Perfectly Snug Smart Topper review – adds heating and cooling to your existing mattress

REVIEW – The old rule is “invest in shoes and sheets”. You spend a vast amount of time walking the earth or sleeping in bed, so why not make these experiences as comfortable and fulfilling as possible? The Perfectly Snug Smart Topper is a mattress pad to improve sleep quality with climate control and air flow. Let’s see how it works!

What is it?

The Perfectly Snug Smart Topper is a mattress pad that blows air under and through the pad to set the ideal temperature for sleeping. There is an accompanying phone app for controlling temperature, schedule, and settings.

It is worth noting as part of this review that my wife and I have already given some thought to the importance of quality sleep and an optimal temperature. We have been using a similar form of temperature control since 2019 – a liquid cooled mattress topper, as opposed to the air cooling solution of the Smart Topper. I’ll talk a little about the comparable aspects of these systems. I mention this to highlight that we already appreciate good sleep, and have taken deliberate steps to tune our sleep configuration for a sweet spot of temperature and comfort.

What’s in the box?

The Smart Topper arrived in a 59″ x 20″ x 7″ box, weighing 35 lbs.

The Smart Topper was shipped in a vacuum bag to decrease size.

The package included a pair of power adapter bricks, a single power cable with a y-split for connecting both power adapters to a wall outlet, a set of four straps for securing the corners of the Smart Topper to the mattress, and instructions.

 Hardware specs

My Smart Topper was a dual-zone Queen size model. (60″ x 80″) The Smart Topper is about 2″ thick, and made from CentiPUR compliant memory foam and 3d mesh material for conducting air. There are fans built into the foot of the Smart Topper, and control panels at each corner on the head of the mattress pad.

Design and features

The Smart Topper can be controlled without the accompanying app, simply by turning the power switch on and hitting the temperature control up/down buttons.

When the app is used, a wide variety of scheduling, adjustable temperature control, and interface settings can be adjusted for either side/zone of the bed.

• Two sets of regular start and stop times can be set for each day of the week. This is convenient for setting a regular weekday and weekend schedule that requires no action.
• The ‘start’ and ‘wake up’ intervals at the beginning and end of the cycle can be set with their own specific temperature variations.
• The control switches at the top of each mattress corner have a small speaker that responds to temperature and control changes. The volume of this speaker can be controlled.
• If your feet get cold easily, the foot zone can be specifically controlled with higher heat than the overall temperature.
• There is a ‘quiet’ mode setting that did provide a distinct difference in fan noise.

Installation and setup

Placing the Pefectly Snug Smart Topper onto the mattress was simple. The dual power adapters run from a single split power cable, which minimizes wall outlet usage at the head of the bed. The power adapters and cable are perfect in length for an outlet situated at the head of the bead. (Depending on the bed frame, this outlet is sometimes difficult to get to when adding devices.) The source outlet for our installation is at the side of the bed, and the length was adequate. If the outlet was more that 2-3 feet away from the bed, getting it to both zones would have been challenging.

 

Once the Smart Topper was in place and turned on, the next step was getting the app from our phone’s app store. Connecting the app to our Smart Topper was as easy as scanning a QR code that was provided in the Quick Start Guide. The Smart Topper joined our local wifi network and was accessible from both his-and-hers phones.

The instructions recommend a breathable fitted sheet as the only layer between the Smart Topper and ourselves. We have noticed that various aspects of life (kids, pets, food, etc) can introduce staining to sheets and mattress pads. The outer shell of the Smart Topper is washable, but appears to be difficult to remove and reinstall. It is worth noting that our comparable liquid mattress cooler is also difficult to wash and to prevent staining – although it accepts a waterproof mattress cover.

When the Smart Topper is initially turned on and running, we noticed the fans produced some more noise and vibration at the bottom corners of our respective zones. After a few minutes, this noise and vibration were greatly reduced. If we had to compare the noise of the Smart Topper to our current solution, it would be equal or less noise. Also, the noise of the Smart Topper is at the foot of the bed and below the covers. Our current liquid mattress cooling has a separate cooling unit located in the open air on the other side of the bedside tables. The noise from these units is definitely more noticeable.

What I like

For my personal sleep preferences, I have always thought that memory foam mattress covers are hot, lack breathability, and can vary in density depending on summer and winter temperatures. The Smart Topper contains memory foam, but feels breathable and comfortable even without the airflow activated.

