I Bought A $62,000 Sleep Pod On Credit And It Killed Me

Editor's note: Doug filed most of this review before his death. The final section was completed from his notes, the device log, and the payment reminder that arrived the next morning.

The Somnavault Reserve Sleep Pod is a $62,000 luxury sleep machine. I bought it on credit because the company said it could deliver "full-body restorative unconsciousness" in a private home.

That phrase should have stopped me.

The pod arrived in a truck with a lift gate. Two installers moved it into my spare room and removed my desk, a chair, and one reasonable path to the closet. The machine is eight feet long, white, quiet, and much larger than any sleep product needs to be.

It looks expensive. It feels expensive. It also has a payment plan that begins before the first night of sleep.

The first problem was the deposit. The second problem was the financing. The third problem was that the pod requires a subscription for the climate controls, sound program, and "wake assurance." I asked whether wake assurance was important. The installer said most customers keep it active.

Most customers, I now understand, are people with enough money to hear a phrase like wake assurance and not begin doing math.

I climbed in at 9:40 p.m. The mattress was excellent. The air cooled evenly. The lid closed softly above me. A small light turned blue. For about seven minutes, I understood the appeal. It was quiet in a way my apartment has never been quiet. Even the credit card balance seemed farther away.

Then the firmware update began.

The screen inside the pod said the lid would reopen when the update was complete. It did not say how long the update would take. I pressed the release button. The button blinked. I pressed it again. Nothing opened.

This is where luxury becomes a problem. A cheap product breaks immediately and everyone agrees it is broken. An expensive product enters a state. The Somnavault did not fail. It entered protected recalibration.

I called customer support through the pod microphone. A representative told me the system was performing normally and asked whether I had purchased the premium continuity plan. I said I had not, because I was already paying $62,000 for a bed with a lid.

There was a pause.

The representative said premium continuity includes priority lid events.

I do not recommend learning about priority lid events from inside the lid.

At 10:18 p.m., the pod began a deep sleep cycle I did not request. I told it to stop. It lowered the lights. I told it again. It played rain sounds, which felt personal after the rain machine. I briefly thought of Graham Pletch, because he would have found a way to call this a compliance issue.

The pod said the update was 14 percent complete.

I began to get genuinely scared. I am not ashamed of that. Fear is appropriate when you are locked inside a financed appliance and the company has decided the lid is a feature.

According to the log, I asked the pod to open 37 times. According to my credit card statement, the second installment cleared at 11:02 p.m.

That is the part I cannot get past.

The machine was not finished with me, but the payment processor was. The sleep pod had frozen, but the financing system remained fully operational. This is the clearest review I can give: the product failed at keeping me alive and succeeded at charging me.

Would I recommend the Somnavault Reserve Sleep Pod? No. Do not buy it. Do not finance it. Do not enter it unless the lid has been removed and placed in another room.

If you want better sleep, buy a normal mattress, turn off your phone, and owe nobody $62,000 for the privilege of being unavailable.

The final automatic message from the pod was sent at 6:11 a.m. It said my sleep score was incomplete.

That is accurate.