The Bear mattress is advertised as a luxury cooling mattress with a durable life span that promises to keep you cool and sleeping easy for at least ten years – during which time they will repair or replace it should anything go wrong. It is (rather uniquely) aimed at athletes and is FDA approved to promote better and healthier rest.

At first glance this mattress seems to have quite a lot going for it: it has two models, a luxury gel model and a hybrid model that will make it the absolute ultimate mattress choice– if we find that the reviews match up to the hype, that is! For the purposes of this review we will look at the Hybrid model.

Marketed as the perfect balance of cooling, comfort and support; let’s take a closer look at the Bear mattress, and see if we can’t find out whether or not it is the hybrid for you!

The Bear Hybrid luxury cooling mattress comes with the two options straight away: you can order it in luxury or the more basic version. This might seem a small thing but you would be surprised how many brands out there that don’t have any such (more affordable) version. Straight away this one small fact sets the Bear apart from the others.

The Bear mattress provides comfort and support while using a textile mixture that blends cooling materials with memory foam… but is that reflected in the consumers opinions? Apparently so. Customers loved the cooling effect, with many reporting that they have tried other cooling mattresses but found this one to be the best. If you are a hot sleeper it sounds like this is the ideal mattress for you.

Because of the two separate mattress choices the Bear team provide, this leaves less room for customer complaint. From reading the reviews it looks like this mattress provides a good all round mattress in both formats, a major plus for the company and for the customers. On top of the mattress they also offer a range of mattress protectors and pillows, all of which are designed to contour to the shape of the mattress and leave you snug as a bug in a rug.

The Bear mattress is also recommended by and designed with athletes in mind. This is a cooling mattress that will support your pressure points and soothe those aching muscles while you get your mush needed rest. They use patented Cieliant’s FDA approved Infrared Yarn Technology that is soft and plush to the touch and leaves reviewers very happy indeed. The Hybrid model also has a traditional mattress finish, so you don’t feel like you are sinking into the foam.

We give this mattress a 9 out of 10 for comfort and feel.

You might like this mattress if:

• You tend to sleep hot: its cooling layers really will make sleeping less of a chore to you. You will be comfortable and dry all night long with the aid of the copper gel layer within the material.
• You Toss and Turn: the motion isolation technology will stop your movements from waking you up, meaning that you get a good nights sleep.
• You co-sleep with a partner: again, the motion isolation technology will stop their movements from waking you in the night.
• If you are a stomach sleeper: customers said this was the ideal mattress to provide comfort and cooling while sleeping on their stomachs.
• You are a side sleeper; the extra support helps keep your pressure points fully relieved at all times.
• You are an athlete: this brand is specifically designed with you in mind.

You won’t like this mattress if:

• You sleep cold: Some people get hot when they sleep, others get cold. If you’re the “electric blanket” type then stay away from the Bear Hybrid cooling mattress!
• If you suffer from Arthritis: The cold can sometimes aggravate your symptoms. On the other hand, some people find the cool soothing, and if that sounds like you then this mattress might be right, after all.
• If you like to sleep with quilts beneath you: This is a mattress with high breath-ability, which only works if you don’t sleep on top of a pile of bedding. To get the most from this mattress a simple fitted sheet will do.

The Bear mattress comes with Celiant’s Yarn technology and with individually wrapped coils (springs). As you move, the pocketed coils in the lower layers move with you, meaning that you can toss and turn all night long if you want to, and neither you, nor your partner will be kept awake by the motion.

Even consumers were positive on this, and maintain that the contouring of the mattress as you lay on it was both comforting and freeing, providing an altogether different experience to a regular memory foam topped mattress. The majority of customers found this allowing them a thorough sleep as opposed to the wakefulness some had experienced on their old spring mattresses.

Since this is mostly specialized memory foam it is already better than most beds for motion reduction, but they have made the coils pocketed, meaning they have enveloped them in the same cooling and contouring material that the bed is made from, and therefore they respond to the shape of your body without bouncing you about the bed.

We scored the Bear Hybrid cooling mattress a 9 out of 10 for motion reduction.

Delivery of the Bear mattress is absolutely FREE. It usually takes between 8 and 10 working business days from the time you order it until arrival. It will come compressed and vacuum packed into a box and so we recommend that you position the mattress inside the room that you want to keep it in before you open it.

Using scissors or another sharp tool, cut open the box and the plastic, being very careful not to damage the fabric of the bed as you do so. Once done clear away the packaging and watch as your mattress starts to expand!

Your mattress will be fully expanded between 24-36 hours after you open the packaging; but you are able to sleep on it before then.

We give the Bear mattress a 9 out of 10 for delivery and set-up.

We think that off-gassing is a bit of a misleading term because no matter what brand of mattress you buy there will always be some smell to it – similarly to when you first bring home a new sofa or a new carpet. Controversially an organic or a natural mattress will have the most smell to it, even although they are normally perceived to be smell free. Since there is going to be a slight “new mattress” smell no matter which brand you buy; you should always expect it.

This mattress has minimal smell that will be most noticeable when you first open the packaging. After that the smell will begin to fade and, within 24-48 hours after your mattress is set up it ought to vanish completely. This is perfectly normal and, once you place your mattress protector and sheets on the bed, the smell will hardly be noticeable even within that time.

We give the Bear mattress a 9 out of 10 for off-gassing.

Temperature is one of this mattresses special features. With a combination of technologies the top layer of this mattress is super-cool and designed with all you sweaty sleepers in mind. This technology wicks sweat away from the body and provides a breathable layer underneath you as you sleep, leaving you cool and happy all night long.

