The Sleep Number iLE Mattress Review

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Mattress-caused body pain is a common thing, but one that we not fully aware of. Sometimes, when we get up and feel that some of our muscles are sore, we find excuses like “I’ve slept in a bad position” or “I shouldn’t have slept on so many pillows”. Truth is we rarely blame our mattress directly when chances are, it is the sole responsibility for that aching shoulders or that neck muscle pain. But the iLE is supposed to help cure that problem! Let’s dive in and take a look at one of the most in-depth Sleep Number iLE Mattress Reviews!

Why Do We Wake Up Feeling Sore?

The answer is extremely simple: because every person has a comfort zone when it comes to sleeping and if the firmness of the mattress is not within that comfort zone, you will end up having several pains. Back pains are the most common, but they are not the only ones. Every time you lie down, there are certain parts of your body that sink into the mattress deeper than others. If the mattress is not soft enough to curve to your body’s natural shape, it will create resistance or pressure points. When a mattress has the proper construction, it allows your body to sink into its surface, but not that much as to make movement difficult. For example, when you sleep on the side, due to your body’s natural shape, your shoulders and your hips will come in contact with the mattress more than your other body parts. Consequently, there will be pressure points created in these 2 areas. If the mattress is too firm, it will resist in providing cushioning and it basically feels like you’re sleeping on the floor. This means that you need a mattress that’s softer than the ones recommended for other sleeping positions. If you are a little bit overweight, pressure points are even more noticeable. So, when you’re shopping for a mattress, the most important thing to look for is a product that creates as little pressure points as possible. This is the reason why air bed and memory foam mattresses are a customer favorite. Memory foam has excellent body contouring capabilities, while air mattresses, like the Sleep Number series, allow you to adjust the firmness by simply inflating or deflating the mattress.

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What Is Firmness?

We often hear terms like firmness, cushioning and support, but it’s important to understand that each of these describes a very different thing. Firmness is a term used to describe the feel of a mattress or its comfort. Just as we mentioned before, sleeping on the ground or on a solid concrete surface is the highest level of firmness. But since firmness is a very subjective thing and we each feel the firmness of an object differently, mattress brands have created products with different levels of firmness, so that consumers will have more options to choose from.

Firmness and support are two different things. Support is translated into the mattress’ capacity to provide good spinal alignment. Firmness is subjective, but support is not. When it comes to firmness, we hear a lot of different terms, like plush, medium or extra firm. Since we’ve already established that firmness is subjective, a classification was required so that we can all speak the same language. That’s how the firmness scale was born. Using numbers from 1 to 10, mattresses are classified from soft to firm. 1 is the lowest firmness level, also known as extremely soft. Numbers 2 and 3 represent a soft mattress, while numbers from 4 to 6 are used to define medium ones. When a mattress is graded between 7 and 9, it means that it’s firm and has little sinkage, and number 10 mattresses are extremely firm. As you can imagine, different firmness levels are suitable for different sleeping positions. Soft mattresses, for instance, will easily take the shape of your body and provide extreme comfort, but they sacrifice freedom of movement instead. You will feel your body sinking into the mattress and, if you like switching positions a lot during the night, you will find this rather uncomfortable. This mattress is preferred by those who like to sleep on their sides because they have extra cushioning in their hips and shoulder areas. The medium mattresses are good for people who like to sleep in all positions, while firm ones are good for back and stomach sleepers. Firmness is measured by comfort. If you don’t feel like your body is fully relaxed from the first 5 minutes you get into bed, chances are you won’t be able to get a good night’s rest. But firmness also determines another important factor: motion transfer. A mattress that absorbs motion allows you to move freely on one side of the bed without your sleeping partner being disturbed by your every movement. Motion transfer is not just influenced by the mattress’ firmness, but also by its construction. Also, if you often find yourself sitting on the side of the bed for whatever reason, you need a mattress that also has good edge support. Most soft mattresses are very squishy on the sides and you will feel like you’re sliding off the bed each time you sit on the edge. But what happens when you and your sleeping partner each prefer to sleep on different levels of firmness? Thankfully, there are mattresses that allow for an individual configuration for each side of the bed. Some manufacturers manage to deliver that by adding individual layers of comfort foam on each bedside, depending on the sleeper’s preference. Others have individual air chambers that allow you to make the insides of the mattress as soft or as firm as you like. And the Sleep Mattress iLE is a great such example.

Sleep Number iLE Innovation Series Mattress

Features and Benefits

The iLE mattress is part of the Innovation Series created by Sleep Number, along with the i8 and i10 smart beds. Measuring 12 inches in height, this mattress combines air chambers technology with integrated sensors to provide you with good pressure relief and support, while also gathering data about your sleeping habits and preferences.

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Available Sizes

The iLE mattress is available in 6 different sizes, with the following measurements:

Construction

Depending on the size of the mattress chosen, the iLE features either one or two air chambers that can be adjusted to determine your sleep number. Entitled the “DualAir adjustability” feature, this helps individuals determine and configure their own firmness preference for each side of the bed. Every mattress integrates a 4 feet hose that’s connected to a power outlet and allows you to inflate or deflate the mattress until you reach a configuration that your body feels comfortable with.

Made from a combination of polypropylene blend and polyester, the iLE was designed to ensure breathability and airflow, while also being soft to the touch. The duvet style pillow top comes with a 1-inch layer of quilting foam sewn in. This is the very first layer of support that takes the shape of your body. With medium bounciness and responsiveness, this layer helps your body to transition to the next layer. Underneath lies a 3-inch layer of Exclusive Comfort Foam. As expected, this layer integrates body support and breathability, a feature that’s only available for the premium Sleep Number mattress (if you can call them that, considering that whole brand provides premium bedding and high-quality accessories). The comfort foam is made to provide pressure point alleviation for five body zones, to make sure that the mattress can cater to any sleeping position. Next, you have the dual air chambers with adjustable firmness and, last but not least, is a 2-inch foam base pad. This supports the total weight of the other layers and is a common feature of all Sleep Number mattresses.

