Specialty Beds Overview

There are few things in this world prized more highly than a sound night’s sleep, yet very few people enjoy that type of sleep on a regular basis. There are, of course, a number of factors that affect the potency of sleep, but those factors (such as caffeine or sugar consumption and stress) receive little attention in comparison to the praise or criticism heaped upon the mattress a consumer chooses. The mattress industry has grown increasingly competitive over the past thirty years. As new companies look for ways to unseat older competitors, and older companies scramble to maintain and improve their market share, each has developed alternatives to the traditional innerspring mattress. In this article we’ll briefly examine air beds and memory foam beds, two of the more prominent examples of mattress alternatives.

 

Air beds have evolved significantly from relatively humble beginnings. At one time the availability of an air-bladder bed that was quickly inflatable existed mostly for the convenience of entertaining guests. There are still many simple, easily stowed air beds of that nature, but the air bed market has moved well past those earlier offerings. Led by Select Comfort, air bed manufacturers aggressively advertise that air beds offer the best possible night of sleep. Many of the beds allow users to use remotely-controlled pumps in order to pick a specific firmness level for various zones of the bed, and most air beds also offer couples the ability to set different firmness levels for each side of the bed.