To sleep better, young people are making smart pillows the next big thing.

Eating, drinking, excreting, and sleeping... Undoubtedly, sleeping is a major event in life. Humans have never stopped exploring the matter of "how to sleep better." However, it's common knowledge that modern people have poorer sleep quality. Some time ago, the Chinese Sleep Research Society released the "2025 China Sleep Health Survey Report," which mentioned that 48.5% of the population over 18 in China have sleep problems.

Poor sleep has almost become a "common" problem. During sleep, the importance of a pillow is self - evident. As a "sleep enthusiast," I've tried more than a dozen different pillows in recent years, from traditional latex pillows and down pillows to hose pillows, TPE pillows, and multi - layer memory foam pillows. They've truly brought me different experiences.

Image source: Lei Technology

In my opinion, latex pillows have strong support but can hardly meet the needs of both side - sleeping and back - sleeping. Down pillows are perfect for back - sleeping but press on your hands when side - sleeping. Multi - layer memory foam pillows offer the best overall experience, but there still seems to be something missing. To find a more suitable pillow, I searched for many products on Taobao and JD during the 618 shopping festival and discovered a new category - smart pillows. It seems that home product manufacturers who have exhausted innovation in materials are finally starting to challenge new areas. Will smart pillows become as popular as smartphones replaced feature phones? Here are my thoughts (Note: This article does not contain any form of advertising content).

Where exactly is the "smartness" of smart pillows?

Of course, the concept of smart pillows emerged a few years ago. Back then, smart pillows mainly incorporated modules for heart rate detection into the pillow and provided an "anti - snoring" function. Specifically, when snoring was detected, the pillow would start vibrating to prompt you to turn over or change the position of your head. If you're a light sleeper, it's possible to be directly woken up (and of course, you'll stop snoring when you wake up).

However, when I delved deeper into smart pillows, I found that the market has changed much faster than I expected in just one year, and the functions have become quite rich.

I'd like to pose a question first: "What functions do you think smart pillows should have?" For this question, many people might immediately think of smart music for sleep aid and the sleep state recording mentioned above. Based on the products I've searched for, this guess is correct. By implanting sensors such as heart rate detection bands into the pillow, the user's sleep state can be recorded in real - time.

Image source: Lei Technology

In addition, some smart pillows also have small speakers implanted to play sleep - aid music such as white noise. They can also be used as an alarm clock to wake you up in the morning. Interestingly, the snoring intervention function is also part of the alarm clock function. You can separately set the vibration intensity of the alarm to "silently" wake you up from sleep, which is very suitable for couples sharing a bed when one of them needs to get up early.

This type of smart pillow is currently the most common form. Several traditional home brands are producing them, such as 8H and Mijia (crowdfunding). In addition, some new brands have also entered the market, like SKG. Due to the simple design and mature functions, it's currently a highly competitive segment.

However, this type of smart pillow also has a problem, which is high substitutability. Except for the "silent wake - up" function, which is difficult to find a substitute for, functions such as sleep - aid music and sleep monitoring can easily be replaced by "veterans" in the smart IoT market - smart speakers, smart bracelets/watches.

So, this type of smart pillow can only appeal to some users, such as those who don't like wearing a watch/bracelet while sleeping. Also, due to its high substitutability, it's difficult to sell this type of pillow at a high price. The 8H smart pillow only costs more than 300 yuan. Considering that a similar latex pillow costs nearly 200 yuan, the premium is less than 100%, not even enough to buy a Xiaomi bracelet.

Therefore, many smart home brands have set their sights on another group - patients with cervical spondylosis. According to the statistical data of the Global Burden of Disease, as of 2021, there were already 48.3774 million patients with cervical discomfort in China. Calculated based on the growth trend in the report, the number of patients with cervical discomfort will be close to 53 million in 2026, which is quite a large number.

It's not hard to find that in recent years, many home brands have associated pillow products with the need for cervical support. The prices are often more than 50% higher than traditional pillows of the same material. Combining the need for cervical conditioning with smart pillows has naturally become the new trend in the industry.

According to the observation of Lei Technology, in addition to brands like 8H that are deploying in this segment, many emerging brands have also directly entered the market, promoting this type of smart pillow as their core product. For example, a smart home brand has launched a smart pillow priced at 1699 yuan, claiming that it can stretch your cervical spine before sleep and supports free height adjustment from 8 to 12 cm.

