Over the past few years, mattress company Casper[1] has expanded its product lineup to include everything from dog beds[2] to nap pillows[3]. (It’s also opened its own nap store[4].) The latest addition: the Glow, an $89 light.
While the company has never made this kind of Internet-connected hardware before, Chief Strategy Officer Neil Parikh pitched the Glow as part of Casper’s [5] mission to improve sleep. And although there’s already whole categories of sleep-friendly light bulbs[6] and smart lamps[7], the Glow has a couple of smart touches that could make it particularly appealing.
The basic use of the Glow is pretty straightforward. You turn it on by flipping it over, and it fills your room with warm LED light. The light then dims to darkness over a 45-minute period — as Chief Product Officer Jeff Chapin put it, it’s “mimicking the setting of the sun and it helps you get sleepier as it dims into lower and lower amplitudes.”
You can control and customize the Glow with a smartphone app, but Chapin said, “There are some people who are never going to download the app and that’s fine.” That’s because the Glow can also be controlled by gesture — flipping it to turn it on and off again, twisting it (when it’s set on a flat surface) to adjust the brightness and wiggling it to get a low light.
The Glow is also portable, so if you wake up in the middle of the night and need to get a glass of water or use the restroom, you can just pick it up and carry it with you, rather than turning on...