Fallout from the AWS Outage: Smart Mattresses Go Rogue and Ruin Sleep Worldwide
a day ago
- #IoT Vulnerabilities
- #AWS Outage
- #Smart Home Failures
- Massive AWS outage on October 20, 2025, disrupted services including Snapchat, Roblox, and Fortnite.
- Eight Sleep's Pod3 mattress covers lacked an offline mode, leaving users unable to control temperature or track sleep during the outage.
- The $2,000+ smart mattresses reverted to basic functionality, with no temperature adjustments, sleep tracking, or automation.
- Physical controls on the Hub were unreliable, and some mattresses froze entirely, requiring cloud clearance to reboot.
- Tech enthusiast Alex Browne's mattress locked into a pre-set high temperature, leading to a viral social media post about sleeping in a 'sauna.'
- Eight Sleep confirmed no offline mode but stated they were 'working on it.'
- AWS powers much of the smart home ecosystem, including Ring doorbells and Alexa plugs, which also failed during the outage.
- Eight Sleep has faced prior scrutiny, including a 2024 security report exposing AWS keys that allowed remote access to users' mattresses.
- The incident highlights the fragility of cloud-dependent smart devices and the need for offline fallbacks.