From Camera Phones to Smart Beds: The Cosmic Journey of Philippe Kahn

If you think about it, sleep is the great cosmic reset button. Every night, our minds drift into a realm as mysterious as a black hole’s event horizon. For centuries, we’ve charted the movements of galaxies more accurately than we’ve understood what happens inside our own sleeping brains. But from a small corner of Santa Cruz, Philippe Kahn—a name already etched into the annals of tech history—is changing that.

Kahn, the inventor who gave the world the first camera phone, has turned his restless curiosity toward the last frontier that every human visits daily: the landscape of sleep. His company, Fullpower-AI, just made two announcements that, in space-science terms, are like landing two probes on Mars in the same week.

Tempur Sealy

The first: a landmark 10-year global licensing agreement with Tempur Sealy International, the giant behind Tempur-Pedic. Not just a handshake deal—this comes with a $25 million Series C investment, giving Fullpower-AI a valuation of $160 million. For context, that’s not just a mattress company signing a tech contract; it’s the equivalent of NASA installing the Hubble Telescope in every backyard. Fullpower’s KOA Sleeptracker-AI platform is already embedded in more than 300,000 Tempur-Pedic smartbeds, silently collecting data on breathing, heart rate, sleep cycles—like a telescope aimed inward at the galaxy of your own physiology.

Somnigroup

The second: Somnigroup, Fullpower-AI’s parent company, is staking its claim on “Sleep AI” as a growth engine for the entire wellness industry. This isn’t about a nifty feature for luxury bedding. It’s about building an ecosystem where AI-powered sleep insights become the new standard for health optimization—similar to how GPS went from guiding spacecraft to guiding pizza delivery.

At the heart of KOA is what Fullpower calls a Large Action Model (LAM). If you’ve heard of Large Language Models decoding human text, think of LAM as decoding human rest. It’s not invasive. No straps, no wires. Just sensors in your mattress, informed by a portfolio of patents and validated by Stanford Medicine and UCSF. Over time, the AI learns patterns—your patterns—and can offer coaching and analysis as personal as your fingerprint.

The cosmic analogy? If astronomy is about mapping the stars to navigate the seas, sleep AI is about mapping the night to navigate our days. A poor night’s sleep is like space junk in orbit—it builds up, degrades systems, and makes the mission harder. A great night’s sleep is like a gravity assist—slingshotting you toward peak performance.

Philippe Kahn has always been a little like an astronaut: venturing into uncharted realms with tools he often designs himself. The camera phone let us share our visual universe in real time. Now, his mission is to illuminate the eight hours we spend adrift each night, and in doing so, transform not just our health, but our potential.

From Santa Cruz to bedrooms across the globe, the message is clear: in the future, your bed won’t just hold you. It will know you. And that could be as revolutionary for humanity as seeing our pale blue dot from space for the first time.