Advice

Discussions General Mattresses Questions
1

I am a brand new member. Been pouring over the site and forums for a few days. Really a lot of information overload.
What I cannot find are suggestions for specific brand/bed given criteria. I suppose since there are many many combinations of criteria, it would be hard to write out an article on that.

With that said, i would appreciate if I can get suggestions based on my specific needs:
Background: I sleep on a 10 year old coil mattress. My future wife sleeps on a tempurpedic cloud mattress.
We need to decide on a new bed. We live in the San Francisco Bay Area. I am a combination sleeper (side or back). My future wife is dominant side sleeper with little of back.

Our needs are:

  • King Size - Not an issue. all beds should be able to be bought in king size
  • Movement Isolation - I move a lot during my sleep. I need a bed that can isolate that movement to my area only.
  • Cooling - My body generates a lot of heat. (i guess most men are like that). I need a bed that helps cool the bed so it doesnt affect my wife.
  • Low to No off-gassing - I heard that off-gasing from beds can cause bodily hard. I do not see concrete evidence yet. So this is just a preference.
  • natural/good for environment - yet another attribute that makes me feel better that i am doing less harm to the earth.
  • price range - $1-$4000.

We are leaning towards Essentia Energie Opus. I read the threads how they not transparent with their product and they do flat out lie about somethings. I went and tried their beds in person. They felt good so i know it is an option for us. If someone can provide options that are better, i am all ears. I definitely do not want SleepNumber. I think the concept of changing the firmness of a bed to be weird. I ruled out Tempurpedic because the ones with the “breeze” feature costs 4k. If that is the case i rather go with Essentia even given their negative points.

I hope i provided enough info for an assessment.

Thank you for reading this =D

2

Hi mattress_n00b,

It’s not so much that it would be too hard but it would be ineffective. A mattress is only as good as the quality of it’s construction and the materials it contains and “brand” shopping is one of the worst ways to buy a mattress.

In general there are two “brand groups” that are frequently mentioned on the site.

One of these are “major brands” and I generally recommend avoiding them because they tend to use lower quality materials in every price point or worse yet don’t even disclose what is in their mattresses.

the other group of “brands” I mention is what is commonly called “off brands”. These are typically smaller independent or local manufacturers that are sold either factory direct or through better sleep shops. While not all of these are great … as a group they will have the best quality and value available and if you focus on materials in the mattress then it is much easier to recognize good quality and value.

There are a series of steps listed in post #1 here which along with the information it links to will greatly increase your odds of finding the best quality and value mattress and most importantly finding a mattress that is suitable for your unique needs and preferences.

Focusing on materials and better, more knowledgeable and better value sources will lead to much better choices than focusing on brands.

There is no formula that can take weight, body type, or sleeping position specs and “translate” them into the best possible mattress for you without at least some personal testing that can give you some reference points but there are some guidelines that are in the overviews (linked in the post I mentioned) which can give you some general information that will help you ask better questions and be in a better position to ignore the marketing information you will be exposed to and know when someone really has more knowledge and experience about what makes a better quality mattress and how to choose the one that is best for you.

A local purchase where you can personally test a mattress for PPP (Pressure relief, Posture and alignment, and Personal preferences) is the most accurate way to make sure a mattress is suitable for you.

You can read more about Essentia in this thread and more in this thread which would probably be enough for most people to pass them by. As you mentioned their marketing is questionable at best and their value is not great IMO.

There are some great choices in the San Francisco Bay area and you will find them listed in post #2 here with the knowledge and experience to give you some very good guidance in terms of the type of mattress that you would need and prefer and that have much better value than the mattresses you mentioned.

Hope this helps but if you have questions along the way feel free to post them here.

Phoenix

3

I just read this.

Got dizzy, have to go to bed.