The Smart Topper has a different style of cooling than our comparable liquid mattress cover. I personally like the feeling of air providing a cooling effect from below. We sleep under a heavier comforter – not a ‘weighted’ blanket, but close – for the security and coziness. Managing the unique temperature needs of my wife and me is often tricky – someone will have the comforter pushed aside or covers thrown back. The Smart Topper kept an even, cool temperature at the places in the mattress that usually get warm and uncomfortable.

The control panels were convenient and intuitive to use for the occasional temperature change in the middle of the night, without having to get out the phone app. We made the speaker response levels low so that we could understand our temperature levels, but without disturbing each other’s sleep.

The Smart Topper is a complete cooling solution that sits on top of the mattress, with some easily camouflaged power bricks below the bed. Our current liquid cooled solution requires a bulky pair of hoses to be routed away from the mattress, to a set of toaster-oven sized cooling units sitting by the wall. The liquid solution requires maintenance that the Smart Topper does not, and has some danger of leaking while the Smart Topper relies on simple and effective air cooling. While testing, we appreciated the simplicity and clean look of the Smart Topper.

I expected to feel airflow and cooling mostly at the zones closest to the fans – around the feet and knees. I was pleased to notice that the airflow was consistent and an even temperature across the majority of the mattress pad. I liked that the places where I had the most mattress contact – knees, butt, hips, and shoulders – felt like they received the greatest cooling effect. I didn’t have to go seeking a cooler spot every couple of hours.

The app was intuitive and simple for setting the schedule, temperature levels, and zone control. It took a very short time to zero in on a desired temperature and set this as the bedtime default.

What I’d change

The Perfectly Snug Smart Topper did not have the same density and softness as our current mattress, so we noticed this change. Our current mattress cooler has thin tubing running vertically through the mattress pad, and the Smart Topper has a mesh texture that is immediately noticeable under the fitted sheet. Presumably, this promotes the best airflow, but it did feel ‘rough’ on the large places where our backs, hips, and legs made the most contact with the bed. Both my wife and I felt that – compared to the native comfort of our plain mattress – we appreciate the ability to set our ideal temperature. Some compromise in the texture of the Smart Topper is an acceptable cost for getting this airflow and temperature control.

The power adapter boxes have a green LED light to indicate power activity. We try to keep the bedroom as dark as possible, and so the workaround to this light was as simple as turning the power brick over.

The control panel at the top of each side of the Smart Topper has some sort of light inside of it – there was a dim glow visible through the fitted sheet. But, this did not affect sleeping once we got situated on our pillows. We also noticed that the left control panel was noticeably warmer than the right control panel.

There was a slight ‘new foam’ smell that my wife noticed – her sense of smell is significantly better than mine and she is sensitive to this sort of thing.

When my wife and I both used the app on each of our phones for controlling our respective zones, we noticed inconsistent behavior that made us think that two phones might be competing for priority and control. We noticed that if person A changed their left side zone, when Person B accessed their right side zone in the morning there would often be unexpected modifications. The temperature would be changed, or the fans would not be running, or quiet mode would no longer be enabled. We did not spend a dedicated troubleshooting session to narrow down the back-and-forth of Phone A/B changes vs Phone A/B expected findings, but we noticed that our zones were often not as we left them. We expect that if we set a regular schedule and allowed it to run without phone modification, and with the occasional tweak from the physical controls, then this behavior would be minimized.

Final thoughts

We tested the Smart Topper in January of 2022 with cold outside temperatures and a naturally cool room. Because we sleep warm and with our thick comforter, the majority of our sleep time was spent with settings on various levels of ‘cool’.  We did not delve into any ‘heating’ settings other than a modest amount of testing. I was delighted with how quickly the Smart Topper could go from ‘cool’ to ‘warm’ and back again, and if I had to sleep in the cool room with a light blanket I am confident that the Smart Topper could provide cozy warmth as needed.

Based on the feelings and previous sleeping experience I predict that the Perfectly Snug Smart Topper would be a good summer solution – especially in a room that isn’t air conditioned. Cool airflow from the mattress is a feeling that can provide great comfort in a room that hasn’t cooled down yet.

My wife does have larger temperature swings than I do, and she did mention that the Smart Topper was not able to cool her as much as she needed. She cranked her settings to -10 and did not feel that it was adequate, while I was at -5 and comfortable.

Price: $859 – $1699
Where to buy: Perfectly Snug
Source: The sample for this review was provided by Perfectly Snug.