Maker of ‘Smart’ Bed May Share Your Personal Data With Government, Law Enforcement

Written by Suzzane Burdick, Ph. D on August 1, 2024. Posted in Current News

Tempur-Pedic is selling a “smart” bed that collects and monitors personal sleeping habit data — including heart rate and breath rate — via sensors that connect to the person’s Wi-Fi and smartphone.

According to the company, the Tempur-ActiveBreeze Smart Bed — priced at roughly $10,000 for a queen — provides “personalized climate control” up to 30 degrees warmer or cooler by allowing each user to adjust their side of the bed via wireless remote or the company’s artificial intelligence (AI)-powered app.

The app, Sleeptracker-AI, also provides “daily information about the quality of your sleep and personalized insights and coaching to help improve your sleep over time.”

The app’s technology “differentiates between sleep stages by monitoring movement, heart rate, and breathing rate” to track when a person is in “light sleep,” “deep sleep,” “REM sleep” or awake, according to its website.

Miriam Eckenfels-Garcia, director of Children’s Health Defense’s (CHD) Electromagnetic Radiation (EMR) & Wireless program, warned that the convenience of using an app to track one’s sleep information comes at a cost.

“This is one step further in the transhumanist agenda, where machines learn the most intimate details about us — our sleep, and therefore our brain cycles,” she told The Defender. “It’s scary stuff.”

John W. Whitehead, a constitutional attorney and president of The Rutherford Institute, told The Defender the bed’s “smart” technology poses serious surveillance concerns.

Whitehead said “smart” Internet of Things (IoT) devices “have become increasingly widespread, encompassing everything from toothbrushes and lightbulbs to cars, smart meters and medical equipment … and even your Tempur-Pedic bed.”

“Yet given the speed and trajectory at which these technologies are developing,” he said, “it won’t be long before these devices become government informants, reporting independently on anything you might do that runs afoul of the Nanny State.”

Tempur-Pedic’s Sleeptracker-AI app may share people’s personal information with governmental authorities, according to its privacy policy, which states:

We share the information we collect, including your Personal Information, among our affiliates, subsidiaries, and related companies, as well as with service providers who work on our behalf, including vendors used for data storage and customer service purposes.
When permitted by applicable law, we also disclose Personal Information to third parties such as law enforcement agencies and government authorities; subject to a court order or subpoena; to respond to and resolve claims or complaints; to prevent fraud or for risk management purposes; for research and analytics purposes; and to comply with or respond to law enforcement or legal process or a request for cooperation by a government or other entity.

“The menace of such virtual intrusions on our Fourth Amendment rights has barely begun to be litigated, legislated and debated,” Whitehead said.

Sleeptracker-AI’s privacy policy says it doesn’t share information with “advertising platforms, data brokers, or information resellers, or for advertising, marketing, or use-based data mining purposes.”

However, that policy could ostensibly change if the app is acquired by a different company, as “we transfer information, including your Personal Information, to the potential or actual buyer,” the company said.

Tempur-Pedic isn’t the only company selling smart beds

Tempur-Pedic isn’t the only bed manufacturer that’s selling “smart” beds, according to Certified Sleep Science Coach Claire Davies. In a July 18 article for Tom’s Guide, Davies reviewed what she considered to be 2024’s top picks for smart beds.

She defines smart beds as beds that are designed to track a person’s sleep and other health metrics. “They’re either fully app-controlled or use a mix of manually controlled features, plus further functions available via a companion app (iOS and Android are common platforms).”

Davies’ review included the Sleep Number i8 smart bed, which collects the user’s biometrics to give the person a sleep quality score that appears on their phone. The company markets the technology as SleepIQ.

Tempur-Pedic launched its Tempur-ActiveBreeze Smart Bed at the beginning of 2024, according to Forbes.

Its main components are a 13-inch mattress and the ProSmart Air Base “constructed with uniquely designed fans that quietly disperse cool or warm air up into the mattress and across your body for long lasting comfort,” states the bed’s website.

Sensors mounted under the mattress collect and send the user’s biometric data “directly to the Sleeptracker-AI Cloud,” according to the Sleeptracker-AI user guide.

Smart beds emit RF radiation

The sensors have radiofrequency (RF) antennas that emit RF radiation at a frequency of 2.4 gigahertz, according to the owner’s manual. The sensor has Wi-Fi — which can be used to connect to a home router or a smartphone — and Bluetooth to run relaxing audio programs.

Fariha Husain, manager of CHD’s EMR & Wireless program, told The Defender, “This basically means that having one of these beds obtains the same result as sleeping about a foot away from a smartphone with all its antennas on.”

Numerous studies have noted harmful health impacts from close exposure to RF radiation.

Husain pointed out that 215 scientists from 40 countries — in a 2015 appeal calling for protection from low-level (i.e., non-ionizing) RF radiation — cited research on a myriad of negative health effects of exposure to low-level radiation including “increased cancer risk, cellular stress, increase in harmful free radicals, genetic damages, structural and functional changes of the reproductive system, learning and memory deficits, neurological disorders, and negative impacts on general well-being.”

“Generally speaking,” Husain explained, “exposure to electromagnetic energy decreases with distance from the source, therefore, our guidance is to eliminate — or increase distance from — wireless sources whenever possible.”

According to the owner’s manual, the Tempur-Pedic smart bed complies with the Federal Communication Commission’s RF emission limits.

However, those limits are decades out of date. The agency continues to ignore a federal court-ordered mandate to review recent science and update its limits to protect children, animals and the environment.

Smart beds emit RF radiation

Numerous studies have noted harmful health impacts from close exposure to RF radiation.

According to the owner’s manual, the Tempur-Pedic smart bed complies with the Federal Communication Commission’s RF emission limits.

Sleep is key to bodily restoration and regulation

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine in a 2021 position statement said that “sleep is essential to health.”

Smart bed technology is “particularly problematic and dangerous,” Husain said,
“Because the sleeping hours are vital for the body’s restoration and are a key part of regulating immune function and muscle repair, boosting cognitive abilities such as memory and problem-solving, and promoting emotional well-being by stabilizing mood and reducing stress.”

“So continuous exposure to RF radiation during these restorative hours,” Husain said,
“not only subjects people to high, unsafe levels of artificial electromagnetic radiation, but also prevents the body from properly regulating itself.”

Tempur-Pedic’s smart bed also exposes the user to dirty electricity, as the bed can draw up to 2.5 amps of electricity from a normal wall outlet.

The owner’s manual reveals that the bed’s output is direct current (DC). “So there is a conversion from AC to DC power,” Husain said. “The result is dirty electricity and there can be some RF radiation emissions as well.”

“Dirty electricity consists of erratic electrical spikes and surges that deviate from the standard smooth electrical flow,” she said. “It’s hard for a person’s body to maintain homeostasis in that environment.”

Husain added, “Think about it like this: Let’s say you are a person whose goal is to stay completely stationary. Dirty electricity would be like being in the middle of an ocean with extremely choppy, erratic waves. It would be almost impossible to stay stationary.”

See more at The Defender