Thinking of buying a smart bed this Memorial Day? Here's my take after sleeping on the Eight Sleep Pod

Before sleeping on the Eight Sleep Pod 4, I had the same thoughts as you. Scanning over the thousand dollar price tag, I thought: is a smart bed really worth all that money? Will it really improve my sleep?

After sleeping on this smart mattress cover, which we've voted as the best smart bed of the year, the answer is yes, it really has helped me improve my sleep and it would be a worthy investment for many sleepers.

Here, I'll dig into who'd best benefit from a smart bed system mattress from the likes of Eight Sleep, Sleep Number, Tempur-Pedic and Bryte, and why the Memorial Day mattress sales are a great opportunity to strike a great deal.

5 people who’d benefit from investing in a smart bed

From sleep woes like running hot at night and snoring, to a genuine interest in learning more about your sleep health, there are many reasons to invest in a tech-laden bed. Here are the people who I'd recommend shop for a smart bed this Memorial Day...

1. Hot sleepers

Poor temperature control is one of the main things that keeps Americans up at night. From menopause to medical conditions and body composition, there are several causes of night sweats and hot flushes.

While the best cooling mattresses use specialist cooling materials and airflow-enhancing construction to help sleepers stay cool, smart bed manufacturers have taken things a step further with innovative active cooling systems that react to your body temperature through the night.

For example, Eight Sleep's smart mattress covers feature a water-based system that heats up and cools down the surface of the bed (independently on each side, may I add) to help you and your partner reach, and stay at, the best temperature for sleeping overnight.

This means you can ditch the noisy bedroom fan and snooze sweat free but keep your side of the bed cool and comfortable.

While sleeping on the Eight Sleep Pod 4, I'm yet to have a restless night, even in an attic bedroom that's prone to trapping heat.

2. People with back pain

A standout feature of many smart bed bases, particularly the Tempur-Pedic Tempur-Ergo Smart Base, is zero gravity positioning. These bed bases elevate your head and feet so you feel weightless while you sleep.

This feature is especially useful for people who struggle to find a comfortable sleeping position due to hip, joint or back pain. The elevated position takes pressure off joints and muscles while keeping you supported.

What's more, adjustable firmness, a key feature of Sleep Number smart mattresses, allows you to customize the feel of your bed so you can find the ideal firmness level for your sleep style and body weight, eliminating pressure build-up in achy joints.

3. People who snore

Snoring can be a sure-fire way to keep you or your partner awake at night. While there is ample advice on how to sleep next to someone that snores, a smart bed can do the work for you.

Thanks to snoring detection sensors, smart beds like the Eight Sleep Pod 5 Ultra and Tempur-Ergo Smart Base, are able to identify when someone is snoring.

They then adjust the head of the bed to open the sleeper's airways for easier, quieter breathing.

4. People who want to learn about their sleep health

Besides minimizing sleep disruptors, you may be interested in buying a smart bed simply out of your own curiosity.

As sleepmaxxing trends monopolize social media feeds and prioritizing a healthy lifestyle becomes more popular than ever, increasing numbers of people are tracking their sleep and day-to-day health metrics.

While sleep tracking wearables give a good gauge of how well you sleep, smart beds are said to give the most accurate, reliable sleep metrics as they have sensors in contact with more areas of your body.

Sleeping on the Pod 4 I've learnt about how things like alcohol, exercise and caffeine affect my overnight heart rate, and I've made more informed lifestyle choices to improve my sleep quality.

And it's paid off — I've hit sleep scores of 100 and felt more energized than ever. I recommend a sleep-tracking smart bed to serious health enthusiasts looking to optimize their sleep.

5. Athletes

Top performing athletes swear by smart beds for physical recovery. Travis Kelce endorses Sleep Number while Charles Leclerc has recently partnered with Eight Sleep.

Packed with world-class technology geared towards improving the quality of your sleep, smart beds ensure you spend enough time in each sleep stage, including REM and deep sleep.

When in deep sleep, your body releases human growth hormone, which is essential for muscle repair. As athletes tear muscles through intense physical training, it is all the more important that they spend enough time in deep sleep for their muscles to recover and adapt to training.

I slept on the Eight Sleep Pod 4 while marathon training and credit this smart bed for improving the quality of my ZZZs so I could quickly recover between frequent long runs.

Is Memorial Day a good time to buy a smart bed?

Our team of mattress testers have tracked monthly mattress sales over the years and know Memorial Day is the second best time of year to buy a mattress after Black Friday.

Because they feature first-rate sleep technology that turns your bedroom into an optimized sleep sanctuary, it's not surprising that smart beds are more expensive than even the best mattresses you can buy online right now.

Plus, due to their quality and high specs, smart beds aren't often discounted as heavily as standard mattresses are. However, we expect to see some of the best prices of the year this Memorial Day, and they're unlikely to appear again until Black Friday in November.

Summer is also a season of poor sleep for many people as night sweats and snoring can worsen in response to warmer weather. Therefore, investing in a reliable sleep solution (that is, a top-rated smart bed) now can help you get ahead of summer sleep problems.

What to look for when shopping for a smart bed

So, if you think a smart bed will help you sleep better, look out for the following features when you're shopping:

• Extra costs: Some smart beds (ahem, Eight Sleep) require subscription fees to access all features they have on offer. It's also important to note what the smart bed system actually entails; as many are smart covers or bed bases, you may need to buy a mattress separately. All these costs need to be budgeted for.
• Sleep specialty: While many smart beds employ as much technology as they can to bring you better sleep, they can't all do it all. Many of them will have specialties. For example, Eight Sleep excels in temperature control (a good choice for hot sleepers) while Sleep Number focuses on adjustable firmness which can ease overnight aches and pains.
• Mattress trial: Any reputable smart bed brand should offer you a sleep trial to test out the mattress and see if it's right for you. This can range from 100 nights to a full 365 nights.