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This Week's AWS Crash Made Smart Beds Overheat, Get Stuck In Wrong Position

Smart mattress brand Eight Sleep is working on a new failsafe for future outages after customers were unable to make changes to their products.

 & James Peckham Reporter

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Many in the US awoke on Monday to see that their online tools weren't working after an Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage. A few were tipped off because their smart mattress malfunctioned.

Those with Eight Sleep smart bed tech found their heated protectors weren't able to change temperature due to the outage. Some found their beds were stuck in an upright position.

On X, Eight Sleep CEO Matteo Franceschetti apologized; it's "not the experience we want to provide," he wrote. The brand is now working on “outage-proofing” for future issues. Franceschetti expects that to be done by the end of the day.

An X user found that his mattress was over nine degrees warmer than desired, and they were unable to reduce the temperature. Another user reported being awoken at 2 a.m. with the bed at 80 degrees Fahrenheit, while another said his bed was "unusable right now because it’s 100% subscription based with no backup plan to let people manually set it when AWS is down."

Franceschetti said all ongoing customer issues were resolved by 10 p.m. ET on Oct. 20.

Eight Sleep's cheapest tech is the Pod 4 mattress cover for $2,649. The newer Pod 5 Core costs $3,049 with both cooling and heating tech that can be set for each side of the bed. It also includes vibrations for alarms and sleep-tracking tech. There's also a top-end Pod 5 Ultra with a mattress designed to relieve back pressure and help reduce snoring for $5,049.

The AWS outage earlier this week took down dozens of services, including Canva, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, Lyft, Reddit, Roku, Signal, and Snapchat. Amazon blamed a Domain Name System resolution issue and said it would soon provide a detailed report of what happened.

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James Peckham

James Peckham

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I’ve been a journalist for over a decade after getting my start in tech reporting back in 2013. I joined PCMag in 2025, where I cover the latest developments across the tech sphere, writing about the gadgets and services you use every day. Be sure to send me any tips you think PCMag would be interested in.

I’ve worked at TechRadar, Android Police, T3, and more, where I broke many tech stories you may have read, including the return of the Motorola Razr when it first became a foldable phone. Based near London, I’ve appeared on BBC News, Al Jazeera, and other TV networks, podcasts, and radio shows as an expert on the latest tech stories and trends.

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