Happiness is the cool side of the pillow, as the twee little saying goes. But, like many cliches, there is a hint of truth there. Occasionally a cool pillow against the cheek is just what you need to escape from the day. The question is, are you willing to pay more than R5,000 for it?

The folks behind the Moona smart pillow, a project currently being Kickstarted, seem to think so. Their backers also seem to have the same idea, considering that the project’s $50,000 target has been surpassed (and more than doubled) with 37 days of funding left to go.

The Moona isn’t really a whole pillow, though. It consists of a memory foam insert that lives inside your pillow case — on top of the pillow. Tubes circulate water between the insert and a station that either heats or cools the water to an optimum temperature. You prefer your pillows set to ‘Midday Sahara’ or ‘Antarctic Ice Cream’? This system can make it happen.

And creators Coline Juin and David Stoikovitch are convinced that the Moona can give you a better night’s sleep. The pillow is apparently able to use a combination of tricks, including machine learning, to send you off to sleep faster (by cooling the pillow) and waking you up fresher (by warming itself up). It also features sleep tracking, via sensors and an app, which will give you metrics on how you good you are in bed. At sleeping, of course.

The $400 retail price (backers can get one for $250/R3,330) is the only sticking point and has us asking whether this is another Juicero. You know, the $700 (R9,300) WiFi-connected juicer that turned out to be less effective than a pair of hands squeezing pre-pulped, bespoke bags of branded fruit and veggie pieces. That didn’t work out too well. We’re hoping that this one works out better at the end of the day.

Source: Moona (Kickstarter)