Tuft & Needle Original Firm Queen Size Adaptive Foam Mattress in a Box, Cooling Gel, Pressure Relief, Supportive, 100 Night Trial, Fiberglass-Free, CertiPUR-US, 10-Year Limited Warranty

(UPDATE SIX MONTHS LATER: I still have this mattress, but it has gotten substantially softer. It required a T&N topper for the first few weeks as it softened up, but somewhere around 150 nights in, I noticed it was heading toward plush status--not quite as supportive as it once was. Also, I wrote this review while the temperatures were colder. Now that it's summer, I do note that this mattress is warmer than my previous innerspring mattresses. But, for the money, it's still a good mattress. It's just not as ideal as I hoped.)About a year ago, I asked my friends on social media for mattress recommendations. The leading recommendation was for the Tuft and Needle mattress, which I should have heeded. Nearly a year and eight mattresses later, I finally bought that Tuft & Needle. It's #9 and I love it. I love it even more because it was by FAR the cheapest option, too. But at the time I was skeptical of a bed-in-a-box. I shouldn't have been. It fit my requirement to have good support with a comfort layer on top. And for the record, I sleep in all positions. Apparently I’m a rotisserie chicken, going from side to stomach to back all night. That makes me a tough customer to please and I know it.But for anyone else doing mattress research, here's what I've learned from my year of testing. First, I received excellent service from both internet and traditional mattress companies. I tried three mattresses from Saatva Mattress, three Beautyrest mattresses from Mattress Firm, and a brand-new variation of the Purple mattress that's exclusive to Mattress Firm. I started the year on my old Sleep Number. So I have run the gamut of air, foam, innerspring, hybrid foam/innerspring and the new hybrid from Purple, which I guess would be called a Purple/innerspring variation, but "bouncy house" would be equally as descriptive. My asthma is triggered by chemicals in foam, so I made sure all the mattresses I bought were Certi-Pur. (This, sadly, is the only complaint I have about my Tuft & Needle -- though it claims to have more rigorous standards about foam and off-gassing, it's been the smelliest. It's faint but it's there even weeks later. But it has not made me wheeze, so I'm trusting I'm not being harmed.)The first thing I learned is that mattress companies really DO honor their customer service policies. In fact, Mattress Firm was actually the best about it. In all cases, I received excellent service when I wanted to exchange. Second, I had been sleeping on air for nearly a decade and that made it hard to figure out what would work for me. I loved the lack of pressure points on a Sleep Number, but not the lack of support. My first mattress was an all foam from Saatva (the Loom & Leaf) and it was hard as a rock (to me). They explained that foam would soften and that I should crawl around on it to soften it up. It did soften up after a week, but not enough for my taste. It also smelled vaguely like stale coffee, which never dissipated. So thus, the exchanges began. I was very pleased with Saatva's design, the fact they delivered a full mattress and not one in a box, and their use of organic cotton. But their mattresses missed the middle firmness range -- most were very firm and one was very plush (the industry term for soft). If they could have nailed that medium range, I would have been happy to stay with them.As mentioned above, I circled through several mattress designs before coming back to all foam again with the Tuft & Needle. But it was significantly less firm out of the box than the Loom & Leaf. Its adaptive foam is much more of a medium firmness from the start. But it got even more comfortable when Tuft & Needle sent a two-inch topper. For free. (Pro tip: The Internet mattress companies I dealt with were happy to send a topper for free if you requested it. I now have two.) I don't know how long a mattress like this will hold up, but at a $575 price point from Amazon, it's half the cost of a Saatva mattress and a quarter of the price of most of the Beautyrest mattresses. So I'm willing to gamble.I know that comfort is largely subjective, but my Fitbit Alta has the hard data to back up my love of the Tuft & Needle. I cut my tossing and turning time in half with their mattress and topper. Bottom line: All the mattress companies I dealt with provided a great service and backed up their exchange promises, even going above and beyond. Tuft & Needle was the best value for the money and the most comfortable to sleep on. It was also the most work to haul a heavy box up to my bedroom and set up the mattress, which is the reason I avoided it in the beginning. But in the end, that effort was worth it.Tuft & Needle, if you are reading this review, please consider manufacturing a mattress with four inches of your adaptive foam on top of your support layer, instead of just two inches. I'm very glad to have your free topper, but it makes the bed look lumpy and it doesn't stay in place. From all the reviews I've read, the topper was key to customer satisfaction for many people. You should seriously consider this option. I would have chosen that and paid a bit more for it, too, had it been available.

