HiBeds: The Future of Sleeping
Technological innovations are often presented as original items able to improve people’s daily lives, additions to the piles of devices that inhabit homes. An opposing philosophy concerning technology, embraced by companies like Hi-Interiors, attempts to blend design and innovation with those objects already in the home to improve their original functions and render them capable of supporting better people.
Hi-Interiors has launched its product line of HiBeds. IoT beds can control and manage sleep while simultaneously offering a range of services for people to enjoy while on the bed, improving indoor entertainment, wellness, and health.
HiBeds have an incredibly fast and growing development. Hi-Interiors launched the prototype of their HiBed in 2008. After just one year, the prototype was presented at the notorious Milano Design Week and acclaimed by the public. In 2017 Hi-Interiors began to deliver their first units through Indiegogo backers; already in 2020, the second generation of HiBeds was introduced. These beds can be integrated with other technologies and systems, enlarging the connectivity of smart devices in the house.
HiInterios currently has two smart beds in the market, HiCan, and HiAm, the latter being the company’s second generation of technological beds.
HiCan, designed by Edoardo Carino, was born as a cocoon letting people enjoy dreams and digital scenarios. HiAm, designed by Fabio Vinella, was thought of as an oasis for wellbeing and rest, a place where “otium”, the primary source of creativity of the individual’s fulfillment, can be achieved, a celebration of the person.
HiBeds can be integrated with other technologies and systems enlarging the connectivity of smart devices in the house.
Hi-Interiors’s manifesto advocates for the wellbeing of each person, emphasizing how much sleep can improve lifestyle and health. As they say: “WE decided to improve the quality of living reinventing the bed, which is the single piece of furniture where we spent the majority of our life. WE decided, indeed, to innovate a mainstream industry such as the furniture and bedding industry creating the first open-source platform for the bedding industry,” shares the company.
HiBeds are equipped with a wide range of functionalities which can be split into three sections: “Wellness” represented by control of lighting systems in the bed, RGBW ambient lights, adjustability of the base of the bed, massage functions, sound system for music therapy, fragrance diffuser and a smart alarm able to wake someone’s up through a variety of waking-up functionalities. The second and third categories for the functions of HiBeds are “Entertainment and Health,” described by the ability of these beds to analyze and monitor sleep, control the air quality, temperature, and humidity of the room, monitor noise and light by sensors able to measure heartbeat and respiratory rate.
These smart beds also come with remarkable technological components such as an audio system featuring an A/V receiver Marantz NR 1609, speakers with exciter technology, and a subwoofer. HiBeds value imaging and digital scenarios which is the reason why their design includes an HD projector 4K enhancement and 70″ screen, as well as a port for HDMI.
These modern and smart functions are possible thanks to the hi-tech components of the bed represented by a Strato Pi, the core of the bed, a motherboard for running the software, and by the Control Unit which regulates the functions of the bed (reading load cells, DMX lights, network control, and capacitive key control).
All functions of HiCan and HiAm can be easily controlled through an iOS app developed by Hi-Interiors that can trach sleep and discover patterns to give feedback and sleeping advice. Scenarios to facilitate falling asleep can be created and controlled through the app and all of the technical parts of the beds, from lights to sound. The app learns and grows along with the data collection daily, catering better for the consumer every night. Through the development of their smart beds, Hi-Interiors have carried out and compared different studies on sleeping and the sleeping cycle. As Hi-Interiors explains, the current way to monitor sleep is represented by the Polysomnography system, invasive and not representative of a normal sleeping environment.
Many other smart devices have been put on the market to help monitor sleep, but they all make the sleeping experience less comfortable for the person’s normal sleep. HiBed can achieve the same type of monitoring of all of those technologies allowing the data to be collected directly from the bed and to be processed for feedback by the Artificial Intelligence of the iOS app.
The graphic used by Hi-Interiors to present their products has a powerful meaning reflecting their manifesto and what the company wants to achieve with their smart beds. The dreamy backgrounds behind the HiBeds, help visualize a space to dream, create digital scenarios, and design a new future of sleeping.
