Hi Rohrgatz,
The Sealy Embody Introspection is no longer available so it may be somewhat of a moot point but to answer your question you would need to compare the introspection to a specific Tempurpedic mattress because outside of PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and Personal preferences), a mattress is only as good as its construction and the quality and durability of the materials inside it regardless of the name of the manufacturer on the label.
There is more about the 3 most important parts of the “value” of a mattress purchase in post #13 here that can help you make more meaningful comparisons between mattresses based on their suitability and PPP, their durability, and all the other parts of your personal value equation that are most important to you.
The first of these is PPP (how well you sleep on a mattress) and is something that only you can answer based on your own testing or personal experience because a mattress that is a perfect “match” for one person may be completely unsuitable for someone else to sleep on.
The second (durability or how long you will sleep well) depends on knowing the type and quality of the materials inside the mattresses you are comparing so you can identify any lower quality materials or potential “weak links” in their design and make more “apples to apples” durability comparisons. This is certainly something that I can help with if the type and quality/density of the materials and components of both of the mattresses you are comparing are known (see this article)
The third (comparing for “value”) depends on #1 and #2 in addition to all the other parts of your personal value equation that are most important to you. Once again this is something that only you can decide because each person can have very different criteria about what they are looking for in a mattress that is important to them.
Polartec traps air and is insulating (which helps to prevent heat loss) but is also very breathable (which helps with moisture transport to carry excess heat and humidity away from the body) so it’s a temperature regulating material not just a material to keep you warm. This would be similar to wool which is used in the arctic (in thicker layers) and in the desert (in thinner layers) to help regulate temperature in both directions. There is more about the many variables that can affect the sleeping temperature of a mattress relative to different people in post #2 here and the posts it links to.
While memory foam tends to sleep warmer than other types of mattresses … each person can be different depending on where they are in the “oven to iceberg” range and their own personal “comfort zone” for temperature. “Most” people are OK with “most” memory foam mattresses in terms of sleeping temperature (depending on the specifics of the mattress design) but there are a higher percentage of people that tend to sleep hot on memory foam than other types of mattresses and materials.
Feel is very subjective so outside of the typical “slow response” and “in the mattress” feel of memory foam in general it would depend on each person’s individual perceptions and you generally won’t find a consensus of opinions about how any mattress “feels” between people.
While there is no way to quantify how long any mattress will last for any particular person, if a mattress is well inside a suitable comfort/support range and isn’t close to the edge of being too soft when it is new and meets the minimum quality specs that are suggested in the guidelines here then it would be reasonable to expect a useful lifetime in the range of 7 - 10 years and with higher quality and more durable materials like latex or higher density memory foam or polyfoam (in the comfort layers especially) it would likely be in the higher end of the range or even longer.
It’s always more realistic to think of about 10 years as a maximum reasonable expectation for any mattress no matter what the quality or durability of the materials and then treat any additional time after that as “bonus time” because after about 10 years the limiting factor in the useful life of a mattress will often be the changing needs and preferences of the person sleeping on the mattress and even if a mattress is still in good condition after a decade … a mattress that was suitable for someone 10 years earlier may not be the best “match” any longer.
Having said that … with higher quality materials throughout a mattress and/or for people whose needs and preferences or physical condition or body type hasn’t changed much over 10 years then “bonus time” or even “extended bonus time” with higher quality/density and more durable materials like latex or higher density memory foam or polyfoam or natural fibers is much more likely than with less durable materials.
As an example … there is a comparison between the Sealy Introspection and the Tempurpedic Bellafina (which is also no longer available) in post #5 here and in the case of this specific comparison I would give the durability edge to the Tempurpedic Bellafina. The Introspection may have also used 1.5 lb polyfoam support core rather than the 1.8 lb I “guessed” at which would reduce it’s durability slightly as well … especially for those that are in higher weight ranges.
Phoenix