Today we’re gonna be reviewing the Bear Hybrid mattress – the best edge support mattress.
Bear is a very popular brand and this is their luxury hybrid follow-up to their original foam mattress.
One of the first things people want to know about a mattress is just how soft it is and in the case of the Bear Hybrid we classify it as a medium on our softness spectrum.
The original Bear all foam mattress is classified as a medium firm, meaning just to the firmer side of medium. But these two mattresses are maybe even a little closer than that would suggest, because the Bear Hybrid is probably towards the firmer side of our medium bucket.
While we’re putting them into different classifications, I just want to make clear that the difference in softness between these two is pretty subtle.
Let’s get into what’s actually in a Bear Hybrid mattress.
Table of Contents
Review of The Best Edge Support Mattress – Bear Hybrid
Construction
What we’re talking about here is a 14 inch mattress with six layers.
- Hand-Quilted Celliant Fiber Top
- Hypersoft Cooling-gel Foam
- Premium Comfort Foam
- Responsive Transition Foam
- Quantum Edge Coil System
- High-Density Support Foam
I think the story has to start with the cover of this mattress because the cover contains a textile called celliant. It was recently approved or designated by the FDA as a medical device or general wellness product, which I consider to be a pretty big deal.
Essentially what it means is that they found some things in their testing of this material and the FDA has reviewed the claims they’ve made on the basis of that testing and decided that they approve of those claims being made.
What are those claims specifically about what effects celliant has?
It’s been found to increase local blood flow at the point of application, meaning where you’re touching it. It has the potential to promote more restful sleep because of the fact that you are increasing blood flow and you’re improving muscle recovery through the night by being in contact with this material.
The cover is well-constructed with some sturdy side panel. The cover itself has some quilting, about two inches of quilting, which is pretty soft quilted foam. It’s actually a gel foam in there. They call it hyper soft and I would agree, it definitely has some typical quilt foam softness to it, but it’s not memory foam.
However below that you have a two-inch layer of something that is memory foam. It’s gel memory foam and a three and a half pound density.
It is very fast responding memory foam. It’s not that super slow responding stuff that you see in some other mattresses.
Right below that you have effectively a 10 inch of Quantum Edge Coil System. What you see are actually edge support coils. These are narrower or skinnier diameter coils than what you have throughout most of the mattress.
You have a couple of rows of these that are stronger, sturdier, skinnier coils designed to give the mattress a nice strong edge with great edge support.
That’s pretty much the insides and construction of the Bear Hybrid mattress.
Back Support and Pressure Relief
Let’s get into the two things that everybody has to get from their mattress, which are back support and pressure relief.
I’m going to start on my back because that’s the position I predominantly sleep in. I’m pretty well suited for this mattress on my back. Your object here is to keep your spine in the neutral alignment while you’re sleeping, which on your back means that you have to have that lumbar curve in its normal neutral shape.
I’m definitely getting some good support in my lumbar, my hips are also allowed to sink in a little bit just enough, but not too much. All of this is relatively unsurprising, given this is a medium level of softness. It’s generally going to be a very good fit for back sleepers, particularly in a middle weight range.
I would say this is gonna be a pretty good fit from a spinal alignment standpoint for most back sleepers,
including lighter people and also people who are even significantly heavier.
Let’s go to stomach sleepers. I don’t spend a whole lot of time on my stomach, but I do feel like I was getting good spinal alignment on my stomach. I was worried just because of the quilting that there might be too much overarching but I did not experience that.
I was felt well supported on my stomach. I do think that anyone lighter than me (I’m about 200 pounds) would feel likewise.
I have any concern about stomach sleepers it might be people heavier than me. Someone significantly heavier could experience some overarching.
Let’s move to my side and this is the position where you’re gonna have to think about not only back support but also pressure relief because your body’s weight is distributed over the small surface area.
This is an area where the mattress surprised me. I expected the pressure relief to be okay and it turned out to be much better than okay.
I don’t know if it was better because the foams just did a better job then I thought they would or perhaps it has something to do with this celliant cover, which is increasing blood flow. That should counteract pressure points because they restrict blood flow.
One way or another, I did feel the pressure relief was very good. I think it would be pretty much good for both lighter sleepers and heavier sleepers.
From a spinal alignment standpoint, my shoulders are able to get pretty nicely into the mattress, so overall I felt pretty well served from a spinal alignment standpoint.
Overall I think this is designed to serve a pretty broad range of sleepers from both pressure relief and spinal alignment standpoint.
Preference Based Characteristics
Now let’s get into what we call preference based characteristics, which means things that are neither better nor worse. They’re just a matter of your personal preferences.
The first of these we call responsiveness, which is the difference between that slow melty memory feel or a quick responding bounce.
You could have both of those things in the same mattress as is the case to a degree with the Bear Hybrid.
Memory Feel
We’ll test the memory feel first.
There is just a little bit of that delayed memory effect, which is coming from that two inches of gel memory foam. But because that memory foam is so quick responding, it’s just a very slight effect.
What I can tell you is that when you’re laying on the mattress, you’re not getting a lot of that slow melty, kind of classic memory sensation on this mattress.
