There never was a Year of Linux on the Desktop, but there's been a year of linux on the phone, linux on the car, linux on the submarine, linux on the fridge, and so it's no surprise there's a year of linux in the bed.
Anything sufficiently complex (this bed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_Number#Sleep_Number_Bed) is going to have a microprocessor, and it makes sense to have an OS that lets you interact with it via a serial console, with Linux being the cheapest and most commonly supported OS in that context.
It's an inflatable mattress with an adjustable pressure regulator. That's pre-computer-age technology. The only thing that requires a computer is to make the adjustment remote. Why would you want to adjust your bed remotely?
Not only do they run an SSH server on their embedded Linux device but the entire Linux component is unnecessary. All it really does as far as I can tell is act as a bridge between an STM32 and a process long-polling AWS for commands. They could have achieved the same thing with less cost and complexity with an ESP32.
Also bad: they engineered it maliciously, making it completely and unnecessarily dependent on the cloud. All the sensor data is streaming in real time to the cloud and the only way to send it commands is through AWS.
If a Chinese company did this, the company would be cancelled.
In fact I'll be shocked if their product isn't blown out of the water in a couple of years by a Chinese copy that can function entirely offline and despite that massive disadvantage, can implement advanced features that Eight Sleep charges $200/yr for, like an alarm clock.
Thankfully their nonsense resulted in it being pretty easy to hack. There's a GitHub project to replace parts of the firmware.
> Also bad: they engineered it maliciously, making it completely and unnecessarily dependent on the cloud. All the sensor data is streaming in real time to the cloud and the only way to send it commands is through AWS.
Why would they unnecessarily add local processing capabilities to their data collection tool? The entire point was collecting the data.
Is this your first exposure to Linux-based embedded devices? It’s very common to run Linux on embedded devices. There are even variants of Linux designed for microcontrollers.
how else would you record and transmit measurements to a server? lower-level hardware and software is expensive to develop on and potentially be difficult to update.
I don't need my bed to transmit measurements to a server. I need my bed to be comfortable to sleep on. I need exactly zero interactions with a server for that.
So, yeah, back to the question. Why does my bed have an SSH server? Because it needs to be able to talk to some machine on the internet. And why does my bed need that? It's a bed.
[Edit: Wait a minute. Even if I do want to transmit measurements, why is my bed running a server? My bed should be running a client.]
If you sleep alone, live in a comfortable climate, and don't have any sleep problems, or back pain problems, I'm happy for you. Your experience isn't universal though and sleep is the most important thing you can do for your body so getting good sleep is paramount. Furthermore, having data on how well you slept is very useful for figuring out your own body. We wear devices to log how many steps we take, a device to log how you sleep is just an extension of that.
Are you even taking care of yourself if you don't have one?
Okay no but seriously, a smart bed that helps you get really good sleep at night so you wake up rested and ready to face the whole world may not be your cup of tea, but that's what they're selling. You could get that without all the technology, but what's the sleep company going to do with the data? Know that you sleep at night? What's the privacy danger in that?
The bed doesn’t need a cloud connection to do any of those advanced features. A phone app and BLE connection (like a smart watch) could easily handle it.
> I don't need my bed to transmit measurements to a server. I need my bed to be comfortable to sleep on. I need exactly zero interactions with a server for that.
Then don’t buy this specific bed?
These features are part of why people buy this product. Nobody is accidentally purchasing this as “just a bed” and then discovering that it has an app and smart controls as a surprise later.
> And why does my bed need that? It's a bed.
This is a very dishonest take. If you don’t understand or don’t want the product, then don’t buy it. But the smart controls exist because people (other than you) want them.
because you bought it. sitting across the show room floor or one of the other pics on the sales website were other beds that did not have these features. instead, you let the sales person push you into a sale of a product you weren't happy with or you did not pay attention to the product listing. or your spouse bought it. none of these says anything positive about your situation though, so some inner reflecting on why you're such a bad consumer is warranted
Embedded linux is everywhere.
Making the initial connection (connect to BED23234 wifi and do xyz on a web page) requires more than a microcontroller.
There's no point trying to save a few bucks on such a ridiculously expensive item.
You're so stuck in your line of thinking. How about you run an API and host the client in a native app? Problem solved. How about you don't run sshserver. Problem solved.
For me it's more about security. If I have a an appliance tied to the internet my entire network is susceptible. With an app, and bluetooth, I could just send data between the appliance and the iPhone, and then use the iPhone connection to the network to send data to the server (if needed / wanted but probably not for this application).
W. T. F. !?