Need a New Bed? The 16 Best Mattresses To Buy According to Our Experts
Our team of sleep experts has spent years researching, testing and tearing down more than 300 mattresses. Most of our testing takes place in our 6,000-square-foot mattress warehouse in Reno, Nevada. In addition to the office space where our team works tirelessly to compile mattress data, there are two mock bedrooms where we test and film reviews. The back room also serves as overflow space for the hundreds of mattresses the team has tested.
test mattress This is a very hands-on process that involves analyzing the structure, feel, and rolling on the bed from multiple angles. Our team has a diverse mix of genders, body types, and sleep positions, which allows us to provide a comprehensive view of each bed and provide recommendations for the average person.
Mattress Smasher 9000 tests the Helix Midnight Core model.
Hardness and feel: Firmness and feel are the most subjective factors when testing mattresses. The firmness of a mattress depends on the amount of pressure you exert on the bed (i.e., your weight), which varies from person to person. We often find that our perception of a bed’s firmness doesn’t always match up with what the brand claims. Our sleep team recently developed a way to measure the true firmness of a mattress: a machine called the Mattress Smasher 9000. This proprietary device and corresponding software were developed in-house by our laboratory technicians. It presses into the middle of the mattress and measures its firmness, rating each bed on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the firmest and 1 being the softest. While we also personally tested each bed’s firmness and feel, we used the MS9K’s data to supplement our conclusions.
Here’s the data we got when we tested the best mattresses using the Mattress Smasher 9000. Ranked from softest to hardest, here’s how mattresses score on the firmness scale.
Durability and Construction: We can’t possibly sleep on every mattress we’ve tested over the years to test its durability (although we have Did it for some people). While we note the bed’s construction, we use it to understand how durable and supportive the bed will be over time. The Saatva, for example, received a support score of 10 during testing due to its bulky construction and dual-coil system.
Movement Isolation: When I say motion isolation, I’m referring to the extent to which the bed can suppress movement on the surface. We tested this by having multiple teammates move around and measuring how much movement they could feel. Memory foam tends to perform best in this regard. For example, the Nectar Premier mattress scores well for motion isolation because the memory foam layer is better at dampening motion than an innerspring mattress.
CNET video producer Jon Gomez filmed mattress expert Dillon Payne testing mattress edge support.
Edge support: This may not seem like a big deal, but if you sleep on the edge of your bed, edge support is important. Imagine how solid the perimeter of the bed is. If it collapses when we sit or lie on it, it does not have good edge support and will receive a score corresponding to where it falls in the data.
temperature: Many brands claim that their mattresses have cooling capabilities, but few actually do it. While adding cooling technology or gel-infused foam can help regulate temperature, that doesn’t mean they’re cool to the touch. We carefully evaluate each cooling feature but distinguish between temperature neutral and cooling. For example, the Purple is a naturally breathable bed due to its mesh structure, but we wouldn’t consider it an actively cooling bed.
Read more How we test mattresses.
