Select Comfort - A Glorified Air Mattress?
Written: Jul 23 '06 (Updated Oct 24 '09)
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Pros: -adjustable firmness -lightweight and easy to transport -gives me a good night's sleep
Cons: -Costly -moving parts that might break -requires electricity -smells at first -developed a leak
The Bottom Line: If you want a bed with adjustable firmness, ease of transporting, and don't mind paying up, this is a pretty good choice and more than a glorified air mattress.
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| cendant's Full Review: Select Comfort Sleep Number 4000 Traditional Bed |
My wife and I got married at the end of May 2006 and one of the first pieces of “married” furniture we needed was a bed. But not just any bed, a king-sized bed that would take all of the king-sized sheets and comforter we’d gotten at our wedding shower.
We debated getting one of the basic mattress and box spring combinations, but were curious about the Select Comfort beds, which we’d walked by many times in the mall near her house. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Select Comfort beds, they are basically heavy-duty air mattresses with the sturdiness of a regular bed. One of the biggest selling points is the fact that you can regulate the amount of air in the mattress, making the bed feel as soft or as firm as you’d like. We also decided we were going to be OK with spending as much as $2,500 to make sure we got a good night’s sleep.
We went into a select comfort store in the mall to see how the beds felt and get an idea for the price range. The salesman was a nice guy, but definitely a salesman. Salesmen are one of my pet peeves. There wasn’t a single feature of the bed that he didn’t try to spin in an ultra-positive way, which made me suspicious. But anyway, the bed felt pretty good. The prices were high, but one thing
I noticed was that the select comfort beds were considerably lighter than traditional beds. The salesman explained this was because it didn’t need all of those metal springs in the mattress.
In addition, the king sized bed was actually made up of a king sized foundation with 2 separate twin-sized chambers on top of it. This meant that me and my wife could each have different levels of firmness on either side of the bed.
One of the biggest selling points for me was the way the bed was delivered. Instead of trying to lug a huge king-sized mattress up the narrow stairs and around a tight turn into the tiny entrance of our second-floor apartment, we could instead carry 5 or 6 separate, much smaller boxes up the stairs and assemble the bed in the bedroom itself.
So based on a variety of factors, we decided to buy the bed and called the salesman at the store. He put together a package that was going to cost me around $2,500. I didn’t have my credit card on me at the time, and that was lucky for me. One of my friends who had the select comfort gave me a phone number to order a bed directly from the factory. This was either an older model that had been upgraded, or a bed where delivery had been refused. I called up and to my delight, they had basically the same bed for only $1,800. Instead of paying $100 extra to have them put the bed together for me, I decided I’d do the work myself, and when I hung up the phone, immediately donated that $100 to a charity. I figured this way when I assembled it by myself, I could feel like I was working for a good cause.
The bed wasn’t as quickly put together as they claim. It was very easy though. It took me and 3 friends (lucky me that I had the help. I wouldn’t recommend trying it by yourself) about 2 hours to get it set up.
When you see the guts of the bed, you get to know what you’re actually sleeping on. The heart of the system is the two air chambers. They are extremely heavy-duty so don’t listen to anyone like my brother who makes fun of you and says “you got an air mattress?” The rest of it is a bunch of foam packed around it, and some hard plastic in the corners to help the bed keep its shape.
The pump is a box that you put under the head of the bed, and it has (in our case) two air hoses running into each chamber. You have to plug the box in to an outlet. You operate the box via a wireless remote (which we have and which works great) or a wired remote (that I don’t have so I can’t comment on). The pump only engages when you change the firmness of the mattress, it’s silent at all other times. It is pretty quiet for the few seconds it takes to change settings, apart from some clicking noises, the pump is a gentle hum.
The bed smelled a bit at first. I think this was mainly because of the foam and the rubber and the fact that basically anything that you get new is going to give off an odor. The foam in particular had a pretty strong smell. This smell was noticeable, but we left the windows open and let it air out for the first few days and it went away completely.
I inflated my side to a sleep number of 45, which is fairly firm, and it feels just like a regular bed to me, which was really all I was hoping for. I didn’t expect any miracles. The salesman said how good it was for your back etc… but I don’t have a bad back so I wasn’t looking for a cure.
There’s not much else to say about a bed. I’ve had it now for over 3 months and like a good bed, it pretty much just sits there while you sleep. It doesn’t squeak when you move around, it is comfortable, and overall I’m very satisfied with the purchase and with knowing that when I move, it won’t be as difficult to transport this thing since I can take it apart and reassemble it at the new place.
The guy in the store mentioned a 25 year warranty, but there is a catch when they say that. On the actual warranty documentation it explains that the amount the company will pay to repair the bed or replace parts declines over time. It’s not a 100% warranty.
A final note from my kid at heart: it is fun sometimes to lay in it and make it go all the way down to 5 from 45 and feel how much you sink in. But that might just be me.
UPDATE 3/18/2007: We have had the bed for the better part of a year now and it has been working out great. We have not changed our sleep numbers in about 6 or 7 months. The one thing that is slightly annoying is that if my wife rolls over to my side of the bed, it changes the firmness of my side. Her weight on the edge of my air mattress sort of pushes it down at the one side and up at the other side. This doesn't happen too often and it doesn't bother me. There is also the gap between the two mattresses that is somewhat noticeable, but not really that bad, since we're on a king bed and we each have plenty of room on our respective sides. There hasn't been any hint of smells or problems etc... since a few weeks after we set up the bed, so I'm still extremely happy with the purchase.
UPDATE: 11/18/2007: I think my wife's side of the bed has developed a leak over the past month or two. It's sort of like the slow leak you get when you have a nail in your tire, you can fill it up and it sags imperceptibly over the course of the next few days. I'm not exactly sure how to deal with this. We've been reflating it once a week or so and it doesn't seem like a huge deal, but it is annoying. I didn't buy this bed new so I'm not sure how it is covered under the warranty. The good news: my side is still fine! Just kidding, I take my wife's comfort more seriously than I do my own. If I do address this problem I will let you know how it turns out. I am taking a star off of my review because of this.
UPDATE: 10/23/2009: The bed is still going strong. Never figured out the source of the leak on the wife's side of the bed. I did take it apart to move it to another room and examined the air mattress and could not locate the leak. I have to admit it was part of a rearranging of a lot of furniture in my apartment and I was too tired to look thoroughly by the time I got to it. But still, I couldn't find an obvious leak anywhere. That side of the bed still sags over the course of a few days but it refills pretty easy via the remote controlled pump. No other issues or problems to report with the bed.
Recommended:
Yes
Mattress Size: King
Mattress Firmness: Somewhat firm
Amount Paid (US$): 1800
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Epinions.com ID:
cendant
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Location: NY, NY
Reviews written: 34
Trusted by: 1 member
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