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A startup called Orion is ready to take on America’s sleep loss epidemic with a new, AI-enabled mattress cover that can adjust its temperature throughout the night to maximize comfort and rest. Cofounder and CEO Harry Gestetner previously cofounded the startup Fanfix, which helped Gen Z content creators build paid subscription programs. After the company sold to SuperOrdinary for a reported $65 million, Gestetner says he became interested in sleep and its well-documented links to health and longevity. “Every longevity expert tells you that sleep is the cornerstone of longevity,” he says. Gestetner found that most sleep and fitness trackers could detect bad sleep patterns, but they couldn’t directly do anything to help users get a better night’s rest. “All they do is just give you a bunch of data that tells you slept badly,” he says. And while sleep temperature has been shown to have a significant impact on sleep quality, existing sleep temperature control devices from companies like Eight Sleep were too expensive for many people Gestetner spoke to. Working with his father Daniel Gestetner, himself a serial entrepreneur and Orion’s chairman, Gestetner set out to craft a more affordable alternativethe “Tesla of sleep,” rather than the Ferrari, as he puts it. The company has since raised $10.3 million in venture funding and developed the technology with sleep expert and clinical psychologist Michael Breus, who serves as Orion’s chief sleep officer. Orion’s technology, unveiled for preorder on October 14, costs users with a queen-sized bed $2,300 up front plus $17 per month for a subscription. The subscription pays for access to Orion’s AI, which can automatically make dozens of temperature adjustments throughout the night to maximize comfort at various phases of sleep, taking into account sensor readings and users’ stated preferences. Buyers can indicate whether they want a firmer or softer cover, with other options in the works, and the equipment typically takes 10 to 15 minutes to install, Gestetner says. [Photo: Courtesy of Orion] Sensors within the mattress cover can detect factors like body temperature, breathing rate, and heart rate, which allow the AI to optimize its temperature to match natural circadian rhythms, allowing for longer, deeper sleep. We can tell, for example, if your body temperature is heating up, your heart rate’s starting to increase, and you’re getting into a lighter and lighter phase of sleep where you might wake up, says Gestetner. We can adjust your body temperature back down to keep you in deeper sleep longer and increase your sleep quality. The package includes the mattress cover, along with a companion device that can be unobtrusively positioned near the bed or behind a nightstand, where it heats or cools water circulated through the mattress cover. Unlike waterbeds of yore, notorious for disastrous leaks and often banned from rental apartments, Orion’s mattress cover includes sturdy tubing and a second waterproof layer to prevent spillage, he says. It also only uses about 1.5 liters of water, which can be topped off about twice per year. [Photo: Courtesy of Orion] Sensors in the mattress cover help monitor sleep quality and adjust temperature throughout the night. The technology works for couples as well, Gestetner says, avoiding quarrels over settings by maintaining two temperature zones, since many people don’t sleep best at the same temperature as their partner. “My girlfriend gets very cold at night, and so she likes to set her side very warm,” he says. “I get very hot at night, so I like to set my side very cold, and then I like to wake up very warm.” Before Orion’s customers begin using the device, which is expected to ship to preorder customers in December, they typically will do a home sleep test with a disposable wearable sensor, letting Orion observe their sleep patterns. The wearable, which looks similar to a large Band-Aid, lets the company chart their sleep habits and temperatures needs throughout the night. “We can show you pretty much everything that’s wrong with your sleep on a graph, and then preprogram the Orion device to you based on your data,” Gestetner says. The wearable isn’t essential, though, and Gestetner says the company already has a deal to place the mattress covers in hotels, where the built-in sensors will be able to help adjust temperatures and let guests get a better night’s sleep. [Photo: Courtesy of Orion] Other companies have worked to develop AI and sensor technology to optimize other aspects of sleep: Heka offers mattresses that physically adjust to support different body types and changing sleeping positions throughout the night, while Nitetronic produces pillows that detect snoring and inflate to adjust the users head position and keep airways clear. A Tempur-Pedic bed base with adjustable contours can even alter its position during the night in response to snoring. But while many smart sleep devices can be fairly pricy, Orion aims to develop more affordable versions of its product, which could be available in the future for as little as $500, thanks in part to Daniel Gestetners manufacturing experience. Harry Gestetner envisions the product could appeal to any of the millions of people already tracking health and sleep stats with smartwatches and other wearables. The company is also about to participate in a formal clinical study, and Gestetner imagines that users will also amass concrete data to confirm the technology improves their sleep. “As people use the product, they should see improvements in their sleep data, which should be pretty undeniable,” he says.