The Bear uses a specially designed memory foam that reduces the absorption of body heat and makes it around 7 times cooler that a regular foam mattress. They have also put extra thought into how the skin can breathe during the night, and have allowed a super soft quilted finish that lets the air flow underneath you, thereby cooling you as you snooze.

We had no choice but to give this mattress a 10 out of 10 for temperature – but your opinion might vary if you sleep cold already.

As a general rule, the firmer the selection you have gone for, the firmer the edge support around your Bear mattress will be. This bed is a hybrid, meaning that a combination of the pocketed coils and layers of high tech memory foam both combine to provide support from the center out to the very edge of this bed – making it score highly in the edge support category.

Sleepers and reviewers were highly satisfied with the edge support of this mattress, often commenting that, when coupled with the motion reduction technology, they can lie right on the edge of the bed without falling off… an area where both spring and memory foam beds individually tend to have shortcomings. But put them both together and you get something that customers find very effecting indeed.

We scored the Bear mattress an 8.5 out of 10 for edge support.

The Bear mattress is made from a mixture of layered, individually pocketed coils that provide bounce and motion reduction where needed. Their Hybrid mattress sports a firm bottom layer that consists of a high density memory foam that will provide support for the rest of the structure. Their winning feature, however, is the Celiant textile.
Celliant’s FDA Determined Infrared Yarn Technology recycles the body’s natural energy back as infrared (IR) light, increasing local blood flow and tissue oxygenation by eight percent. Not only that but it provides soothing support to aching muscle groups and has been determined as a clinical medical device – meaning that the FDA recognizes how good this mattress is for an individuals health.

The Yarn improves your circulation, helps with your bodies ability to regulate temperature, allows faster recovery time to injured or damaged muscle groups, increases tissue oxygen levels and has proven in trials to reduce the time it takes for you to fall asleep… all of this in one hybrid mattress seems like a very good deal to us!

All of these features combine to make a high quality and durable product that we expect will last you a very long time. We have minor concerns over the product life span of the patented technology, but we also have confidence that it hasn’t fallen apart on anyone yet, so we are maintaining an innocent until proven guilty stance on that point.

We give the Bear mattress a 9.5 out of 10 for materials, but only because they have patented every part of it and we feel that’s a little excessive… besides, they have to lose points somewhere…

Not only to you get free returns and free shipping with the Bear hybrid cooling mattress, but you also get a solid ten year warranty during which time they will replace or repair your product should anything go wrong. On top of this reasonable offer, they also give you the mattress for a risk free 100 night trial, meaning you do not need to pay upfront and you can always send it back, if you are unhappy. However, the only evidence we found of people actually returning this mattress were those who wanted to upgrade from the more affordable gel mattress to the hybrid version.

What we did notice about this warranty and trial is that it is not quite so substantial as other hybrid mattresses of a similar price. 100 nights actually pales in comparison to other brands, some of which are offering full year long trials. There are also brands out there who claim to be supplying equal quality but who will happily give their products a life long guarantee. Upon reflection we think this might be something to do with some of the patented materials that the Bear utilizes to keep you cool as you sleep. Since this is specially designed technology we don’t really know about the life cycle of it, and can only deduce that this is the reason that both trial and warranty are not longer than they are.

We had to give the Bear an 8 out of 10 for trials and warranty; but only because other luxury hybrid brands are offering lifetime warranties and we feel that with such a durable product that warranty could probably be extended at no harm to the manufacturer.

From a customer standpoint the mattress performs very well. Margie R said:

“I’ve been struggling with poor quality sleep for about three years. I tried every remedy I could find from herbal teas to supplements. Nothing helped me get better sleep, that is until I slept on my new Bear mattress. From night one I loved this super comfortable mattress. Beginning night three I noticed that I was getting to sleep faster and staying asleep for hours at a time – a huge feat for me!
I’m so happy I decided to try this mattress. I love it and have recommended it to family and friends. Thanks Bear!

And Sam H says:

“We are so happy with our Bear Mattress. It’s been about 3 months since we purchased and I still have no complaints!!”

Bear also keep a link to the negative reviews of their products on their own website, but negative comments are few and far between and companies who do this earn extra points from us for respect. Either it’s brave or it’s foolish, and it’s always a gamble. Their bad reviews all had a similar thread to them… as Sebastian C so delicately puts it:

“Way too firm”

So that is something to consider when buying this mattress.

We gave the Bear Mattress a 9 out of 10 for customer reviews, it might have been an eight had they not been quite so honest.

While this is advertised as a ‘luxury for less’ mattress; it doesn’t quite match its description. It may well be the very finest of luxury – but other mattresses with the same claims are coming in at a cooler price than this cooling mattress, which has a starting price of $1,350 for their smallest mattress. It’s certainly not a bad price, and it’s definitely worth the three hundred or so extra dollars; but it’s not the best value mattress out there on the market. However, we are one hundred percent aware that this is all a matter of perception, and that to someone who has spent their life being too hot to sleep this is definitely the best value and most affordable mattress out there.

We also took into account that this mattress is primarily aimed at athletes and that, by all accounts, it does as it was intended to do. This product not only keeps you cool but it also uses infrared technology to soothe and aid your muscles while you are resting…and as an athlete, you can’t ask for much more than that. So give it a go, and let us know what you think!

We give the Bear mattress an 8.5 out of 10 for value (but a 10 out of 10 for recommendation!)