The Variowell company controls the temperature of the foam topper with an app for the Apple Watch. The start-up from Munster teamed up with Bosch to develop the mattress and app and is showcasing them at CES.
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Variowell uses the principle that thermal energy always spreads from hotter areas to cooler areas. The manufacturer has thin strips of so-called thermally conductive graphite kiku band, Housed in a foam topper. These direct body heat from the supporting surface to the sides and distribute it evenly across the insulating foam. This reduces the average temperature between the mattresses from 32 degrees to 22 degrees. The Variovel then heats the Pepamiento Topper over the leg and lumbar area to a temperature that is comfortable for the sleeping person.
Heat-conducting Kiku bands conduct body heat away from the supporting surface and distribute it across the foam topper.
data gold
Which temperature that is depends on various factors, including the temperature of the room, the quality of the air in the room, the body temperature of the sleeping person, and the stage of sleep the person is in. The Apple Watch records exactly this data, evaluates it in the Variovel app and sends it to a controller in Topper.
The controller in the Pepamiento Mattress Topper operates via USB.
(Image: Ulrike Kuhlmann, Heise Online)
The heating elements in the Pepamiento Topper are controlled via a controller mounted in the foam topper. It’s about the size of an AppleTV and operates via USB-C. So its power consumption is a maximum of 100 watts, but in normal operation it should be much less. As Tobias Kirchhoff, managing director of Variowell, explains, you typically end up at 20 watts.
anonymized
According to Kirchhoff, you do not need to register with the manufacturer in the app, so Variovel only has access to anonymized data. But such data is also extremely valuable, Kirchhoff knows. Normal room temperature in individual bedrooms is not normally recorded; He tells that it is between 10 to 28 degrees. If you sleep with the window open, you get more oxygen, but your room immediately becomes very cold; The heated support surface ensures a more pleasant temperature without heating the entire room.
Kirchhoff points out that compared to ordinary electric blankets, the intelligent pad offers significant benefits. Unlike electric blankets, there is no accumulation of heat and you get a pleasant temperature on the mattress at the end of the night. Compared to other heating systems like heat-regulated waterbeds or intelligent cushions with heat pumps, the Pepamiento system is much easier to set up: Place the topper on the bed, connect the USB-C charger, activate the app on the Apple Watch, and done. .
The approximately 10 cm thick foam topper is currently available in 90 cm and 1.60 m widths.
(Image: Ulrike Kuhlmann, Heise Online)
The topper’s heat regulation works best if you also wear an Apple Watch while you sleep. The VarioWell can then use the heart rate to determine what stage of sleep the sleeping person is currently in. Without this recorded body data, Topper automatically changes temperature phases after a predefined time, for example after the predicted phase of sleep and in the second half of the night. You can set various parameters like temperature limit and interval time in the app and control environment parameters using the clock.
Variowell initially offers the heated pad in two widths of 0.90 and 1.60 meters and 2 meters in length. The narrower version should cost 500 euros, the topper for wider beds should cost 900 euros, and the Pepamiento app, which is only available for iOS on the Apple Watch, is free.
Heise Median is the Official Media Partner of CES 2025.
(UK)
