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Best budget cooling mattress
Staying cool at night can be a challenge. If you tend to sleep warm, certain mattresses can make matters worse for you. There are specialized cooling mattresses that have minimal room for heat retention. They’re a game-changer for hot sleepers.
Here’s the thing about cooling bedding products: Not all of them actually cool you down. I’ve tested over 150 mattresses and spent hours researching the top mattress materials that are supposed to keep you cool. Below I’ve listed my top choices for the best mattress for hot sleepers, from beds that are made of cooling material like gel-infused foam that’s literally cold to the touch to ones that allow maximum airflow to minimize heat retention.
And if temperature isn’t exactly the problem, you can always check out the best mattresses for side sleepers or the best king size mattresses.
What is the best cooling mattress?
There are several really good cooling mattress options out there. However, the one that outshines the rest is the Brooklyn Bedding Aurora Luxe. It’s the best overall cooling mattress in our roundup thanks to its well thought-out construction. It’s one of the coolest mattresses I’ve tested. When you run your hands across the bed, the cover physically feels cold thanks to the TitanCool material.
The Brooklyn Bedding Aurora mattress is a premium bed that has a soft, squishy foam that bounces quickly back as you move around on it. You have three firmness options, giving you the ability to tailor the mattresses to your body type and sleeping position. It’s the kind of mattress that anyone will like. That’s why it’s the best cooling mattress you can get.
Video: Best cooling mattress
Watch CNET mattress expert Owen Poole review the best cooling mattresses.
Best cooling mattresses of 2024
Mattress price scale:
$ = Budget: $799 and below
$$ = Average: $800 to $1,699
$$$ = Premium: $1,700 and up
These reflect MSRP or list prices. Sales might make a mattress less expensive, but are always changing.
Type Hybrid mattressFirmness 3 firmness levels | Soft: 3 or Medium-soft | Medium: 5 or Medium | Firm: Medium-firm or 7Trial 120 nightsWarranty 10-year limited warranty Price $$$
Like
- The cover is cool to the touch
- Bouncy and breathable memory foam
- Hefty coils make it supportive and long lasting
- Three firmness profiles
Don’t like
- Not ideal for budget shoppers
The Brooklyn Bedding Aurora mattress tops my list of the best cooling mattresses thanks to the ample pressure relief and cooling technology. It’s 12.5 inches thick and is stacked with five different layers. The foundation is a hefty 8-inch system of pocketed coils, and the top comfort layer is made with Brooklyn Bedding’s special CopperFlex foam that helps absorb your body heat and draw it away. The real cooling power, I believe, comes from its cooling Euro-top cover. It’s plush, fluffy and, like the one on GhostBed Luxe, it physically feels cold when you touch it.
The company says it’ll bring your body temperature down to 88 degrees. I’m not sure how true and consistent that is for every sleeper, but the mattress does effectively help you sleep cooler and more comfortably during the night. The Aurora mattress is available in three different firmness profiles, two of which are plush. Petite side sleepers who want an extra soft mattress should consider the soft option; lightweight to average-weighted side sleepers will be just fine on the medium model.
Brooklyn Bedding Aurora Luxe
Type Memory foam hybrid mattressFirmness 5 or mediumTrial 101 nightsWarranty 25-year limited warranty Price $$
Like
- One of the coolest mattresses you can get
- More supportive than other all-foam mattresses
- Suits any type of sleeper
Don’t like
- Not supportive enough for people over 230 pounds
- Not firm enough for some
- Expect off-gassing when you open it
When you sleep next to someone else, especially another hot sleeper or a big fluffy animal, you’re more likely to warm up, due to the added body heat. GhostBed Luxe is another best cooling mattress for couples (or wookiee owners) because it offers a medium profile that accommodates all different sleeping positions. It has an all-foam construction, but its extra-thick 13-inch construction makes it a more supportive foam mattress than many of the other options out there, like the Nectar mattress and Casper Original.
One of the best parts about this bed cooling bed is its tech. The cover is infused with half an inch of cooling fiber, which makes the bed feel cold when you lie down. GhostBed also added a layer of “Ghost Ice” cooling technology on top of the memory foam layer. This comfort layer is supposed to absorb your body heat and disperse it evenly throughout the bed. The brand says it’s the coolest bed in the world. That’s an assertion I’m not fully prepared to back, but I can say it’s a seriously cooling mattress, and one of the coolest I’ve ever tested.
