5 ms·

My first instinct (being the geek that I am) upon seeing this was it looks great. And having lived in England the majority of my life, with cold houses and heat

• marvy 12y ago
  As long as most of the features are default "off", I think it's fine. I bet most people would just use the scheduled warming, and maybe the smart wake based on sleep tracking.
  • tempestn 12y ago
    Agreed. If the features are optional, then this sounds fantastic. If they're not, well, they should be.
• EC1 12y ago
  I used to be into tech and gadgets and all that neat stuff until I realized I spend more time setting up, customizing, and configuring it than time saved because of it. I've since just defaulted to books for entertainment, my ipod, and just my single laptop. I really don't own much else. It's kinda nice. Most of the holes we plug with technology can be solved with growing a thicker skin. Toes cold? Tuck them in. Still cold? Get up and crank the heat.
  • ZeroFries 12y ago
    Amen. Not to mention the time factor of finding the product, earning the money to purchase it, and disposing of it. Ironically, the amish seem to have a better grasp of when you should be implementing technology than most other groups.
• ryanmcbride 12y ago
  Just because it's not something that's necessary, doesn't mean that it's bad or "abhorrent". I want to live in a future with cyborg bodies and star trek doors and if you don't, well then I feel sorry for you.
  • Apocryphon 12y ago
    It's not the technology, it's how society uses it. I don't want cyborg super-soldiers operating under a repressive extrajudicial Section 31-type agency with Star Trek doors coming after me.
  • charliefg 12y ago
    That's an interesting one - I like the idea of technology allowing a more inclusive society; enhancing mobility to some people to get them to the shops, allow other people to use steps; maybe one day those who wish to regain their sight or maybe get it for the first time. However -- as with everything in nature -- it also has a dark side. First, which is far more a philosophical addition to my previous point - it's defining a norm. To some extent this is unavoidable; it is essentially saying that to be at a normal functional level you need sight, be able to walk, etc. So the question is - is a more inclusive society one that is setup for a whole spectrum of people or one that enables people's bodies to bring them to a functionally 'equal' footing? It's probably somewhere in the middle. The other part, which I know I've experienced, is that the more unnecessarily engaged I was with technology -- more so with hi-tech -- the more detached I was with the actual world around me. So, for instance, walking around outside listening to music in headphones; walking around outside with a mobile phone (especially a smart phone). Nowadays, unless I have a damn good reason to take it with me (The only one that comes to mind is playing a set), I go around outside with clothes and maybe bags and leave everything else at home. On the rare occasion I've found that a mobile phone might have been useful, but those occasions are mainly when I've relied on a car to take me beyond walking distance. The cycle of reliance. Since placing this limit on myself, It's challenged me to be more engaged with the environment around me, more mindful in myself and I've found this has made me much happier and my environment more colourful. Trying to strike the balance is good, and I enjoy walking the tight rope. However cyborg bodies starts entering a whole new domain - the idea of being chained to technology because it's a part of my body seems horrible to me; there would be no relief from it. If people want society to go that way, fair enough. However, I personally won't encourage unnecessary integration with bodies because that's not the world I want to live in.
• tremendo 12y ago
  More than Black Mirror, it reminded me of Wall-e, where humans have become so atrophied from not doing anything. I need a device to rid me of the burden of locking the door, or putting on some PJ's. Ironically the constant use of screens and devices emitting blue-light even in bed has a more direct (and detrimental) impact on sleep quality than all those sensors, and the small cognitive-bandwidth gain, will. And of course, I reserve the right to change my mind later.
  • tempestn 12y ago
    Naturally, there's an app for that. Lux solves the nighttime light temperature problem for Android. (Similar to the desktop program F.lux.)
    • smaps 12y ago
      I hadn't heard of Lux before, but I've been using Twilight on my Android and I like it. Will have to check out Lux to see if it's better.
      • tempestn 12y ago
        I recall choosing Lux over Twilight based on features and reviews, but that was a couple years ago. Let me knowwwhich you prefer!
