A.H. Beard launches the bed of the future with Sydney digital product studio Mentally Friendly
Following its award winning campaign to improve lives through better sleep, digital product studio Mentally Friendly has taken its partnership with leading Australian bed manufacturer A.H. Beard a step further. The Sydney independent has developed a sleep tracking smartphone app to accompany and control A.H. Beard’s latest innovation, the adaptable, future-proof bed, Sleepsense.
While the average lifespan of a mattress is 10 years, the needs of users can alter over that time but your bed and mattress is static and unresponsive, until now.
In an Australian first, Mentally Friendly has created the app to accompany the Sleepsense bed, which includes an articulated base, a mattress which can be inflated or deflated with air based on the level of firmness required and inbuilt sleep tracking technology which calculates the quality of your sleep. The entire 
sleep system can be personalised for each side of the bed and is all controlled via bluetooth to the iOS or Android app.
Says Nick Gower, co-founder and product director at Mentally Friendly: “While there’s been innovation in many of the products we use in our daily lives, making them more responsive to our needs, the bed and mattress have not been one of them. Sleepsense is the answer to that need and combines customer centric design and technology to meet the changing demands of users.
“Through the app, users can control every aspect of the bed and mattress as well as monitoring the quality of their sleep which is the first time all three elements have been brought together in one easy to use interface.”
Mentally Friendly has been working with A.H. Beard since 2011 and developed the Sleepsense app following its highly successful 6 Week Sleep Challenge, based on a strategy that people’s sleep could be improved by simple changes to their habits. In addition to winning awards, 56,000 participants have reported an average of 44% increase in the quality of their sleep.
Says Paul Longman, CEO, A.H. Beard: “Mentally Friendly have been with us on our journey to bring our promise to improve lives through better sleep: to life beyond just our physical mattresses. We don’t consider their team as suppliers, they are an extension of our team. Our five year working relationship is a testament to this.”
The independent studio started design and creation of the Sleepsense app eight months ago. Throughout the process, Mentally Friendly worked closely with A.H. Beard’s in house product development team and sleep doctor to develop the product which is now available exclusively at Harvey Norman and Domain stores.
Founded in Sydney 10 years ago, Mentally Friendly, which also has an office in London, works with clients including Coles, Schwarzkopf, The British Museum and WIRED to marry its strategic consultants and multidisciplinary product teams to uncover new business opportunities for businesses and brands by creating new digital products.