Here I’ll be reviewing the Bear Pro mattress. This all foam mattress that has a great soft feel, so side sleepers might want to keep reading.
In this review I’m going to put the Bear through some tests for quality and feel, plus tell you which sleepers I’d recommend it to.
Table of Contents
Materials
One of my big concerns before I buy a bed, especially a bed in a box, is whether or not it’s going to be a high quality mattress when it arrives at my door.
To help you figure out if the Bear Pro is a high quality bed, I’m going to actually go through it layer by layer so you can really get a sense of what it’s made of.
Bear Pro Layers
- Breathable Celliant Cover
- Copper-infused Foam
- Gel Memory Foam
- Responsive Transition Foam
- High-Density Support Foam
I’m going to start out with the cover. This is a Celliant cover and Celliant fiber is a type of synthetic fiber that’s actually supposed to take your body heat and reflect it back at you as infrared energy, which helps with muscle recovery.
Honestly I don’t know a lot about the science behind this. I cannot promise you that it works, but I will say that Celliant is a super cooling fabric, which is a really nice perk for hot sleepers.
Below that cover is a top layer of copper infused foam. The copper infusion is going to help this foam sleep nice and cool and this foam has a pretty quick response to pressure and a soft feel.
Below that is a gel memory foam layer. That gel infusion is going to help this foam sleep much cooler than a traditional soft memory foam. Plus being sandwiched under a bit of poly foam means the mattress will sleep cooler overall than if the memory foam was on top.
That memory foam layer has a pretty slow response to pressure, it’s going to add some really nice pressure relief and sinkage to the bed overall.
Below that is a layer of Bear’s responsive transition foam. It’s a firmer poly foam and it’s basically just going to ease you down onto the base layer below, which is made of high density poly support foam.
The three top layers, the cover and the two top foams, sleep quite cool, so this mattress is actually going to feel a lot cooler than a traditional soft foam mattress, which I think is a great perk of this bed.
Edge Support
Before I make my final assessment on how durable I think this bed is going to be, I actually like to test edge support.
Edge support is a measure of how supportive the sides of a bed are going to be and essentially great edge support can extend a mattress’s lifespan because it allows you to spread out over the surface of your mattress and not create premature sagging in the center.
I tested out the edges of this bed and I actually was really pleasantly surprised by the edge support. I think it’s really quite strong for a foam mattress. I felt really supported lying on the edge of the bed. If you like to sit on the edge of the bed a lot, you might feel a little bit of give underneath you when you sit down, but all in all, I think great support for a foam mattress like this one.
Longevity
Based on all these materials and that edge support, I would estimate this mattress is going to last you somewhere between 5 and 10 years, probably around 8 or 9 years, which I think is a pretty high quality for a foam bed.
Feel
Let’s get into what you’re really curious about, how this mattress feels.
Keep in mind here that feel is subjective, so someone other than me might find a mattress a bit firmer or a bit softer than I did. Personally I thought this was a medium soft to medium firm mattress. I gave it a 6 out of 10 on the mattress firmness scale.
For reference, the industry standard for medium firm is a 6.5 out of 10.
If you’re someone who finds memory foam beds a little bit firmer than the average person, I would say you might think that this is a true medium firm mattress. Otherwise you’ll probably think it’s medium soft as well.
Sleep Positions
Running through sleep positions really quickly, this firmness level felt great on my side. I got plenty of pressure relief and cradling, especially around my shoulders and hips.
Rolling over onto my back, I also felt really comfortable on this bed and I felt the top foam fill in my lower back area a little bit, which is great for some tension relief at the lower back area.
Rolling onto my stomach, I will say this mattress is probably not a great fit for stomach sleepers. Personally I felt my hips sinking into the bed a little bit, which creates a bend in the spine and that can really lead to some back pain over time for stomach sleepers. I’d recommend those folks opt for a firmer mattress.
Bear Mattress Coupon / Discount Code
Bounce
Really closely related to feel is bounce. How bouncy a bed is, is really going to determine whether you feel hugged by and cradled by your bed or more lifted up and out of the mattress.
To test out bounce, I bounced the steel ball up and down on this bed and saw how high it went.
This is not a very bouncy bed and I definitely felt more hugged by this bed than lifted up and out of it. I think this feel is really comfortable, but if you’re a combination sleeper who wants to move around and cycle through positions really frequently, really easily, you might prefer something a little bouncier.
That said, I didn’t find it really hard to change sleeping positions on this bed, so I think a lot of combination sleepers will probably be okay on this mattress.
Motion Transfer
bounce is really closely related to something called motion transfer, which is basically a measure of whether or not a partner rolling around on the other side of the bed from you is going to disturb you as you sleep.
To measure motion transfer I use a seismometer. Based on those test results, I’ll say the Bear Pro doesn’t have the greatest motion transfer. I was actually surprised by how much disturbance was felt from one side of the bed to the other.
But any disturbance that you do feel is dampened pretty quickly by the memory foam layer, so you might feel initially disturbed but I don’t think you’ll be jostled long enough to actually wake up if you’re sleeping on the other side of the bed from someone.
Pressure Relief
The last feel factor that I like to talk about in this review is pressure relief. It is a measure of how evenly distributed your weight is going to be across the surface of a bed.
It’s super important for side sleepers because it measures how much pressure will build up around sensitive areas, like the shoulders and the hips.
To test out pressure relief, I use a pressure map. I put that mat down on the mattress and it’ll create a pressure map that ranges from blue and green in low pressure areas, to red and yellow in high pressure areas.
Based on that map, on my side there is a little bit of green around my hip area. If you have especially sensitive hips, you might want to opt for an even softer mattress, but generally I think most side sleepers will get all the pressure relief they need from this bed.
Pros and Cons
Before we wrap up, I want to give you a few of my personal pros and cons about this mattress.
First up, some reasons I think the Bear Pro could be a good fit for you.
If you’re a side sleeper, I think this is a great fit for side sleepers. You’re going to get plenty of pressure relief around the shoulders and hips on the Bear Pro.
If you’re looking for a fairly cooling foam mattress, I do think the Bear Pro sleeps much cooler than the traditional soft foam mattress. It could be a good pick for you if you’re looking for the feel of soft foam, but don’t want to overheat.
Finally I do think this mattress is a pretty decent choice for couples. The motion transfer is a little bit high, but after that initial spike, it dampens really quickly, so I don’t think you’re going to feel too disturbed by movement. It offers you some nice hug, but is also responsive enough to move around, and has pretty good edge support. All those features together make me think this is a pretty nice pick for couples.
That said there are some people that I don’t think this mattress is going to be a perfect fit for.
Some folks that might want to avoid this mattress are stomach sleepers. I think they’ll need a much firmer mattress to really keep their hips supported up in line with their shoulders.
In a similar vein heavier folks might need a more supportive mattress as well. I think they’ll sink right through the soft foams on this Bear.
Finally if you’re a combination sleeper who likes a super bouncy feel, you don’t like any hug at all, the Bear Pro is really not going to be a good fit for you.
Policies
If you are interested in purchasing this bed, I want to give you some info on Bear’s company policies.
This mattress comes with a 10 year warranty and 100 night sleep trial and it’s gonna ship for free and arrive compressed in a box.
That is it for my review of the Bear Pro mattress.
Alex P. Davis has a BA in Interior Design from The New York School of Interior Design and 10 years of experience expertly designing sophisticated interiors.