Review: Sleep Number Climate360 Smart Bed

Most smart-home gadget manufacturers would have you believe that tapping an app is the pinnacle of convenience. Turning on a light bulb? How about your robot vacuum? What if it was a speaker that could also answer questions?

It’s all fun and games until the smart system breaks down and turns it into something worse than an old-fashioned dumb gadget. A camera is just a camera, unless it's a compromised security camera that threatens to show everyone in the world your home address. A bed is (usually) just a bed, unless, in my case, you're sleeping on a smart bed stuck halfway between Flat and Zero Gravity modes.

The Sleep Number Climate360 Smart Bed is a behemoth, in both size and price. $10,000 for the cheapest queen-size setup? In this economy? The cost is egregious. While many aspects of the sleep setup are the pinnacle of luxury, I thought this bed was going to change the way I slept forever. I thought I would miss it when it was gone. I still might, but not for the reasons its creators intended.

One advantage of this sleep system compared to others I've tried: There's no setup necessary. No lugging in a big box, unfurling the rolled-up mattress, and waiting for it to air out and inflate. Sleep Number includes delivery and setup with the purchase of the bed. Simply clear out the area where you want your bed assembled and the nice delivery people will do the rest. Unfortunately, this adds another $250 to the cost.

The best parts of this sleep system are so, so nice. The two sides of the bed are individually adjustable. You can control the firmness and temperature of each separately. Each side has two built-in climate control zones—one in the core, which measures roughly from your shoulders to your calves, and one near the feet. You can warm both zones, and you have the option to cool down the core as well. I LOVE HAVING A FOOTWARMER. My partner loves it too—no more Raynaud's toes freezing his legs off in the winter.

This climate control technology means that whether it’s 80 degrees or -20 outside, I can always achieve that perfect sleeping temperature. You know when your blankets are cozy-warm but your window is letting in cold air, and your one foot is sticking out from your nest and you just feel so sleepy? My bed feels like that all the time now. It rocks.

The head and the feet of the mattress can be raised from flat to nearly in half. Sick with a cold? No need for extra pillows to avoid postnasal drip—just raise up the head of the bed. The same can be done for snoring partners. And there are preset modes for tasks like watching TV or reading. My favorite is the Zero Gravity mode, which makes it feel like you’re floating on a cloud. The smart base can also light up the floor softly when you exit the bed (like going to the bathroom in the middle of the night), which truly is convenient.

It’s also nice being able to adjust the firmness of each side. There are a range of selectable numbers from 5 to 100, with the higher numbers equating to more firmness. The bed’s Responsive Air technology fills up any gaps you create when moving your body—so if you roll over and readjust your position, the bed automatically inflates or deflates to maintain the same level of firmness. This can alleviate your pressure points. My partner’s Sleep Number is 100. Mine ranges between 40 and 70 on any given day. In theory, we both could get really good sleep.

But what it gets wrong, it gets really wrong. I have many a gripe with this sleep system that costs as much as a used car.

The queen-size mattress technically has the dimensions of a queen mattress, but in practice, it feels much smaller. When the head is raised even slightly, my 5'1" ankles stick off the end. I'd recommend sizing up, but that means shelling out even more money. And two different firmnesses also creates this awkward no-man’s zone in the middle. Ever tried to snuggle while half of you is resting on a very firm surface and the other half of you is sinking into a very soft one? It’s awkward. And painful.

Moreover, the mattress edges are soft and sloped. It feels like you might fall off in your sleep. After many close calls, my partner and I have developed a routine in which I stick out my hand and he grabs it to provide an anchor when I need to fish for a dropped remote. Otherwise, I might just somersault into the abyss.

But most importantly, the clunky software (and application, and presence) is my biggest issue. The Sleep IQ companion app is the default method of controlling your smart bed, and it's glitchy. Many times, when I tried to adjust my bed’s temperature, the app wouldn’t pass those requests on. The same thing happened the first time I tried to switch from Zero G to Flat. The app froze completely and wouldn’t reopen after force-closing it. I had to restart my phone and wait for it to reconnect; it took nearly half an hour at a time when I just wanted to go to sleep.

There is a button on either side of the mattress base that can be configured to a “favorite” setting. I ended up making mine Flat so I'd have a way to physically override the app when it started acting up. Partway through my testing, Sleep Number sent me the optional $49 remote control for the bed. I highly, highly recommend that you purchase the remote. It solved my control issues and should be included automatically.

I also had some issues with the Sleep IQ app's analytics. The insights program is supposed to track your sleep data, sharing tips on how to get better sleep. But the insights are … kind of … bad, especially if you work from home. The bed can’t tell the difference between, say, a half-hour working on your phone or having an afternoon tryst or trying to get a full night’s sleep. You have to manually edit all the automatically recorded erroneous sleep sessions, and the process for doing that is clunky. I don’t want to open an app every time I sit on my bed for half an hour! Even if the app defaulted to asking “Hey, did you just sleep for half an hour?” that would be better. Right now, SleepIQ just thinks my circadian rhythm is nonexistent. According to my Apple Health data, my sleep schedule is doing just fine.

And the app is invasive; it collects biometric data like heart rate variability and breathing rate. It does have a Privacy mode if you want to turn off data recording. But you can't apply Privacy mode to only one half of the bed, and moreover the app openly recommends that you keep Privacy mode off. Gross. You know what's an easier and more accurate way to keep track of your sleep data? Any fitness tracker or smartwatch. It probably won't cost $10,000, either.

That leads to my final point. All evidence suggests that for the best sleep hygiene, we need to put down our phones and leave their stresses, blue light, and constant distractions behind. Struggling with a malfunctioning blue-lit app is the exact opposite. Also, the smart base is very loud during sex, so there’s that.

I don’t hate this bed; I’m just disappointed. I was promised a revolutionary sleep experience, and it was only so-so. Sleep Number says an update to the app is coming later this month. But I really question whether any of the so-called smarts on this smart bed were really smart—or even necessary—at all. It's 2023, and if I wanted to spend $10,000, I would've gotten much better rest on a beach vacation. At this point, I might just buy a foot warmer.