Well, I may be sending back my Sleeping Duck, so could be interested. Thanks.
We were looking to replace a much loved Tempur we've had since they only made one type of mattress and you had to go to a special ergonomics shop to see it. As the replacement Tempur would now cost about four times what we paid, we decided to try some of the new direct-to-your-door companies instead of spending the best part of two grand on an updated Tempur.
Mattress arrived in a day or two, unrolled and expanded. It has the usual nice cover with a zip to take it off for cleaning. Most of the synthetic smell dissipated in a couple of days, though I reckon it took a couple of weeks to completely disappear so you wouldn't get the occasional whiff. The Casper has a bouncy layer on top meant to keep you cooler and stop you sinking into the memory foam underneath. It's meant to give the bed spring so you don't feel that you have to climb out of the memory foam when you move. I think the mistake they've made, is that they've built a mattress out of memory foam for people that don't like memory foam mattresses. It doesn't have that contouring effect that makes you sink into the mattress and support your body. In fact it feels like they are trying to mimic a spring mattress, except with the movement isolation you get with foam.
When lying on the bed, rather than sink into it, the surface seems to move down, like you're lying in a shallow dip, but at the bottom of the dip, you're lying on the surface of the mattress, rather than sinking into it as I would expect from memory foam. This meant that lying on my front, I felt I was in a shallow "U" shape with my head and feet higher. On my side, I felt pressure points on my hip, ribs and shoulders. Somehow they've made it soft enough to bend under you, yet hard enough that you don't get supported. My wife said it was much more comfortable on her back, but she didn't like it much on her side or front either, and said that as the mattress broke in over a couple of months, it got softer and less supportive for her.
After about a month I started grumbling about back and shoulder pain, started waking up for an hour or two or generally having very broken sleep (I'm a light sleeper). On a few occasions I've woken up extremely hot in the middle of the night, and even with numbness and tingling in my leg where I presume the mattress put pressure on my hip. When on my side, I felt like I wanted to roll forwards, or that I was in a dip and had a hump in the mattress between me and the wife. The edge is very soft, and although Casper say the mattress is designed for sleeping rather than sitting, if you put your head, arm or feet near the edge, it will compress a lot and make you feel like it's trying to turf you off.
Our old divan is a bit worn, so I put some big boards down to level it out, and that did help slightly, but the characteristics of the mattress are not what you would expect from memory foam, and I wouldn't have chosen it if I'd had a chance to test one in a shop. It's just too bouncy, not supportive enough, it doesn't contour to the weight put on it. It's somehow too soft and too hard at the same time. We chose to ask for a return today after two months, and they've given us a pickup on Wednesday. Assuming that all happens as scheduled and the refund is prompt, I've (so far) not any complaints about dealing with Casper as a company. They seem to be contactable, prompt and get deliveries/returns done quickly.
Now, I'm not saying the Casper mattress is a bad product, just that it's not suitable for us. Many people give it good reviews, but although it's made of memory foam, it doesn't feel like it. The wife and I went to Tempur for a reason (back when they were the only memory foam mattresses) and we like it a lot. Taking away all the unique characteristics of memory foam seems a bit pointless in a memory foam mattress, and really did not suit us.
We have got a Leesa ordered, as that seems to have a better ventilated top layer (Avena synthetic latex with airways), and seems to show more contouring when you press down into the memory foam layer. The layers are also thicker than Casper's. It's possible I was swayed by Casper's marketing as it was between that or the Leesa, and now I realise that marketing is very, very important for these web based mattress companies, and even the reviews interpret individual comfort quite differently.
The 100 day trial these companies offer is definitely worth driving like you stole it. Just walking around your local John Lewis or Dreams will show you that foam mattresses vary vastly in how they feel, and only by testing one can you decide if you like it. It's not just the material that will tell you how a mattress feels, but the product they have decided to make, and the characteristics they wanted to design into it.
I'll let you know what I think of the Leesa in a couple of weeks, though I'm hoping it's more Tempur-like, or else we're going to have to spring big bucks for another Tempur.