NOTE: This review was written by my husband Thomas MacEnteeSleep Wanted: Why I Chose the Tuft & Needle MattressSo you may be wondering . . . what does sleep and a new mattress have to do with genealogy? Well, let me tell you, this genealogist has suffered through years of sleep deprivation and issues due to various causes. Over the past few years I’ve worked on tackling many of these causes (such as losing over 110 lbs) and recently in June 2017, I tackled another: getting a better mattress. I had heard friends and family talk about different online mattress vendors and I didn’t believe that making a major bedding purchase this way would work. But it did and I opted to get a Tuft & Needle mattress via Amazon. Here’s my experience:Death to the Mattress StoreI HATE shopping for a mattress and as I get older, I just hate shopping in-person. Period. [Insert “cranky old man, get off my front lawn” comment]. My husband George and I purchase almost everything we need on Amazon (cereal, tea, coffee, shampoo, and clothing). We get so many deliveries from Amazon via UPS that one week when we had nothing delivered the UPS man did a “wellness check” on us. For realz.Mattress stores seem to spawn overnight on every street corner here in Chicago. To me, they are just one step above used car lots. The process of making a purchase is a nightmare and I’ve always felt “dirty” just walking in the showroom.And what about those prices and so-called “deals” you see in the paper or during television commercials? It seems that the model in the ad is never available or that each store seems to have its own special model of a known mattress brand so it isn’t easy to compare.And finally, one of the shady practices is not accepting returns very easily. If you read the contract that a mattress store has you sign, there are many hoops you need to jump through: you have to have a certain type of frame and forget it if you try to just get the mattress and use your own box spring. The mattress stores have set themselves up to never fail at the expense of the consumer.A Better Mattress Buying ProcessOver the past few years, one of the industries that have gone through major “disruption” is the mattress industry. I was very hesitant when I started seeing ads online for basically “mail order” bedding. And we’re not talking a process where you buy a mattress at say Costco and then have it delivered with “white glove service” at an extra charge. We are talking ordering a mattress – sight unseen – on Amazon and having it delivered via UPS or Fedex.Could this really work? What if I didn’t like the mattress? Why didn’t I need a box spring? Would the mattress work with my current bed frame? I had lots of questions and I was able to get all the answers I needed at Tuft & Needle.Well, imagine ordering the mattress you want, having it delivered for FREE (thanks to Amazon Prime) in just two days, and getting a great night’s sleep within another two days?Here’s How My Tuft & Needle Experience UnfoldedIt literally unfolded. The package with my Tuft & Needle Full mattress was delivered via Fedex to my doorstep and it weighed 57 pounds. After I dragged it up two flights of stairs, it was removed from the packaging. I followed the instructions to let the mattress “come alive” once the vacuum package was opened. The recommendation is to wait 48 hours before using the Tuft & Needle mattress so that it can fully come into its own form. After that, it was easily to lift and place into my new bed frame/foundation.And My Sleep Results with Tuft & Needle?I couldn’t be happier with this amazing mattress. It is firm in all the right places. It is comfortable and fully supportive. While I know it won’t cure my arthritis, I am not in as much pain when I get out of bed each morning. And no more “coil noise” with this memory foam mattress.I’m now looking at purchasing another Tuft & Needle mattress for the other bedroom and even for the condo in Palm Springs.Recommendation: Zinus SmartBase Mattress FoundationAs part of the ordering process via Amazon, I determined that my current bed frame – while it would have accommodated my new Tuft & Needle mattress, was too low to the ground. Without a conventional bed spring I would have had difficulty getting out of bed (due to severe osteo-arthritis). I shopped around at Amazon and I purchased the Zinus SmartBase Mattress Foundation for $79 and had it also delivered for free via Amazon Prime.The frame was so easy to set up (it folds – nothing to screw together!) and it sits 14 inches off the ground. This means I get to store more crap under the bed! It is the perfect companion to the Tuft & Needle mattress and I highly recommend making this purchase along with the mattress.Why I am Impressed with Tuft & NeedleI’m very impressed with Tuft & Needle as a company and with their product. And check out this recent review at Consumer Reports. This was the first mention of Tuft & Needle when I was researching online and the information led me to do some more research and ultimately make my Tuft & Needle purchase via Amazon.Other things that impressed me about Tuft & Needle:Returns were easy and guaranteed via Amazon for the first 100 nights’ sleep.The company has ethics and provides great customer service: one woman recounted via an Amazon review how she needed more time to test the mattress (she and her husband traveled a lot) and ultimately they were not happy with it. Tuft & Needle said, “no problem” and had the woman donate the mattress to the local Salvation Army. Once she sent Tuft & Needle the receipt for the donation, she got a full refund. Now how’s that for customer service?All Tuft & Needle products are made in the United StatesThey even offer an 18% discount at Amazon if you feel comfortable purchasing returned Tuft & Needle mattresses. Click here for more information.ConclusionFor someone in the late Baby Boomer generation (born in 1962), I tend to be torn between traditional methods of doing something and taking a chance on a new process. I’m glad I was willing to try out the Tuft & Needle mattress on Amazon and I will NEVER go back to purchasing a mattress through a furniture store or one of those horrid mattress stores.Now if there were only an online solution to getting rid of an old mattress and box spring. Perhaps the folks at Tuft & Needle can come up with a solution?