Bed Bases

If you’re familiar with the product range of the Sleep Number mattresses, you’ve probably heard about the 4 different bed bases that they also offer. Even if the iLE is compatible with a standard platform base, you can also purchase their regular base model. However, if you want to add more features to your mattress, you will have to opt for one of the 3 available upgrades: the FlexFit 1, 2 or 3. While they share a common set of functionalities, each of the FlexFit bases is an upgrade to the previous one. Depending on the model chosen, you can have an unlimited number of options for head and feet elevation, foot warmth, under the bed lighting or snooze support.

Sleep Number

Since Sleep Number mattresses are all based on the adjustability of the firmness, they have decided to name this whole process in a representative manner. The sleep number can be adjusted in one of two ways: either by using the designated app or by separately ordering the remote control, which will add another $40 to your cart. There is an entire process for choosing the optimal sleep number for every individual and, sadly for some, this process requires time and patience because you will have to sleep for several nights on a specific configuration to determine if that number is really the best choice. In order to adjust your mattress configuration, you will have to lie down in your favorite sleeping position. Adjust the sleeping score to 100, which is the highest level of firmness for your iLE mattress. Starting from 100, work your way down to find the ideal firmness while keeping in mind that the average sleep number for most people is between 40 and 60.

SleepIQ Tracker

With sensors integrated into your mattress, Sleep Number is looking to take your bedding experience to a whole new level. These sensors are connected to your home wireless network and start gathering information as soon as you go to sleep. The SleepIQ score is available every time you wake up and it provides information about how you slept the night before. The score is influenced by a series of factors. Your sleep goal is one of them. This allows you to input a certain number of hours of rest you’d like to get every night, a number that should realistically reflect how much you sleep on average. The time you spend in bed is also a factor that influences your sleep score. It’s important to have the app activate the sensors and start tracking only the hours that are actually spend in bed sleeping. If you like to spend more time in bed reading or watching TV, you need to make sure that the app won’t take those hours into consideration and mark them as “restless”. Your breath and heart rate are also important, but since they vary from person to person, it’s hard to say if they are affecting your sleep on a negative level. That’s why it’s important to let the app adjust to your sleeping habits for a couple of weeks. The only problem with this technology is that it’s hard to interpret the results given by all these statistics.

Responsive Air Technology

Part of the SleepIQ technology, the mattress is capable of self-monitoring its air pressure to make sure that you’re always resting on your ideal sleep number. When you move around and change positions in your sleep, the mattress will sometimes lose air. Responsive Air helps adjust that on the go so that you have the same level of firmness throughout the entire night. Each side of the bed can turn this feature on and off. If both sleepers have the feature activated, SleepIQ will make adjustments for one side of the bed a time.

Financing

Since Sleep Number sells some of the most expensive mattresses that money can buy, they also offer a variety of financing options so that everyone can enjoy these high-quality products without spending a ton of money all at once. You can opt for up to 48 months of special financing. If you want to apply for financing, you have to fill out a short online form that’s available on Sleep Number’s website. Your credit decision should come as soon as you’ve submitted your application. If your request is approved, you will receive an account number that’s used at checkout.

Customer Opinions

There is a lot of debate going around about the efficiency of the iLE’s design. While there isn’t a single doubt that this mattress has appealed to the public, there are a couple of design flaws, if we can call them that. First, in order to really get the best out of your Sleep Number’s experience, you have to make sure you’re sleeping in the middle of your air chamber. That leads to the second problem. Since all the mattress sizes that are meant for 2 sleepers come with dual air chambers, there is a “dead zone” created right in the middle. If you and your significant other like to cuddle during the night, one of you will end up sleeping on the dead zone.

This is definitely one of the strongest points of the iLE mattress. Customers can agree (almost unanimously) that the support and pressure relief provided by this product is enough to alleviate any pains that you might go to sleep with, but also helps ensure that you won’t wake up with new ones in the morning.

While the idea behind this technology is good, the execution leaves a lot of space for improvement. People who normally don’t use other health tracking apps are having a hard time understanding how to interpret all the information given by their sleep score and don’t know how to act accordingly.

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The Bottom Line

There are very little differences between the iLE and the i8 which, in our opinion, is the best Sleep Number mattress for those who are interested in a product that blends both comfort and technology. The iLE is just a tad overpriced compared to the i8, which really isn’t justified since the mattresses are super similar in terms of features. If you have your heart set on buying a Sleep Number mattress, but you felt it’s a little bit over your budget, the financing options that are available for every one of their mattresses is an excellent choice. Don’t be fooled by the fact that the iLE allows you to adjust the firmness of the air chambers by inflating or deflating them: the other integrated layers that go above the chambers are just as important in determining the overall firmness of the product. While the two 3 inch layers that are placed above the air chambers of the iLE make it softer compared to the cheaper Sleep Number mattresses (like the c2 or c4), the mattress still falls on the medium side of things. Even so, the 3-inch layer of quilting foam combined with the 3-inch layer of exclusive comfort foam will provide more cushioning comes to other mattresses.

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Sleep Number iLE Mattress Specs

 Height: 12 Inches

 Comfort Layer: 6 Inches

 Trial Period: 100 Night Trial

 Warranty: 25 Year Limited Warranty

Available Sizes