GhostBed Luxe
Type Cooling memory foam mattressFirmness Medium to medium-firm or 6Trial 100 nightsWarranty 10-year warranty Price $$
Like
- Comes in different models
- Budget option
- Phase-changing cooling cover
Don’t like
- Not the best choice for side sleepers
- Contouring memory foam feel isn’t for everyone
Some hot sleepers don’t want to drop more than $1,500 on a new mattress. Cocoon Chill is a budget bed that fits perfectly on my best cooling mattress for hot sleepers list. It comes in either a 12-inch hybrid or 10-inch all-foam model, but I recommend the hybrid, since it promotes more airflow than the foam Cocoon Chill.
Regardless of the model, these memory foam beds will come fitted with a phase-change cooling cover. Right when you lay on the top of the bed you can feel its cooling relief against your backside.
I’d rate it somewhere between medium and medium-firm, or around a six out of 10 on the firmness scale. I don’t get a ton of pressure relief when I sleep on my side, but the memory foam does help bring a more contouring, hugging feel. That said, this bed is best for back and stomach sleepers, combination sleepers and some side sleepers. Most people will be happy with this bed, just as long as you don’t want a plush mattress.
Cocoon by Sealy Chill
Type Memory foam hybrid mattressFirmness 6 or medium to medium-firmTrial 90 nightsWarranty 10-year limited warranty Price $$$
Like
- Several model options
- Every sleeper can sleep on an Adapt mattress
- Icy mattress cover
Don’t like
- Expensive
- Dense memory foam feel
TempurPedic is a household name and one of the most popular bedding brands in the world. The TempurAdapt line includes three luxury mattresses that are equipped with cooling covers. My favorite is the ProAdapt, which comes with three foam mattress firmness levels. So anyone can find one that works for them. You can also choose whether you want a hybrid or foam construction, allowing you to choose how supportive you want your TempurPedic mattress to be.
The cover feels icy and the memory foam inside doesn’t retain heat like the old TempurPedic mattresses from back in the day did. The brand also offers Breeze model cooling beds, but they’re super expensive. I think you can get cooling relief with this mattress while saving money by choosing this mattress type over TempurPedic’s premium models.
You can even go with the base TempurAdapt model to save the most money. It offers a cooling cover with the same dense memory-foam feel as the other beds, which hug your body as you sink into the layers, but it’s more affordable. Read more about this bed in our TempurPedic mattress review.
TempurPedic Adapt
Type Latex HybridFirmness 7 or medium-firm with the pillow top (9 or firm without)Trial 365 nightsWarranty 25-year limited warranty Price $$$
Like
- Eco-friendly option
- Medium-firm profile promotes spinal alignment
- Endorsed by the American Chiropractic Association
Don’t like
- Too firm for some
- Not actively cooling, but sleeps cool
Hybrid mattresses with a medium-firm profile are ideal for back pain because they provide ample support to keep your spine in alignment with your neck and keep your lower back from sagging into the mattress. At the same time, they aren’t so firm so you don’t get the pressure relief you may be looking for. The Avocado Green mattress checks a lot of boxes for back pain sufferers who want a breathable mattress, and it comes with a ton of eco-friendly benefits.
It’s made with recycled steel pocketed coils which provide a bulk of the bed’s support, and the comfort materials are all certified organic cotton, wool and latex. Latex foam is designed with small holes throughout the material, and as a result, it allows for great airflow throughout the bed. Not only that, but latex foam doesn’t retain heat like memory or polyfoam might. As an added plus, organic latex is hypoallergenic and antimicrobial, so it will help prevent nasty household allergens from making a home out of your bed.
Read more in our full Avocado Green mattress review.
Avocado Green
Other cooling mattresses we’ve tested
Our CNET Sleep editors have hundreds of mattress testing hours on their resume — they know the beds that shine and the beds that are a snooze. With so many to test and so few spots on our list, we aren’t able to showcase every quality cooling mattress. However, we do want to give a few more beds the honorable mention they deserve.
Purple mattress: The original Purple mattress uses a Hyper-Elastic Gel Polymer grid that has a ton of air pockets. It’s one of the best materials for not retaining heat. We rate it around a medium or 5 out of 10 on the firmness scale.
Loom & Leaf mattress: With two firmness levels that sit toward the firm end of the spectrum (medium-firm and firm) and a special cooling gel layer, Loom & Leaf is a great mattress to help with temperature regulation. You sit more on top of the mattress rather than inside, and the cooling gel is actually effective.
WinkBeds EcoCloud mattress: WinkBeds doesn’t actively cool you, but it’s made with a breathable, non heat-retaining latex foam material and pocketed coils. This allows for increased airflow, breathability and comfort. Not to mention, latex beds are hypoallergenic and antimicrobial.
Nectar Premiere/Premiere Copper mattress: These are Nectar’s premium mattresses, made with cooling gel foam inside and a cooling cover that helps wick away moisture. The Copper model takes it a step further with added copper fibers that help absorb heat from your body and disperses it throughout the bed. They’re rated around a six to seven on the firmness scale, so you don’t sink into the foam as much.
