CEO Corner: Eight Sleep’s Matteo Franceschetti on Thermoregulation
Eight Sleep is at the forefront of the sleep fitness movement, leveraging heating and cooling technology along with data insights
Matteo Franceschetti co-founded Eight Sleep in 2014 to improve sleep through heating and cooling technology. Since the Eight Sleep Pod was released in 2019, the brand has become a pioneer in thermoregulation and biometric tracking to improve sleep quality.
“I was an athlete when I was a teenager, playing sports such as tennis, skiing, and car racing in Italy, where I was born and raised,” Franceschetti, who serves as Eight Sleep’s CEO, tells Athletech News. “I came up with the idea of Eight Sleep when I realized that although I spent a third of my life sleeping, there had been no recent innovation to actually help people sleep better. Technology wasn’t being leveraged to its full potential.”
With the high temperatures at the Olympics raising concerns about athletes’ performance, thermoregulation has never been more widely discussed. Everyone requires proper body temperature regulation during sleep, not just athletes. Eight Sleep tailors its thermoregulation to each sleeper depending on their individual needs.
“Powering every key function of the Pod is Autopilot: a collection of proprietary algorithms developed by Eight Sleep to create an individual blueprint of each sleeper to create the environment you need for your best sleep,” Franceschetti explains.
“These algorithms require complex processing to correlate multiple variables into one dynamic picture of who you are as a sleeper and what you need to get the best rest possible,” he adds. “A few factors Autopilot considers include age, biological sex, current sleep stage, how much deep and REM sleep you got the night before, and changes to your environmental temperature.”
The Pod 4, the company’s latest release, now includes snoring mitigation, twice as much cooling power and silent performance compared to previous models. The Pod 4 has been clinically tested to improve sleep and energy. Studies show that users have up to 34% deeper sleep and fall asleep 44% faster with the Pod.
“The most premium model of the Pod 4, Pod 4 Ultra, includes an adjustable Base that syncs with the Pod’s proprietary sleep and health tracking technology for additional groundbreaking features and benefits: snoring detection and mitigation, and custom body positioning before and during sleep,” Franceschetti notes.
Eight Sleep’s approach goes beyond merely improving comfort or increasing sleep hours.
“There are endless benefits to optimizing your sleep with our Pod,” Franceschetti says. “We believe that helping to optimize your sleep is not just about getting people to sleep comfortably or sleep more; it’s about improving sleep quality so that the hours of sleep you get are maximized. As a result, the overall human experience and performance during waking hours can be enhanced.”
Not only is Eight Sleep driving value on a case-by-case basis, it’s also collecting sleep data from its users.
“The intention behind the design of any Eight Sleep product is to create the gold standard in sleep technology that can tackle all of sleep’s biggest problems,” Franceschetti explains. “We now have over 400 million hours of sleep data, making us one of the biggest sleep specialists in the world.”
This extensive data collection and years of clinical research inform every iteration of the Pod, including the recently released Pod 4.
“We are always working to improve our product, no matter how small or large the change might be,” he adds.
Eight Sleep is committed to advancing sleep technology, recently appointing three world-renowned scientists to its Scientific Advisory Board: Dr. Andrew Huberman, Dr. Matthew Walker, and Dr. Peter Attia.
“This further showcases Eight Sleep’s commitment to leading the sleep technology market, and we look forward to continuing to collaborate closely with them to help push innovation forward,” Franceschetti says.
The company was notably concerned about the warm conditions in which Olympians were sleeping during the 2024 Games.
“We also remain committed to seeing through our mission to fuel human potential through optimal sleep, even on the global stage,” Franceschetti notes. “I recently penned an open letter to the president of the IOC, demanding better sleep conditions for the Olympic athletes and offering to send a Pod to the first ten Olympians who (reached) out to us.”
The Eight Sleep CEO also hinted at more product announcements soon.
“Our R&D and hardware teams have been focused on new and innovative products that – together with the Pod – continue to optimize sleep & recovery,” Franceschetti says. “You should expect to hear new announcements from us by the end of the year.”