The Slumber Games
The original. Not the sequel. Or the other sequel. Or even the prequel.
I grew up reading science fiction. And this was before the days when all the science fiction looked like fantasy1.
Anyway, I'm often impressed by how completely wrong the old SF writers got things. I'm not even talking flying cars. I hear there's a company in Korea (or somewhere that isn't here) making those now. Greats like Asimov, Clarke and Heinlein stuck to the science (more or less) and tried to think of what could happen. They pretty much got computers, although they didn't understand the great new stuff they would be able to do2. But they missed out on one of the most brilliant and misunderstood inventions ever.
The smart bed.
I have a not-very-smart bed from a company that I won't name that lets you adjust the firmness of your mattress from an app on your phone. That's another one the old SF writers missed. They understood wireless communications just fine. But they never would have imagined that you could download an almost infinite number of advertising-supported games to play in the waiting room at the doctor's office!
In addition to allowing me to change the firmness of the mattress (slightly) from the phone, it gives me a report every day about how I slept the night before. It tells me how long it took me to get to sleep, how long I slept restfully, and how long I slept restlessly.
Plus it tells me about my heart rate during the night. Just an average though. It doesn't give much detail. I would love to be able to see what my heart rate did during that dream where I was being chased by alien goo that sang old country western tunes the whole time. I would expect it to go wild but I guess I'll never know.
I like my smart bed a lot. Sure, as much as I can check them, the numbers are always wrong3. But it really is very comfortable. So naturally I thought, I wonder what I could get in an upgrade?
I did a search and found all sorts of wonderful features like,
One bed that gives you a massage. I mean, not just the old magic fingers like they used to have at motels. Or maybe they still have them. I haven't been in a really good cheap motel in a long time.
Several others that maintain the temperature of the bed. I guess because blankets are passe or something.
I loved this next one so much I had to just copy it word for word4. "Tracks user temperature, ambient temperature, and weather." It tracks the weather??????? If the weather in my bedroom needs tracked, I think I would __move out__ or maybe call the guy who replaced my roof and complain. You know?
Automatically changes the position of the bed if you start snoring. I think the idea is that it lifts you up so that your breathing will be easier. At least, that sounds better than the horizontal equivalent of an ejection seat.
I'll be honest. In the year 2023, when our cars are almost self-driving and AI is almost about to take all our jobs, the features I found were kind of underwhelming. But I used to work in R&D5 so I set myself the task of coming up with some ideas for really smart beds. Here are a few. By the way, if you make smart beds and decide to cadge one or more of my ideas, please have everyone at your company purchase a subscription to this newsletter. Otherwise, go for it!
Here goes:
If you have a bad night's sleep or just stay up a little too late, in the morning the bed will automatically send your boss a message saying you're too sick to work. Then it will kill the (built in) alarm so you can sleep in.
The mattress has a "smart-ripple" effect that will gently move your dog over so you always have enough room to sleep in. Caution! Using the same feature on your significant other will cost more and involve multiple legal waivers.
An armature will hand you a cup of coffee in the morning. Or a beer, if you're that type6.
A built in EEG-like device records your dreams so you can play them back later. They will, of course, be stored in the cloud and encrypted. The encryption key will not be shared with any government agency, ever. You can absolutely believe that.
Best of all! The bed comes with a robot that will let your dog out at 4 in the morning so you can keep sleeping.
I have often wished for that last feature. I would happily pay extra for it except that, with my luck, if the dog _didn't_ want out in the middle of the night, the robot would wake me up to tell me.
I have lots of other ideas! I think these are enough to show why I'm not as impressed as I had hoped to be. Some day soon, when cars really do drive themselves, people will want to take naps while they are waiting to be delivered to wherever they're going. At that point, the car seat will drop back and it will have all the features currently considered cutting edge smart bed tech. PLUS you'll be able to make phone calls, listen to music or watch TV, all by voice commands.
Smart beds will seem quaint by comparison. The people who make them need to think bigger if they want to stay in business. And leave the ejection seat to the car companies.
Here is the promised prompt for the image above: “A whimsical and surreal scene featuring a queen-sized bedroom bed, heavily adorned with an array of computer gadgets and electronic components. This unusual bed is zooming down a bustling city street, with its occupant, a person showing a mix of excitement and urgency, waving energetically at the surrounding traffic, urging them to move aside. The street is lively with urban buildings, pedestrians, and various vehicles, contributing to the bizarre and chaotic atmosphere of the scene.”
Even The Expanse with the magical alien goo and semi-aware portal stuff was kind of fantasyish. And this was one of the most sciencey of science fiction shows to come along in 20 years!
Like coming up with great recipes or vacation plans. These are two of the commonly suggested use cases for ChatGPT, believe it or not. We’re still a little way from developing plans to take over the world.
It did NOT take me 2.5 hours to get to sleep last night! I mean, I would have noticed if it took that long, wouldn't I? Maybe gotten out of bed and had a hot toddy, whatever that is. I hate warm milk but a toddy sounds okay.
But I’ll omit the source because this is a humor column, not a defamation column. I would need a lot more paying subscribers to support that!
And I have the expired patents to prove it!
Yay that type! Bonus points if you know what movie this references.