Yes, having been poor, really cheap mattresses suck. I spent a few hundred dollars on mine, some years ago. It seems to have been worth it. I did get a very firm one, as I said. I like the idea of adding memory foam on top, I might try that.
Heck, the bowl would break.
They’re kind of like all those ghosthunters and what have you using instruments that detect heat changes and infrared light, and all sorts of things, and they register stuff, which makes the ghosthunters get all excited, but absolutely none of those things have been independently verified to indicate the presence of ghosts.
In any case, you should never buy a mattress without testing it out yourself (and I don’ t mean that you should drop eggs on it, but that you should lie down on it). That seems like common sense to me. Yes, you can always try to return it, but, do you really want to go through the time and trouble to return a mattress because you don’t like how it feels, when all you really had to do is to try it out in a store? At worst, you could check out Consumer reports – they do their own tests, and I doubt that eggs ever enter into them… unless they are actually rating eggs.
From CR: in addition to ratings, they have an article comparing the three major types of mattresses (Inner Spring, Memory Foam, and Adjustable Air) and go over some mattress-related myths. I don’t see Purple being one of the mattresses that they’ve actually looked at, which might be because it is too new. Or maybe it’s just not popular enough.
(Note that I’m not sure if that article I linked is for subscribers only, but some of their content can be accessed without a subscription)
I did check Amazon for reviews, and they are, on average, positive. But remember that reviews are not about which product is better, or the better value, but about whether a person has a positive experience. And you also have to take into account that the more expensive something is, the more likely their experience will be affected by their high expectations. It’s just like the fact that if a wine has an expensive label on it, it will tend to taste better to a lot of people, but may not actually be any different than the same wine in a cheaper bottle.
One common complaint about it is that it seems (to some) to be specifically designed for people who sleep on their backs. There were complaints that the mattress was lumpy and uneven. And so on. You can check them yourself. I’d be suspicious though of reviews at some dedicated ‘bed’ or ‘sleep’ websites.
I don’t happen to have a 300 lb sheet of glass lying around to test this theory, but I suspect they wouldn’t have. If it had a uniform flat surface and they had a soft, giving surface under them, I don’t think they would break. In order to break an egg you generally have to apply a sharp sudden pressure at one point, such as whacking them against a sharp corner. Eggs are surprisingly sturdy.
If I come across a 300 lb sheet of glass I’ll try it out.
Is your carpeted floor as soft and giving as a mattress? The whole reason the test works in the video is that the mattress has enough give that the egg is completely engulfed in it before the glass sheet is decelerated by the mattress. Unless your carpet is deep enough that an entire egg could be submerged in it, I’d guess the 300 lb weight would break it, especially since it would be a hard surface (the glass) against the egg.
Try dropping a bowlful of eggs onto a wooden or tile floor. Some or all of them will break.
What does that test have to do with having a comfortable sleep? Even if my bed passes the test, and your bed doesn’t, where have they demonstrated that my bed is more comfortable than your bed? Or that it will last longer? Or that it is better for you? Or that you will have a more restful sleep?
What if I advertised a car and I spoke about an egg test, where I dropped eggs onto the car seats from the height of the roof of the car without them breaking, and then implied that my car was safer because of that?
It is not necessary for parts to take up the whole rest of the mattress. You may be right that a smaller plate of glass that did not spread over so large an area might put more pressure on the eggs, say a 1 ft by 1 ft by 6 inch object. Or something.
To me, that test demonstrates the ability for the mattress to allow pressure points to sink without increasing the pressure on them, and still provide full support to the raised areas.
Of course, does that actually provide for a more comfortable sleep? I think it would, but I don’t know that this mattress actually accomplishes it.
No, I’m just someone with sleep problems who has lamented the problem of finding a comfortable bed on many an occassion. That commercial precisely addresses one major item I’ve identified for myself.
I guess you didn’t watch the video where they did that test for you and showed the eggs breaking on other mattresses. Or maybe you just think they faked it, one way or the other.
Oh, and while eggs might be surprisingly sturdy, I have managed to break them with my grip, and I’m not exactly popeye. Not a sudden pressure.
The connection with comfortable sleep is maintaining your body in a neutral position and fully supported without pressure points. Lying on your side and having your waist sag curves your spine and gives backaches. Lying on your back with your knees flat is highly uncomfortable as it strains the lower back. Most mattresses do a poor job of solving that problem, despite variations of coil springs, foam, padding, and even air inflation or water inflation.