Bounce
Let’s move over now to the bounce.
We start usually at the surface by poking and prodding at the surface a little bit. There’s not a lot of bounce up in this quilt layer, especially since when you get through the quilt layer you end up in that shock absorbing memory foam layer.
Let’s now test what we call mid level bounce which we test with a 16 pound bowling ball. Some of the force of the bowling balls was being absorbed by the memory foam. But because right below are all those springs, it is bouncing up as a result of that.
The deep bounce test showed that there is a decent amount of deep bounce. It pushes my whole 200 pounds back up. The deeper you go into the mattress, the more bounce you find.
Overall I’d classify this as just a hint of memory feel with a reasonable amount of bounce.
Cushioning Depth
The next preference based characteristic is cushioning depth, which is the difference between sleeping more in your mattress or being hugged or cradled by it versus sleeping on your mattress or getting that floating above your mattress sensation.
In the case of the Bear Hybrid, we would say this is a mattress with a pretty average amount of cushioning depth.
On balance, we will put the feel of it to be pretty much in between that cradled hug sensation and that floating on top of it sensation.
You get a little bit of both of those but not clearly towards one end or the other of that spectrum.
Priority-based Characteristics
Now we’re going into what we call priority-based characteristics, which are things that can be better or worse, but may or may not be a priority for you personally.
Motion Isolation
The first of these is motion isolation, which means to what degree is the person on one side of the mattress is going to be affected by what’s happening on the other side.
The first way we’re going to test that is by dropping the 16-pound bowling ball and seeing what happens to a bowling pin. We found that the bowling pin just moves a little bit but not very much.
I’m gonna also test it by putting my whole 200 pounds down on the mattress, kind of just carelessly get into bed next to my partner. The bowling pin does not tip over.
We would say that the pocketed coil construction of this mattress is doing its job and isolating motion pretty well. We would say this is a very good motion isolation.
One concern that some people have is the ease of repositioning on a mattress and that’s a particular concern when a mattress has memory foam in it like this one does.
We want to point out that this is probably not going to be an issue for you on the Bear Hybrid. We didn’t find repositioning to be challenge at all and I think that’s because of the fact that the memory foam in this mattress is very quick responding.
Edge Support
One important concern for some people is edge support. In the case of the Bear Hybrid, this is certainly a strength of this mattress.
When I’m sitting on the edge, my feet are barely even touching the ground, so it’s bearing almost all of my weight and yet still barely any dip on the side of the mattress as I sit on it. When I’m laying on the edge, it’s also excellent. I feel a hundred percent stable in this position.
Overall edge support is excellent in this mattress.
Temperature
One important concern for many people is temperature or overheating during the night and that can be a particular concern on a mattress that has memory foam in it like this one does.
What we would say on this front as relates to the Bear Hybrid is that first of all, it does have gel memory foam, and gel is a conductor so it does help heat travel a little bit more efficiently away from your body during the night.
This mattress doesn’t really fit the profile of the type of mattress that’s likely to cause heat related issues.
First and foremost, it’s a spring mattress and in fact uses edge-to-edge springs, as opposed to a foam perimeter, which can impede air flow. There’s room for a lot of air to be flowing easily into and out of this mattress on all four sides-
The second thing is that on the top surface of the mattress, where it’s touching your body, this is a quilted cover with a lot of undulations and one of the benefits of that from the standpoint of temperature is that less of your body’s surface area is touching the mattress at any given time, which means that more of your body surface area is exposed to the air and thereby able to more efficiently dispel heat.
In other words, even though this mattress has memory foam in, it’s not the kind of mattress that’s going to hug and conform super closely to your body, which is the kind that you are more likely to have heat related issues.
Materials Used
Another important consideration for some people is the degree of natural materials in the mattress or maybe just the lack of harmful chemicals.
In the case of the Bear Hybrid, this is not in any way a natural mattress per se. That being said, if this is an area of concern for you, I do think there are a couple things you can take some comfort from.
Starting with the fact that as a hybrid mattress that uses springs, for not only the underlying support, but also the edge support, it uses a lot less foam than an all foam mattress. That’s good from an off-gassing, chemical perspectives. Springs have no potential for off-gassing.
The second thing would be that all the foams in this mattress are certified to the CertiPUR standard, which is a standard that looks for the presence of off-gassing of various harmful materials and certifies that neither are present beyond some minimally acceptable threshold.
For those people who have a concern in this area I do think you can take some reassurance from those two things.
Adjustable Base Compatibility
One thing we get asked about more and more is adjustable base compatibility.
When we think about this, we always think about it from three stand points.
The first is, is it going to damage the mattress in any way. And in the case of the Bear Hybrid, the answer is no. It’s made to be bent and flexed in this manner, so you shouldn’t have problems from a damage standpoint.
The second thing is how well does it conform to the curves of an adjustable base. To test that, we’ve got it in a fully articulated position and it does very well overall. All mattresses are going to take a little time to break in this regard.
The third category of things we think about with adjustable base compatibility is does anything weird happen when you have it in the fully articulated position. One thing we look for is any bowing of the edge support, which can be an issue with a foam perimeter. But is definitely not an issue with edge coil type of edge support like the Bear Hybrid uses.