• ryanjshaw 12y ago
  I liked the idea initially, and for people struggling with hypo/hypersomnia or bad sleep in general it's probably going to be very useful to objectively measure the effect of lifestyle/dietary/medication changes. Then I read that the bed will be listening to my wife and me. That's really creepy. Together with all these 'AIs are going to kill us all articles' it reminds me of the Amazon Echo thread [1]... it carefully studies your sleeping habits, switches off the lights, locks your doors, and waits patiently for you to fall asleep...: http://youtubedoubler.com/eqOJ http://youtubedoubler.com/eqOJ [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8569219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8569219
  • anigbrowl 12y ago
    Yeah, monitoring your heart rate and breathing is a short step away from cataloging your sex life, or at least the part of it that takes place in bed, which is where most people like to get it on. I am not that enthused about this whole 'quantified self' movement; it strikes me as Taylorism applied to leisure activities and now sleep. I have no confidence that the data will remain fully under user control; rather, incentives will appear that encourage people to grant non-revocable access for consumerist 'rewards,' which in turn will be employed to create consumer anxiety about suboptimal life patterns, which can be assuaged for the low, low cost of only $x/month. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_management http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_management I like technology a lot, but I don't care for the idea of being cocooned by it 24/7.
• r109 12y ago
  You forgot the smart wearable devices that track your GPS location, heart rate, pedometer, and graphs all your daily activities into a neat little dashboard that's accessible in the cloud. Don't forget to get order all your groceries online!
• skwirl 12y ago
  I don't understand why as someone in the technology world you would arbitrarily draw the line here. We've all been working on stuff that the world could do without. Why wouldn't you have drawn the line years ago when personal computers became a big thing?
  • logn 12y ago
    The line is not arbitrary; it's nuanced. We're discussing replacing everyday objects with Internet Things that are designed as closed appliances, often monetizing the passive data that you, merely by living, create. Building the Internet of Things is different from what many of us do which is creating technological toys, digital tools, automated business processes, knowledge bases, communications tools, and digital publications. To offset the enormous costs of these types of works, people pioneered monetization of data we presumed to be private, in many cases. We've made this bed and now, with Internet of Things, we literally will lie in it.
• d23 12y ago
  You're not alone. There's a group of people that this will sell to, and that's fine, but I'm not one of them. I can use any one of the following tools at my disposal to regulate my sleep temperature: a blanket, a fan, an air conditioner, a heater, a window, less clothing, more clothing. Some people in the world don't have the luxury of ANY of these, much less all of them. The last thing I need is a new device to piss me off and do something poorly that I've managed to do just fine since I was a toddler. And yeah, the video got creepy toward the end. If at some point in my life I can't be bothered to turn off the lights and lock my door before going to sleep, I've become something I really don't want to be.
• newman314 12y ago
  I see a lot of devices being announced that all end data back to the cloud. I'm not comfortable with this. I hope that there will be a push by people for local cloud configurations. One should not have to depend on the availability of the Internet in order for things to work. To wit, the Nest has been completely wonky for me since the last update.
• newman314 12y ago
  I see a lot of devices being announced that all end data back to the cloud. I'm not comfortable with this. I hope that there will be a push by people for local cloud configurations. One should not have to depend on the availability of the Internet in order for things to work. To wit, the Nest has been completely wonky for me since the last update.
• begriffs 12y ago
  Yeah, not sure why geeks seem to have this thing about sleep optimization. Whether it's a wristband to monitor your REM cycles, or a little app to track your sleep habits, or polyphasic weirdness, or now this thing to regulate sleeping parameters. It all points to some kind of psychological issue that many programmers seem to have. For people who tinker with the maddeningly complex systems of software how can the "engineering problem" of sleep be that hard? Just get your ass into bed at a decent time, and then give yourself eight hours. In fact given the flexible schedules of many tech jobs it should be easier for us as a profession to be rested than, say, a baker who has to get up at 3:30am. But like I said it may be a psychological thing, a mental association between sleep and giving up. "You'll have plenty of time to sleep in the grave" or whatever the saying is. So we want to feel we have control over this aspect of ourselves. Hence the gadgetry smothering a simple idea of just laying down, turning off the phone, and covering up with some comfortable blankets. In fact I think I'm going to go do that right now. Goodnight, HN. :)
  • andthat 12y ago
    Do you know what it's like to almost never feel fully rested and not being able to do anything about it? My problem is that I just won't fall asleep within a reasonable amount of time on some days. I am willing to try anything because the ROI would be huge. One thing that has made a noticeable difference has been exercise though.
    • hellodevnull 12y ago
      You answered your own question partly. It's simple, exercise and don't sit in front of a computer screen all night. Yet most people won't do this and complain that they have "insomnia" (the word has been overused to the point that going to bed past midnight now makes you an insomniac) and seem to think they now need pill/technology.