Do you provide a theoretical description of how it provides safety? Because that website has a good description of how that test demonstrates the conflicting needs of a soft giving upper layer to allow the low points to sink in without too much pressure but simultaneously a stiff upper layer to support the high points.
Your shoulder and hips need to sink in while your ribs and waist get supported.
I used to work as a mattress designer, and I can tell you that improvised tests like these should be taken with a grain of salt.
The reason the eggs don’t break is very simple: The top layer is a thin-walled grid – individual walls can buckle easily under concentrated loads, but buckling several walls over a wider area takes much more force.
The egg has a very small cross-section, so it buckles individual grid walls easily. The glass plate above, on the other hand, has a high surface area, so it does not sink in as easily as the egg.
It’s a neat parlor trick and clever marketing. But as other folks in this thread have stated, an egg is fundamentally different from a human user:
- Eggs have a hard, brittle exterior. Humans have a soft tissue exterior. Soft tissues change shape and spread out over a wide area under pressure, while egg shells on the other hand resist shape changes.
- Eggs - much smaller than humans, much less surface area. Human features are generally less “pointy” - sleepers have much more in common with the test’s glass pane than the egg.
Also, I see a few critical flaws in this bed’s design:
- As a whole, the grid doesn’t provide much surface area for a user’s body, compared to traditional solid foam. If you were to map body pressure, you would likely see that pressure concentrates on the top of each grid wall, spiking at the grid intersections. Nonuniform pressure distributions like this can lead to severe discomfort and pressure sores over time.
- None of the layers appear to have any “zoning”. So it’s very unlikely that the lower back will have more support compared to the hips and shoulders, which can lead to back pain over time. This can also lead to an unbalanced sleeping position that concentrates pressure in either the shoulders or hips.
- The “hyperelastic polymer” doesn’t breathe well, trapping heat. Memory foam has a similar problem.
- 2" is woefully thin for a top layer. Some Amazon reviewers commented that they had difficulty with side sleeping – it’s because the grid is “bottoming out” against the firmer foam layer underneath.
Sadly, mainstream mattress companies make these kinds of design mistakes ALL THE TIME – the recurring theme is that mattresses are 1% hard science, 99% marketing spin. And guess which category Purple’s “test” falls into… :mad::smack:
I don’t know many mattress designers. I suspect hype and marketing play a large role in any non-intuitive test, but am curious what a well designed mattress would look like, if any exist, etc. I usually buy moderately expensive mattresses on sale from well established brands, and have always slept well. The fact the companies make different models hard to compare tells you they are often overpriced.
Here are characteristics I would avoid in a mattress:
- Memory foam. It gets hot, it doesn’t breathe, and it can be hard as a brick during winter.
- Textured/convoluted top layers. More often than not, textures/convolutes create uncomfortable pressure points.
- Perforated top layers. Perforations are often marketed as a cooling feature, but their efficacy is minimal compared to active fan-based cooling systems.
- Gel/PCM additives. Contrary to marketing spin, these gimmicks do not do a great job of keeping you cool. They might feel cool at first, but then they tend to get really hot after several minutes.
- COIL SPRINGS. These are the worst. They create very bad pressure points, and are notoriously prone to sagging over time. And don’t be fooled by hybrid beds offering foam on top of springs – they’re plagued by the same problems.
Here are some characteristics I would look for in a mattress:
- Active airflow, driven by fans. I believe Sleep Number offers this feature, but it’s a pricy option that is subject to mechanical failure. Next best thing is a high-porosity top layer of foam - and by that, I mean CONVENTIONAL foam, not memory foam. Latex foam is okay, but still traps some heat.
- User-variable firmness. Again, Sleep Number.
- Zones of varying firmness (firmer for the lower back, softer for shoulders/hips). Would be awesome to find a bed that combined this feature with Feature 2 above.
- Thermally-conductive fibers. These are relatively new, but could help to radiate heat away from your body.
- Active body contouring. This one is tricky…mattresses are generally sold as flat rectangular affairs, which is why memory foam is commonly used for passive body contouring. Active body contouring is currently limited to adjustable beds that recline and raise your legs, without really shaping the sleep surface around your body.
Perhaps in a few decades, I would expect to see active body contouring mechanisms that outperform memory foam…I’m imagining a sleep surface comprised entirely of nano-scale robots that hug your body like a vat of gel. I’m grinning just thinking about it.
I’ve long been annoyed by the mattress commercials claiming that a mattress needs to be replaced every 8 years because it doubles its weight every 8 years (from sweat, dead skin, and dead dust mites) which is clearly drivel. I googled, and there is a Dope for that.