The Bespoke Mattress of the Future Is Here (And It's Really Damn Cozy)

Make some room, Casper. A next-gen mattress startup—believe us, we never thought we'd write that either—wants to bring comfort to a whole new level.
The Bespoke Mattress of the Future Is Here

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It was only a few years ago that buying a mattress was a tedious, soul-sucking affair. Think about it. The mattress store—[cough] Sleepy's [cough]—is the perfect storm of terrible shopping experiences: the decision is important, the product is expensive, and your only method of selection is pretending to awkwardly sleep for 30 seconds at 4 p.m. while a pushy salesperson tries to explain the ”cheap” mattress you’re eyeing will most definitely kill you.

In just a few years, though, I've (accidentally) gone through a fair amount of mattresses. First, there was my pillow-top from Nebraska Furniture Mart. (The pillow-top concept was better in theory than in reality.) Then, I moved to the factory-direct world, picking up the highly-reviewed DreamFoam memory foam mattress on Amazon. (Luxurious, but about a year later I sold it; memory foam slept too hot.) And lastly, I tried a Casper after being wooed by their pretty subway ads. It, too, was nice, but one-kind-fits-all didn't end up working for a fidgety sleep weirdo like myself. (It was too firm.)

I knew all the things I wanted in a bed, but I didn't quite know how to make them all happen. If I got something softer, would it have less support? What was making some of my beds hot, and others not? How do all these elements change if I sleep on my stomach, side, or back?

And then I found a note in my inbox one day from Helix Sleep, a startup that describes itself as full of ”passionate people who get ridiculously excited about mattresses.” (Who knew?) I was skeptical, but curious. Helix's whole M.O. is built around customization—even if I didn't know exactly what that would mean. A few emails with the company later, and I was ready to give it a shot.

Dorothy Hong Photography

To make your custom bed, Helix uses a quiz to match you with the other results and sleep data in their database. I first punched in my height, weight, and age. Then, I answered a few sleep-related questions that I actually knew the answer to, like whether my last bed was too firm or whether I snored and whether I woke up on my stomach, side, or back. For couples with different mattress preferences—every couple—the Helix’s ability to make two custom halves (or blend your results, if you're unwilling to give up the left side of the bed) is a worthy feature upgrade on its own. (Bonus! You get 100 days to try it out. Score.)

After that, the algorithm popped out a nifty little matrix explaining what four layers of space-age materials they would use to make my custom bed. About 10 days later, there it was, a mattress at my door. At first, I was a little apprehensive—I had just taken what was basically a BuzzFeed quiz to select a mattress, after all—but after that first night? I was sold.

After a few weeks, I noticed that I had been sleeping noticeably better, and often falling asleep more quickly than ever. It had the right feel, I didn't get hot, and five hours of sleep on this mattress felt like seven. Most importantly, I didn't have to outline my mattress dreams to a human who looked at me while I rolled around in front of a bunch of other shoppers.

A few caveats: Though it's more affordable than your typical Stearns & Foster luxury mattress, it's still a bit on the pricey side. A queen will run you about $900. But if you're willing to sacrifice the embarrassing in-person mattress test (and many, understandably, aren't) and pay a little more than the offerings of the many new online-only mattress companies, the Helix is a no-compromise approach to the perfect bed. Giving this thing back is gonna be hard. I just wish I hadn't wasted all my new extra energy trying to find the perfect sheets and pillow.