Losing Sleep with the Recent AWS Outage

Last week’s AWS outage caused many frustrations and lost sleep. Emphasis on lost sleep.

While some scrambled to find out why websites like Reddit, Pinterest, and Spotify weren’t available, others were scrambling for comfort. Eight Sleep, a company selling elevating and temperature-controlled mattresses, had to deal with reports of their smart beds stuck at sweltering temperatures and uncomfortable incline positions.

Why would a smart bed be so affected by the AWS outage? Because, like many questionable products these days, internet connectivity has become a requirement to adjust important settings.

Add this to the list of similar frustrations with unnecessary connectivity, like single-player video games still requiring an internet connection to play or refrigerators feeding you advertisements. It also reminded me of the quote about how the longer you spend with technology, the more you want to buy a farm and never touch a computer again. I think we all have those days.

In the case of the Eight Sleep smart beds, there’s an “outage mode” update coming:

The company started shipping out a new “outage mode” yesterday to address this, Eight Sleep co-founder Alexandra Zatarain told The Verge, which allows the app to communicate with Pod devices over Bluetooth when cloud infrastructure is unavailable. “During an outage, you’ll still be able to open the app, turn the Pod on/off, change temperature levels, and flatten the base,” Zatarain said.

I guess that’s better than nothing. Call me old-fashioned, but for most products, I’ll stick to my preference of real buttons compared to screens and steps that exclusively require them.

Thanks for reading!