Smart Beds Without Smarts: The Non-AI Future of Mattress Tech

Smart beds promise tech-driven comfort, but where’s the AI? The latest mattress innovations tout features like "auto-adjusting pressure relief" and "sleep trackers," yet product descriptions reveal a critical gap: these systems rely on mechanical engineering rather than algorithmic intelligence.

Take the Sleep Number p6, which adjusts firmness via internal air chambers—manual or automated, but never through machine learning.

One product description states:

"Smart beds offer the ability to adjust their firmness level with the press of a button."

Another claims:

"Some are also outfitted with tech features, such as sleep trackers and auto-adjusting pressure relief layers."

These statements highlight a key distinction: the "smart" in smart beds often refers to physical adjustability, not AI-driven personalization.

While manufacturers market these as "adaptive" systems, the absence of algorithmic decision-making means users receive static, pre-programmed adjustments rather than dynamic, data-driven responses to sleep patterns.

For small business owners in the home goods sector, this distinction matters. The mechanical limitations of current smart beds suggest that customer expectations for "AI-enhanced sleep" may outpace the actual technology available today.