The former encounter with cheap models from dodgy websites traumatized me so many successful ones were tarred with the same brush: spongy, overheating and limiting. Bad foam mattress I’m still trying to forget the feeling of sinking into quicksand and it took a fair amount of effort to push myself out. Rock scrambling gear will help.
Foam just isn’t enough, I thought. They need support from sources to keep everything upright and supported. Now sleeping on the Combat bed, I can see how wrong I was.
Tempur has been making mattresses since the early 90s, using technology originally designed by NASA for space travel and developed to make TEMPUR Material trademark, a type of memory foam like no other.
This material is viscoelastic, meaning it feels fluid and spring-like. The exact formula is closely guarded by 10 people, all working in the company. It’s up there with Coca-Cola or KFC recipes. Online, you will find four types of beds in TEMPUR, three in the SmartCool family.
Memory foam that stays in the wind – especially in the summer? This I have to try myself.
TEMPUR Pro Luxe Smartcool Key Specifications
- Weight: for king size 50.16kg
- Layer: four
- size: king size 150x200cm
- Finance available?: yes, 0 percent interest through Novuna Personal Finance.
- Free trial?: yes, 100 nights
- Warranty includes?: yes, 10 years
- Delivery cost: nada, it’s free for your room.
- Collection of old mattresses: sadly not offered. You should sell, donate or dispose of your old bed yourself.
- Available sizes: single, double, king and super king.
- Available voltages: soft, medium, medium-firm and firm.
Combat
It takes just over a week for the mattress to arrive (the company says it takes sixty hours to make one mattress and is quality tested 67 times before it goes anywhere), being ‘inflated’ unlike the vacuum bed-in-a-box brands. squeeze the mattress into an easy-to-move box. Wrapped in protective plastic, the delivery guys were sending 50+kg onto the bed frame as I stood nearby trying to look helpful. From ringing the doorbell to leaving, it was done in less than 10 minutes.
Slipping the plastic from the mattress is the ‘hardest’ part, but as heavy as it is, I can still lift each corner to pull the protective sleeve without help.
COMBAT
At 30cm high, the TEMPUR Pro Luxe Smartcool is a fantastic mattress. The removable white QuickRefresh top, stitched in a beautiful wave pattern, feels cool to the touch, sweat-wicking and can be opened for washing when the time comes.
Underneath the lid is a layer of TEMPUR Material, a highly sensitive open cell network that responds nightly. From the top, there is 5cm of TEMPUR Advanced Material that reduces pressure, 10cm of dynamic support technology foam, a 7.5cm layer of the trademark TEMPUR DureBase Technology and increasing the back, another 7.5cm layer of DureBase, all of which can provide unparalleled support.
What does all this mean? If you’re a sleeper, like me, every position feels comfortable.
From sitting up in bed reading (well, curling up) to laying flat in the light off, I can almost feel the cells in the mattress supporting my weight change.
Instead of sinking and feeling wedged or trapped, I was surprised how held high I felt. This may be because I chose a medium-firm tension level (there are three others to pick from). The first night I slept in bed – also coincidentally as the heatwave gripped London – I could practically feel my spine unfurling back into the right position after a long day tapping away at the desk. The support you feel from laying on this bed is second to none, from edge to edge. Less aches, pains and cramps in the morning prove it.
Combat
The higher temperatures also allowed me to see how well this Smartcool mattress would fare, as regular memory foam is notoriously heat resistant. By morning it was warm, but not more than the previous bed, hybrid design. Since the temperature has cooled, I wake up every morning without a sweat and feeling refreshed. As for the surface, it returns to its original shape almost instantaneously.
TEMPUR material claims to absorb movement very efficiently. To check, I put a glass at the foot of the bed and sat very close to the head. The water inside was barely moving. Besides enjoying bed picnics, this means that if you’re with a partner who works oddly or moves around a lot, you won’t disturb each other while you sleep.
Combat
The lid can be opened and thrown into the washing machine at a temperature of 40 °. Vacuuming the surface every now and then helps keep the bed fresh. Other than that, nothing else. The mattress does not require flipping or rolling.
The terms are just a frame. Set this mattress on the bed frame up (with legs, feet or castors) with slats so that air can circulate without obstacles around.