Our Editors Tested The Top Cooling Mattress Covers. Here’s Our Winner
The perfect night’s sleep seems impossible for everyone at one time or another — whether from mattress discomfort, stress, or the biggest hurdle: temperature. Waking up hot in the middle of the night or fighting with your partner over the blanket is definitely not helping you get the sleep you need.
Switching your mattress feels like such a drastic change, and honestly – a difficult decision. However, there are tons of alternatives for those looking to upgrade their sleep without overhauling their mattress. Just because you’re not in the place to explore a new mattress, doesn’t mean you aren’t entitled to a blissful 8 hours of sleep.
We decided to look into mattress toppers that help regulate temperature without sacrificing comfort. We gave the BedJet 3 Climate Comfort System, Chilipad OOLER, and the Pod Pro Cover by Eight Sleep all a fair shot.
Here’s what happened and which sleep solution we’re going with:
Key Similarities
- All give you the ability to cool and heat between a certain temperature range
- All allow you to keep your current mattress
Key Differences
- The Pod Pro Cover and Chilipad OOLER use water cooling technology while the BedJet 3 uses air
- The Pod Pro Cover and Chilipad OOLER get down to 55F while the BedJet 3 only goes to 66F
- The BedJet 3 requires you to purchase two of them (one for each side of the bed)
- The Pod Pro Cover’s corresponding app is way more innovative and allows you to control the temperature and track your sleep performance
- The BedJet 3 tends to bunch up a lot, while the Chilipad OOLER has a tube running which not only affects comfort but also its cooling abilities
The Pod Pro Cover by Eight Sleep
First, the Pod Pro Cover gets cooler much faster than the BedJet 3. A hot sleeper will love Eight Sleep’s use of water cooling technology. Throughout the night warm or cool water flows through its proprietary active grid and retains your ideal temperature. Not to mention with just one cover you can set the two sides of the bed to different temperatures – anywhere from 55F to 110F.
This is perfect for partners who want different temperatures; each can adjust their own temperatures and get exactly what they need to rest. Plus, you only need to refill the water every 2-3 months, so it’s super low maintenance.
While the main focus is of course the cooling aspect, you still need your mattress to be comfortable. The Pod Pro Cover is the only temperature controlled mattress cover that integrates 1-inch of foam, making your sleep seamlessly comfortable with no disruptions. It’ll make your current mattress feel like a whole new bed. This cover fits any 10-11″ mattress, easily zips on, and stays put all night thanks to Eight Sleep’s PerfectFit™ encasement.
Eight Sleep’s app does more than let you control the cover’s temperature. They have 600+ glowing reviews on iOS alone and for good reason. The sensors in the Pod Pro Cover track your nightly sleep performance by giving you a Sleep Fitness Score which you can track all from the app. It consistently evaluates things like time slept and HRV to help you monitor your sleep and its impact on your overall health and wellness.
Setting up the Pod Pro Cover was very straightforward, thanks to the simple visual and text instructions available on their app. It’s also super sleek; the water hub doesn’t take up a lot of room and fits snugly between any bed and bedside table.
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Chilipad OOLER
The Chilipad OOLER uses hydro-powered heating and cooling, which is similar to the Pod Pro. The temperature ranges from 55F to 115F but the cooling effects are a little uneven. You can definitely feel the stiff and narrow tubing under you while you sleep which affected both the comfort and cooling.
Similar to the Eight Sleep app, you can control your mattress temperature, set schedules, and set your wake time to wake up naturally. They don’t offer any additional health metrics, so there is no way of looking into your sleep quality and respiratory rate.
The setup was not straightforward but not impossible either. Their control unit offers variable fan speeds, which can sometimes be a little noisy.
The control unit fits under your bed where The LED screen automatically dims and tuns off after a while.
BedJet 3 Climate Comfort System
The BedJet 3 uses air technology for its temperature control, which only lets you select a from a range between 66F and 104F (which isn’t cold enough for most). It took quite a while to get down to that temperature, and you may have issues staying at your desired temperature all night.
Unlike the Pod Pro Cover, you control the temperature with a remote control that is honestly a nightmare to use. Plus, you don’t get any of the incredible sleep insights that Eight Sleep’s app provided.
If you want the dual-zone cooling and heating capabilities of the Pod Pro Cover, you have to buy two BedJets and an additional Dual Zone Cloud Sheet – that’s three products that result in a lot of noise, multiple power units involved, and too much money spent.
Unfortunately, it also moved around a lot and bunched up in places, leading to a pretty big impact in comfort.
Final Note
The Pod Pro Cover by Eight Sleep is easily our winner. Without sacrificing comfort, it allows you to have different temperatures on both sides. It’s also easy to set up, the amount of features on the app is unparalledl, and it just looks downright sleek and modern.
The BedJet 3 and Chilipad OOLER couldn’t compare to the Pod Pro Cover’s innovative technology, and their sleep tracking capabilities also fall short. The Eight Sleep app provides so much useful data and insights into your sleep patterns in a way that’s easy to digest.
After weeks of using the Pod Pro Cover, we wake up feeling refreshed and ready to take on our day. Eight Sleep does offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can try it out for yourself risk-free. But trust us, you won’t need 30 days to feel the positive effects.
The Pod Pro Cover by Eight Sleep turns your bed into a modern cooling mattress. Don’t waste your time with any other sleep cooling solution.