Image source: Taobao

Although these functions seem mysterious, the core module is actually a self - inflating airbag. Through a hidden air inlet and a silent air pump, and paired with sensors, precise control of the airbag height can be achieved. By using the change in airbag height, the lifting effect can be simulated, applying an upward force to the cervical spine to achieve the stretching effect.

On this basis, some brands have gone a step further by installing high - precision sensors to detect the user's sleeping position and then automatically adjust the height. Simply put, the pillow height is increased when side - sleeping to reduce the pressure on the arms and shoulders, and the height is decreased when back - sleeping to avoid discomfort in the cervical spine caused by a too - high head position.

Image source: Taobao

Previously, similar needs could only be met by special - shaped pillows such as butterfly - shaped pillows, and they also required little change in sleeping position. Otherwise, you might slide from the side - sleeping area to the back - sleeping area when side - sleeping, and wake up with a numb hand. Targeting this group of users, this type of smart height - adjustable pillow actually has good sales. Lei Technology found on Taobao that a smart pillow with automatic height adjustment priced at 1699 yuan (again, 1699 yuan) has sold more than 5000 units.

From simple sleep monitoring to adaptive smart pillows, it's not hard to find that smart pillows are gradually refining their product functions according to user needs. Like all emerging markets, manufacturers are finding more functions and designs that better meet user needs through repeated trials and errors.

Will smart pillows become the next big thing?

Like every nascent market, the smart pillow market is very chaotic, mainly reflected in the uneven product prices and quality, making it difficult for users to distinguish products. Take the two smart pillows I mentioned earlier. Both are priced at 1699 yuan, but there are significant differences in their functions.

One of them supports multiple adjustment methods such as app and buttons, but all require manual adjustment by the user. The latter, on the basis of the former, supports sleeping position detection + automatic adjustment, and the adjustable height range has changed from 8 - 12 cm to 5 - 15 cm. Even those who don't understand the smart home industry can easily recognize the technological gap between the two. However, on Taobao, both products are priced at 1699 yuan.

After searching for "smart pillows" on Taobao, it's easy to find that the price range of products is extremely large, and many products with several - fold price differences have almost the same functions. For example, a smart traction pillow from Yunchu Smart has a minimum price of only more than 300 yuan, and the experience is almost the same as that of a 1699 - yuan version from a certain brand.

As a market where big brands haven't entered yet, the early chaos has also led to users' distrust. For example, some netizens are completely "confused" after seeing the various descriptions of smart pillows. To be honest, even I'm quite confused. I can only simply classify these over - hyped smart pillows into different types according to their functions.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

To experience a smart pillow firsthand, I bought a smart pillow with automatic lifting function. After trying it out for one night, my evaluation is "it's a bit interesting, but not worth the price." First of all, the automatic lifting function does work well and can adjust automatically according to my sleeping position. However, the overall experience is similar to another pillow I bought before, which provides automatic height adjustment through a special structural design, and the latter only costs less than 300 yuan.

Image source: Lei Technology

From the perspective of product experience, there's obviously a lot of room for development in smart pillows. The trend of segmentation is currently a necessary measure, and in the future, smart pillow products that embrace multiple functions should emerge. However, the usage scenario of the pillow itself limits its design tolerance. For example, there are issues such as the safety of power supply and the operation of hardware modules, and how to ensure the comfort of the pillow after stuffing a bunch of parts into it.

Image source: Lei Technology

As a necessity for everyone, the market scale behind pillows is very considerable. There was a time when when traveling to Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, latex pillows costing hundreds or thousands of yuan almost became must - buy items, indicating that there are many people willing to spend more or a large amount of money on the need for "sleeping."

Actually, not only smart pillows but the entire smart sleep market has also been expanding rapidly in recent years. Various intelligent devices from smart mattresses to sleep - aid devices have emerged like "mushrooms after a rain," filling the gap in the smart home market while also making consumers hesitant: Are these smart sleep products really useful?

The answer is undoubtedly yes. Although the market and products are currently in a chaotic state, intelligentization is undoubtedly the correct trend. Because smart bedding is changing sleep from "people adapting to bedding" to "bedding adapting to people," which will fundamentally change the experience of a product category. Moreover, ecosystems such as Mijia and Hongmeng Zhijia are gradually accessing the smart sleep market, which also gives the entire smart sleep market more potential users yet to be tapped.

At least, those young people who want to sleep better are really willing to spend this money (like me).