away from my Pod 5 was miserable despite being in a fancy hotel bed. I found myself hot and claustrophobic at 2 a.m., wishing Autopilot would kick on.It is hard to imagine anyone not enjoying a carefully temperature-controlled bed. At the end of the day, you have to decide how much a comfortable night’s sleep is worth — if it’s a healthy mortgage or rent payment, then the Pod 5 could work for you.This article was edited by Christina Colizza and Alanna Nuñez.
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