Three things that are gonna be important anytime you’re buying a mattress online: delivery, return policy and warranty.
Delivery
In the case of delivery, of the bear Hybrid, it is gonna be completely free to your doorstep and then of course like a lot of online mattresses you’ll be responsible for taking it in the house, to your bedroom, taking out of the box.
Return Policy
In the case of return policy, you’re gonna have a hundred nights to sleep on this mattress, during which time you can return it for any reason. The one thing that they do ask, which again is becoming increasingly common among online mattress companies, is that you give it at least 30 days to let your body adjust to the new mattress.
If you do find yourself in a situation where you do need to return it, one nice thing they offer is that they will actually arrange to have it picked up from you.
Warranty
In terms of the warranty, Bear offers what we would consider to be a pretty standard warranty. It’s a 20-year warranty. The first ten years are non-prorated and the second 10 years are prorated
In terms of the most important term in any mattress warranty, they define an allowable dip as one-and-a-half inches, measured with no one’s on the mattress, which for the mattress industry is basically industry standard for an innerspring mattress. So overall a pretty standard warranty.
Value
One thing that is important for just about every mattress shopper is value. And when we think about value, we think about how much does it cost, what’s in it and how long do we think it’s going to last.
Starting with the cost, the current price of the Bear Hybrid mattress is about $1200 in a queen size for the mattress by itself.
In terms of what you’re getting for that, you’re getting a hybrid mattress with what we would consider to be two inches of premium comfort material, specifically that gel memory foam layer, over a really solid pocketed coil unit with a couple rows of stronger coils going around the perimeter for edge support. And then it’s wrapped in this very unique cover that contains celliant fiber.
In terms of how long we think that’s going to last, starting with the coil unit, I would say that I have no concerns about the longevity prospects of this coil unit. I think that’s a very solid component.
I guess if I had a concern it might be with the top layers of the mattress. Those are generally the parts of the mattress that are most vulnerable to breaking down over time.
In this case, we would turn to foam densities, which are our best but not at all perfect predictor of longevity. Based on those, I would say the quilting layer of 1.8 pounds is okay and the 3.5 pound gel memory foam feels like it’s a little on the lower side as gel memory foam goes.
If I had a concern, it might be somewhere in those layers. All together that amounts to four inches of foam.
I don’t expect it to be a problem. But again if I had a concern with the possible longevity issues, it would be somewhere in those foam layers, possibility of softening or maybe developing some sort of body impressions.
But I certainly think that it’s less prone to that than the average mattress you might find in your local mattress store, which oftentimes is going to use much lower density quilting foam, in particular than what you get here.
So how this all equates to overall value. We would typically compare this to both what you might find in a local store as well as what other options you’re going to have online. I would certainly say that relative to options you might find in a local store, this compares pretty favorably.
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In terms of what you’re going to find online and how those compares, if I were to remove the celliant cover from the equation, I might say that the value here is okay. It’s not certainly bad but it’s also not the best.
However with the celliant cover, what I would say is that you are definitely getting something very unique here. This is offering some benefits that you can’t necessarily get in other mattresses.
If those are benefits that you place value on, then I definitely think that this is a very good value, even relative to those other online options.
All in all we would certainly say that the bear hybrid is adjustable base compatible, just maybe not the best in this regard.
As part of our review of the Bear Hybrid, we want to give you a sense of what to expect when this mattress arrives.
It comes in a pretty typical sized box for most online mattresses. This one weighs 90 pounds in queen-size.
One thing we do like to do right when we open it is try to detect any initial off-gassing or new mattress smell. And I can tell you that we did not get anything from it. Even from putting my nose right in it, that’s much more faint than most online mattresses.
Summary
Just to sum up some of the things we’ve covered in this article.
The Bear Hybrid is a 14 inch hybrid mattress that we would classify as a gel memory foam over pocketed coil construction and it’s wrapped in a very unique celliant cover.
We talked about how this mattress probably has a pretty broad applicability from a spinal alignment and pressure relief standpoint. We did call out heavier stomach sleepers as a possible concern on this mattress. Likewise from a pressure relief standpoint, maybe significantly heavier side sleepers than me or significantly lighter might have an issue on this mattress, but overall I do think it has a very broad range of people that it could suit on the spinal alignment and pressure relief standpoint.
From a feel standpoint ,we classified the softness of this mattress as a medium on our spectrum.
Likewise we said that this is a mattress that has kind of a blend in terms of sleeping in the mattress, kind of a cross between that hugged and cradled sensation and the floating on top of your bed sensation that you get from sleeping on your mattress.
We also said this mattress does have some bounce, but it’s not as bouncy as a lot of innerspring mattresses.
We also talked about how if you’re looking for a lot of that slow melting into the bed kind of memory sensation, you’re not really gonna get a lot of that on this mattress.
However if you are looking for a mattress that has excellent motion isolation, excellent edge support, that has this very unique cover with the health benefits, and if all the other characteristics and criteria that we described in this article sound like a good match for you, then we certainly think that the Bear Hybrid is one that you should consider.
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