Q Draw some light on your understanding and deep research related to consumer sleep experiences which grabbed your attention to work on it?
Durability->Comfort->Ergonomics->Design Next step sleep (not lying horizontaly): But a huge gap between Sleep Research and Mattress Industry. I. do not see any mattress company at Sleep Research conferences, and even then they talk different languages. Futhermore, in Silicon Valley I experienced a huge interest in the topic sleep. Again, no connection to the mattress industry. I love to connect people, so why not bringing Silicon Valley, Sleep research and the mattress industry together. That is what Variowell does, we are the bridge between all three worlds
Q How do the technologies used in Kikoo and Swayy help to improve the sleep experiences of consumers?
Thermal comfort: is more than Hot and cold. It’s about the flow of thermal energy from the body into the mattress, different at various body part. Example: feeling too hot at the body, but have cold feet at the same time. Thermal comfort is very complex, it might be impcated by what you eat! Kikoo: Natural cooling to prevent overheating – easy to implement, just stripes in the foam Swayy: full technology package for control of thermal flow with App, very intuitive to use (thanks to our connection into Silicon Valley)
Q How your technology is changing the mattress’s thermal comfort and firmness change to enhance the sleep experience?
Let’s focus on Thermal comfort: Foam is usually insulating so there are hotspots in the foam below the body. The Kikoo stripes increase the thermal connectivity of the foam above, so body heat can flow away from the body. Turning to Swayy: here we actually create a ‘cooling effect’ using Kikoo stripes which is too strong. We reduce and control this effect by active warming, needing only USB-C power. We work with BOSCH on this technology. The user can control the heatflow with an intuiitive app creating really nice thermal experiences.
Q What shift did you see in the needs of the consumers since your incorporation?
Do not look for changes, look for things which do NOT change. Interesting there is not a change in consumer behaviour. But we have now a much better understanding of what the consumers expect, needs and buys