Saatva mattress: Saatva is a pillow-top mattress that contains breathable materials and offers firm profiles that help you rest more comfortably at night if you’re a hot sleeper. It’s a luxury mattress available in two different heights and three different firmness levels. That means it can accommodate all body types and most sleeping positions, unless you’re a strict side sleeper who wants a plush and fluffy mattress.
How we tested the best cooling mattresses
CNET editors pick the products and services we write about based on editorial merit. When you buy through our links, we may get a commission.
When we test mattresses, we have an established process that assesses key factors like firmness, feel and performance. We test how strong the edge of the bed is by sitting and lying on the edge. We test motion transfer by rolling across the mattress with a glass of water by the edge. These are things we do for all beds we test. The best cooling mattresses have a unique testing process. We dive further into the bed’s construction, paying attention to each layer contributing to the cooling process. Read more on how we test mattresses.
Firmness and feel
Firmness and feel are the two main factors that help people decide which mattress to buy. Firmness is how hard or soft the bed is, which relates to your sleeping position. The feel of the mattress describes the sensation while you sleep on it. Does it give you that stuck-in-the-mud feeling that traditional memory foam does? Or is it bouncy like latex foam? We evaluate and note the firmness and feel of each mattress we test.
Cooling technology
We test the beds to see if they feel cold and look for any specific cooling technology features. We get really hands on during the process. The last test is actually sleeping on the mattress and using our experience as a guide. Did we sleep hot during the night? How good was the cooling bed at preventing heat retention? We have been known to pull out the thermometer gun, but have found that the best test is having one or two people see how hot it sleeps themselves.
What to look for in a cooling mattress
Many brands will advertise a “cooling bed” that is really just a standard mattress with a mattress pad or cooling gel topper, which might not be enough to provide real relief for hot sleepers. It can be tricky to distinguish between these “cooling” beds and a true cooling mattress if you’re not careful. Be sure to look out for misleading marketing language, and keep a lookout for these different cooling technologies that seem to actually work.
Cooling cover
Some of the best mattresses I’ve tested have a cool-to-the-touch cover that relieves warmth upon contact. Some brands might call their organic cotton cover cooling, but it won’t exactly do the trick. Instead, look for covers with phase-change material or icy technology.
A cooling layer in the mattress
Rather than just copper-infused foam or gel-infused foam, look for a dedicated cooling layer in a mattress that’s sole purpose is to offer relief. If a mattress has a cooling layer and a cooling cover, it’s even better.
Breathable materials
Other cooling bed models like the Purple are good at what they do because they don’t retain heat in the first place. Beds with latex foam, springs and hyper-elastic polymer offer a cooler sleeping experience than typical foam mattresses, and fit the bill for the best cooling mattresses.
Cooling accessories
Pair your cooling bed with new accessories that will work to help keep you cooler as you sleep through the night.
- Cooling sheets are made with light and breathable materials that wick away moisture from night sweats better than other warmer-sleeping sheets like flannel, polyester and satin.
- Cooling pillows use breathable materials for a cooler sleep, and some, like the GhostPillow, incorporate a phase-change material to physically feel cool to the touch.
- Cooling mattress toppers work like temperature-regulating foam in that they have materials that absorb body heat and disperse it throughout the mattress.
Cooling mattress FAQs
Latex foam and Purple’s hyper-elastic polymer are the most breathable mattress materials. However, some beds come with cooling covers that make a bed physically cool to the touch. Memory foam, on the other hand, is known for retaining heat, so avoid that if cool sleeping is what you’re after. The exception would be if it has a special temperature-regulating technology like copper or gel-infused foam, or phase-change material.
There are a handful of cooling mattresses on the market like GhostBed Luxe, Purple, Brooklyn Bedding Aurora and others that actually sleep as cool as they claim to. However, many beds that are marketed as “cooling” might not live up to your expectations. Keep a lookout for phase-changing materials, cooling covers and special cooling tech that goes the extra mile to keep you cool.
The obvious answer is before the hot summer months, but it’s economical to shop for mattresses around holidays such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Labor Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Christmas because of the amazing deals offered.
Before buying a cooling mattress, you can cool your mattress down yourself by adding breathable sheets, cooling pillows and cooling pillow toppers that help disperse heat better than your bed. You can put a damp towel on the top of your bed, but make sure not to saturate it too much as you can ruin your bed’s foam.
The best mattresses for hot sleepers are ones with phase-change materials, like the Brooklyn Bedding Aurora, cooling gel or other cooling technology that helps regulate temperature. Breathable mattresses made from latex foam like the Avocado Green or hyper-elastic polymer beds like the Purple are also great options for hot sleepers.
