The HiCan smart bed set the internet on fire when it was first introduced by Hi-Interiors back in 2009. The smart bed is a combination of innovation, technology and fine Italian design.
If you loved the idea of integrating multimedia and sleep-improving features in bed, get ready for their second generation smart bed, which includes more features to boost your mental and physical well-being. Dubbed HiBed, it is basically a smart personal cocoon that’s designed to not only improve sleep but your overall wellbeing.
If you ever wondered to find a way to know the impacts of sleep quality on your health, the HiBed smart bed is the thing for you. All you need is tuck yourself in the smart bed and check your sleep pattern every morning with the companion mobile app. It not only analyses sleep and biometric parameters but also keeps a log of body weight and monitors temperature, air quality and noise level for a complete check on your health.
The adjustable base with memory foam offers comfort during sleep, while various tech features like Wi-Fi, offline voice control, dimmable reading light, HD projector and invisible speakers ensure to keep you entertained before you drift into oblivion.
In addition to entertainment features, there is a smart alarm system that wakes you up with audio notifications of news, weather and calendar.
Also Read: 8 Smart Sleep Gadgets to Wake You Up Better
Hi-Interiors is offering HiBed in two versions – Smart Edition and Dreamers Edition. The earlier offers wellness and health package at €12.000 (~$14,000), while the latter includes voice controls and entertainment features with health and wellness packages at €16.000 (~$18,700).
The HiBed is now available for pre-order with expected delivery in early 2019.
The Hi-Interiors’ HiBed boasts a minimalist design with clear walls and ceiling when compared to the earlier version, which was bulkier and sturdier in design.
We got a chance to exchange dialogue with Ivan and Gianni Tallarico, the founders of Hi-Interiors, about their company and new smart bed. Here’s what they have to say.
Q: How did Hi-Interiors and the amazing idea of crafting revolutionary smart beds kickstart?
A: We dream of a world in which our environment will listen to us more and more and will be the key to our well-being.
The desire to create a concrete change in the quality of people’s lives is one of Hi- Interior’s driving forces and it has been realized with HiCan, the first project of the startup that introduces a new furnishing concept, reinventing an object with which we relate daily and we did not think could have other forms of expression: the bed.
Modern lifestyle has changed the pace of our rest and in this society, based on multitasking and continuous productivity, we sleep an average of 1.5 hours less than 50 years ago.
Sleeping well is a universal requirement and the goal of Hi-interiors was and still is to develop a technology that can become available to everyone, starting from residential and contract sectors to innovate and test the best accessible solutions, learning from demanding and sophisticated customers that, with their feedbacks, make early adopters the main protagonists of this process of change.
Thus is born HiCan – an acronym of High Fidelity Canopy – as an idea of an enveloping space, an intimate cocoon among dreams and digital scenarios, which is the result of creative intelligence and attention to the reality that surrounds us.
Thanks to the feedbacks acquired directly on field, carrying out surveys on the sleep’s needs and habits of demanding customers, HiBed was finally born, a more mature product from an industrial point of view that confirms and reflects the company’s vision: “Design connects life”.
Q: As an industrial designer, what do you think is the role and importance of bed design in making a home perfect?
A: Today, the design attention is often perceived as an aesthetic and decorative dimension and is therefore valorized in “social areas” such as living and kitchen, where design can be easily shared. We have revolutionized this concept. For us, the design is not only synonymous with beauty but is a potential health ally in our daily life thus we decided to start from the “private areas” that are spontaneously used to relax, rest and sleep well, the three fundamental pillar for our well-being.
Q: What is its most innovative aspect of your designs?
A: We believe in transforming the space around us into our next smart device through technology-enabled smart furniture: we will no longer be forced to hold devices, but they will seamlessly integrate into our lives allowing us to enjoy the interiors with greater freedom.
Q: What’s the biggest artistic compromise your team had to make while engineering the HiBed?
A: Design and technology can live together in different ways but the real challenge is to create the perfect balance between each other creating a product harmonious, flexible, smart and at the same time optimizing engineering cost placing on the market a more affordable product.
Modularity and flexibility: Our primary desire is to democratize the concept of smart bed, making it accessible to more people. In fact, we have decided for HiBed to standardize modules to allow easier industrialization, still offering greater personalization in terms of colors and tech configurations with a flexible system architecture. HiBed represents a scalable product; in this way, a customer can buy a base version only with sleep tracker today and may add the entertainment system tomorrow.