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E-Commerce
Cabinet dealers, interior designers and remodeling contractors in the U.S. hope new tariffs on imported kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities and upholstered wooden furniture that kicked in Tuesday will create more business for them and eventually boost domestic production of those products.But several small business owners in the home improvement industry say they expect some short-term pains from the import taxes: Clients with projects already on the books might balk at having to pay more for the budget-priced cabinets they selected. Potential customers may postpone kitchen and bathroom renovations until costs and the economy seem more stable.“I think the volatility around pricing is damaging to the remodeling industry,” said Allison Harlow, an interior designer in Michigan whose company, Curio Design Studio, creates and builds custom bathrooms and kitchens. “Most people will hear the headline of ‘Kitchen cabinets will go up 50%’ and might just opt out of even reaching out to our company.”Despite high mortgage rates having depressed sales of existing homes in recent years, a forecast of remodeling activity by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies predicts that homeowner spending on improvements and maintenance will remain steady into the middle of 2026. Trump calls cheap imports a national security threat A proclamation that President Donald Trump signed on Sept. 29 cited national security and foreign trade practices as grounds for imposing the tariffs on certain finished wood products and product components.Of them, imported vanities and kitchen cabinets incurred the steepest tax rates: 25% until the end of the year and 50% starting on New Year’s Day.Upholstered chairs, seats and sofas also are subject to a 25% worldwide tariff effective Tuesday, with the rate scheduled to increase to 30% on Jan. 1. In addition, the presidential proclamation put a 10% import tax on softwood timber and lumber, which comes from evergreen trees like pine and cedars.Softwoods often are used to make furniture and in wood frame construction. Canada is the source of about 85% of the softwood lumber the U.S. imports, or nearly one-quarter of the national supply, according to the National Association of Homebuilders.Some U.S. trading partners are receiving more favorable treatment when it comes to the furniture and cabinetry tariffs. The tax on U.K. exports was capped at 10%, while the rate for wood products from the European Union and Japan was capped at 15%.The American Kitchen Cabinet Alliance and other trade and advocacy groups lobbied for tariffs to help offset what they described as a flood of cheap cabinets from countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia, China and elsewhere in the decades since more U.S. furniture manufacturing moved offshore.U.S.-made products tend to cost more but often are of better quality. A higher bottom line for renovators on a budget John Lovallo, an analyst at UBS bank, estimates the tariffs on imported cabinets and vanities could add roughly $280 to the average cost of building a single-family home, not enough to sink a project that often carries an overall price tag more than 1,000 times larger than that.Some business owners say they plan to cover any tariff-related costs for now instead of raising customer prices.John Dean, founder of Dean Cabinetry in Connecticut, sells cabinets that run the gamut from lower-priced imports to custom models made in his shop. Imported products account for about a third of his sales, but Dean said he does not expect much fallout from the tariffs.Two of his vendors that he buys imported cabinets from, in China and Vietnam, said they would raise prices by 10% to recoup some of the duty costs.Dean said he would not charge customers more for now. Since a kitchen remodel is a big ticket item to begin with, and with the costs of building lumber and labor going up, raising cabinet prices might hurt demand, he said.“My personal perspective is most small- and medium-sized businesses are trying to absorb those costs,” he said.The wood product tariffs are likely to have a bigger effect on selection than on prices as importers scale back their orders to focus on bestsellers and products with the highest profit margins, according to Jason Miller, a supply chain management professor at Michigan State University.“It will make importers more selective in the varieties they bring in,” Miller said: “So I think the bigger impact is going to be on the product variety side: Consumers should expect less variety.” What cabinet companies are expecting Although the White House said the tariffs were intended to boost domestic production and protect U.S. businesses from predatory trade practices, some cabinet makers say that will be difficult because their supply chains are multinational.Linq Kitchen, a Los Angeles-area company that designs, builds and installs modern-style kitchen cabinets, uses plywood and melamine panels from Asia and Europe in its projects, co-founder Josh Qian said. A suitable domestic alternative does not exist, he said.“The kitchen cabinet industry is highly globalized, and even U.S.