Somerville Is Now Home to a Public Sleeping Pod

Sleepbox at Brooklyn Boulders/Photo provided

If subway naps just aren’t cutting it, you’ve now got a new way to snooze in public.

Sleepbox, a startup that installs private, sound-proof luxury sleep pods in public spaces, just unveiled its first United States nap cabin—and, of course, it’s in Somerville.

Rock climbing gym Brooklyn Boulders is now the proud owner of a Sleepbox, offering refuge to athletes who burned out on a bouldering run or got humiliated during parkour class. The demo pod is open and ready for snoozing now, and its use is included in the price of a day pass or membership.

Sleepbox already has about 60 pods—which the startup calls “sleep vending machines”—in international airports, hotels, and offices. The company moved its operations to Boston last year, when cofounder Mikhail Krymov, who runs the company with business partner Alexey Goryainov, began a research fellowship at MIT.

In addition to Brooklyn Boulders, Sleepbox will soon unveil slumber chambers at the gym’s neighbor, co-working space Canopy City; the Cambridge Innovation Center; and the Atlanta airport.

Just think: A few years down the line, you may never have to sleep at home again.