Natural finishes: Improving our life means being more and more surrounded by natural materials, so the “canopy shape” which distinguishes our design identity, finds its realization thanks to a study on an innovative processing of wood that represents the main material of our new smart bed, used also for the canopy structure.
Q: How’s HiBed different from HiCan? Which one is better?
A: The strategic decision to create two smart beds within our product line is simply to confirm our mission. Thanks to HiCan’s investments, we have the opportunity to have access to precious feedback that allowed us to optimize the investments in design and at the same time in technology, giving life to HiBed.
HiBed and HiCan reflect the personality and needs of different customers, so we can not say which one is the best, it’s like asking parents what their favorite child is! 😉
Q: What is the average time taken to build a bed?
A: About 90 days plus shipping time, depending on the client country. As HiBed is available in a pre-order way, we are still optimizing HiBed engineering trying to reduce build time too. The first HiBed deliveries will take place within the first half of 2019.
Q: Your motto is “Design Connects Life.” How does your design thinking connect to the everyday life?
A: Our smart beds are the proof that people do not have to change radically their habits to improve their own life.
Proper nutrition, sleep, and exercise are the important pillars of health.
Eating healthily and staying fit involves making conscious decisions.
We can choose between having a salad or chips or taking the stairs instead of the escalator. But how do we know if the quality of our sleep is having an effect on our health?
You have only to sleep in your smart bed and with the sleep and health tracker, that works completely contactless and effortless, you can check the quality of your rest every morning, sharing your data with your personal trainer and/or doctor.
Monitoring your sleep you will become more aware of how your body and your mind rest and you will start to create conscious decision also for the third pillar of your health.
Health is also wellbeing that for us means to have the freedom to live your passions: music, movies, and everything concerning the entertainment in a private temple, in a personal space that is going to know you more and more every day. In fact, the AI will be used to suggest you a relax playlist when you come back to your bedroom after a stressed day, or an energetic pop playlist before you go to the gym…or a romantic music to remember you how lucky you are having your partner in your bed!
Finally, we are already creating other products that can change even more the relationship with the space that surrounds us; we can anticipate that they will not be present only in the bedroom.
Q: Your designs are exceptional; a perfect blend of aesthetics and technology. How do you strike a balance between the two?
A: Our mission is to create a space that is able to understand our needs, improving our well-being on a daily basis. As for a car, the design quality has to blend with the technology in order to create an amazing driving experience guaranteeing safety at all time. Developing the APP of our smart beds, for example, has been challenging because it wasn’t only about providing an enjoyable UX to let our clients interact with their bed, but has taken into consideration the creation of personalized automated scenarios guaranteeing first of all the safety, as our regular users could be every member of a family, including children.
The software, hardware and design integration in the final products, are the result of the balance found in our team. Behind a great job, there is a great collaboration. Each member works in the same direction and it’s a crucial point when you a have a disruptive business like ours.
Q: A pleasant experience users will only discover after sleeping in it?
A: Sleeping in a smart bed is not an instant experience, but it is finding a new ally in your life for a more productive, conscious and healthier daily routine.
The immediately perceptible experience is to enjoy a place of intimacy where you can interact with your passions in a personalized scenario created by an intelligent interaction between lights, colors, music, perfumes and automated bed movements. You will experience the sensation of lightness, relaxing your body and your mind, feeling “cocooned.”
However, another invisible, imperceptible, differentiator factor in our smart beds is that we take care of you day after day while you sleep through our sleeping coach functions. The coaching actions result to be effective if performed continuously contactless and effortless for long periods of time, so we do not have to remember to wear a device or recharge the batteries, we just need to go to sleep, one of the most natural and universal needs in the world. Furthermore, thanks to the use of AI and machine learning, will constantly learn about our behaviors, offering more and more personalized recommendations and experiences.
Q: With bed design constantly changing/evolving, what design feature(s) will remain unaffected?
A: Our first driver will continue to be the design that lasts more than technology, subject to continuous innovation. Design in an anthropocentric vision shall dress technology, embedding it in products that results familiar to us because already surround our daily life.