-based manufacturers depend on imported materials, hardware, and finishes,” Qian said. “These tariffs may sound protective, but in reality, they often raise costs across the entire supply chain.”At the same time, cabinet companies that don’t sell foreign products or rely on imported components look forward to capturing more business. One is ACO Denver Custom Cabinetry in Denver, Colorado, which enlists Amish, Mennonite, and New German Baptist shops in the Midwest to handcraft custom cabinets.Andrea Mulkey, the company’s president and co-founder, said her main concern is whether interest in American-made cabinets will grow too quickly.“It’s hard to predict how much new business might come our way as competitors are affected,” Mulkey said. “We simply couldn’t serve everyone if demand suddenly surged. The real challenge is similar to what we saw post-COVID, when everyone got busy at once, and access to raw materials became strained.”The Curio Design Studio has its custom cabinets made in Minnesota and Wisconsin, but Harlow worries about the tariffs costing her customers.“I think it will decrease consumer confidence and create a narrative that the work is going to get inherently more expensive,” Harlow said. “I think we will have to work harder to attract potential clients with messaging of how this blanket statement, ‘Kitchen cabinets will go up 50%,’ does not impact our particular business model.” Mae Anderson, AP Business Writer
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E-Commerce
Fans are continuing to change the tune of how they consume music. It was recently reported that MTV was going to stop broadcasting five channels, including MTV Music, MTV 80s, MTV 90s, Club MTV, and MTV Live in the United Kingdom, and that the channels would go dark the end of this year. (Its flagship channel, MTV HD, will continue to air reality series.) Local news outlets in Australia, Poland, France, and Brazil have also reported that MTV could shut down music channels in those respective countries as wellleaving some to wonder if the United States is next to shutter those channels. Its no secret that MTVs parent company, Paramount Global, has been going through a lot of changes and turbulence, especially after the FCC officially approved the $8.4 billion Paramount-Skydance merger. But even before the merger was finalized, MTV was already undergoing plenty of changes in recent years. In 2023, it was announced that MTV News, the news production arm of MTV in the United States, would shut down in 2023, with the corresponding website officially shuttering last summer. The initial move resulted in Paramount laying off 25% of its staff at the time. The latest decision to cease broadcasting music channels in the U.K. continues to highlight the global shift in how consumers today are discovering and consuming music videos, and other music-related content like news, on social media and platforms like TikTok and YouTube, rather than broadcast TV or traditional media outlets. The rise of MusicTok According to Vevos new Fandom = Cultural Currency report, 44% of fans search for related content on social media. Meanwhile, according to a MIDiA Research Consumer Survey from this year, the top music discovery method for 16-to-24-year-olds is TikTok, followed by YouTube, streaming, and social media. And a joint TikTok and Luminate report that came out earlier this year found that TikTok has been a key driver of music discovery, monetization, and chart success. The same research found that U.S. TikTok users are 74% more likely to discover and share new music on social and short-form video (SFV) platforms than the average user of these platforms. Popular chart-topping artists like Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, and Chappell Roan have all gone viral on TikTok, and have utilized social media as a way to reach their fans. Meanwhile, TikTok has been leaning into its throne as a newly emerged platform for music discovery and consumption through marketing campaigns like See Where Music Takes You, which launched this summer. TikTok has also launched several new features over the past few years to help make discovering music easier for its users, including the Add to Music App feature, which was previously launched in partnership with major music streaming services like Amazon Music and Spotify. The feature allows users to save songs they find on the app to the music streaming platform of their choice. However, despite MTV closing down its music channels in other parts of the worldand fans wondering if the U.S. would be nextThe Wall Street Journal recently reported that newly appointed Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison supposedly has plans up his sleeve to revive and reinvent MTV as a music channel in the U.S. If the news ends up being true, one has to wonder how successful those plans will be, given all the data and headlines pointing to music shifting away from cable TVunless, of course, social media will play a part in promoting the channel. Paramount and MTV did not respond to a request for comment.
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E-Commerce
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