There’s an elephant outside the room, and her name is Emma. Emma Sleep is one of the biggest names in bed-in-a-box mattresses, with more monthly Google searches than Simba, Otty and Ikea’s mattresses put together, but there’s been no mention of it in the Filter’s best mattresses roundup until now.
What took us so long? Emma’s customer feedback has too often boiled down to “nice mattress, shame about the customer service”. We couldn’t, in all conscience, recommend a product whose buyers complained of disappearing deliveries and absent aftercare. However, Emma’s Hybrid Premium has been a glaring omission from the Filter, and I was intrigued to find out why this mattress seemed so popular.
To avoid any preferential treatment, I bought the Hybrid Premium rather than requesting a review sample. The mattress proved too soft for me and my family, so I decided to return it under Emma’s free 200-night trial. Here’s the good, the bad and the DPD (courier) of what happened next.
View at Emma***
How I tested
My undercover Emma adventure began when I ordered a double-size Hybrid Premium online at the beginning of September. I used my husband Alan’s email address, bank card and name. We have different surnames, so I’m confident I received the same treatment as any other Emma customer, both when buying the mattress and when trying to return it.
As soon as the mattress was delivered, I removed it from its packaging and left it for a few days to expand to full size. Alan and I then took photos of it and ran our usual mattress testing experiments, using weights and wobbly cups of water to measure factors such as sinkage, motion isolation and edge support. Our family testing panel came over to score it out of 10 on firmness, breathability and comfort.
Then came the sleeping. Alan and I shared the mattress for a week in mid-September, when night temperatures ranged from a comfortable 13C to a brisk-feeling 7C. Underneath was a slatted Ikea bed base; on top was a mattress protector, fitted sheet and medium 10.5-tog duvet. The Hybrid Premium does not claim to be a cooling mattress, but the changeable September nights gave us a chance to see how it fared on warm and chilly nights.
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What you need to know, from price to firmness
View at EmmaEmma’s mattress may have Premium in its name, but it’s cheaper than most of the hybrid mattresses I’ve reviewed. At £528 for a double (£587 for a king-size), the Emma costs about 20% less than the Otty Original Hybrid and less than half the price of the Simba Hybrid Pro. It comes in seven sizes, ranging from UK single (£359) to UK super king (£679).
The Hybrid Premium – formerly known as the NextGen Premium – is one of four mattresses made by Emma. The cheapest and most simple in terms of construction is the Hybrid Original, which starts at £249; the Hybrid Premium is next up the scale. Above it are the Hybrid Thermosync, which has more foam layers and starts at £519, and the Hybrid Airgrid, a softer mattress with even more foam and a starting price of £669.
As with all hybrid mattresses, the Hybrid Premium combines springs (mainly for support) with multiple layers of foam (mainly for cushioning). It doesn’t contain as many springs or layers as more expensive hybrids, though. Emma doesn’t say how many springs are in the Hybrid Premium, so I counted them. The double has 672 pocket springs, each 18cm tall, which I found easy to count because they’re visible through the non-slip fabric base layer.
Three layers of foam are stuck together to form a cushion between the springs and the removable fabric sleeping surface. The two lower foam layers each measure 1cm thick, and the one on top is 1.25cm. This top layer just about meets the description “memory foam”. It’s much less elastic than the foam in the Tempur Pro Plus SmartCool and Panda Hybrid Bamboo, and didn’t retain the shape of my hand when I pressed it, but it’s spongy enough to offset the bounce of the springs and help you sleep in peace if you share your bed.
You can unzip and machine-wash the Hybrid Premium’s entire cover. The non-slip bottom layer washes at 40C, while the soft top layer will endure 60C. The covers unzip quickly and smoothly, and I found them easy to wash and quick to dry.
I also found the Hybrid Premium much easier to handle than most of the hybrid and foam mattresses I’ve reviewed. At 25cm deep, it perfectly fits standard fitted sheets, and at 29.5kg for a double, it’s one of the lighter mattresses I’ve tested. Good thing, too, because you should rotate the mattress from head to toe once a month for the first six months, then once every three months to avoid indentations where you sleep.
The Hybrid Premium is described by Emma as medium-firm, but so are many mattresses, including those I’ve found to be firm (such as the Origin Hybrid Pro) and soft (such as the Eve Wunderflip Hybrid). When I asked my family to help rate its firmness, the consensus was that it falls at the softer end of medium-firm. I ran tests with weights to make sure, and the sleeping surface sank a maximum of 37mm under 7.5kg – not quite as soft as the Eve (which sank 40mm), but much softer than the Otty (25mm).
The German company Emma Sleep has two physical stores in the UK, in London and Manchester, so you can try a Hybrid Premium before buying, if either of those is close to you. Yet it can take weeks or even months to know whether a mattress is right for you, so I welcome Emma’s decision to extend its free trial from 100 nights to 200, in line with Simba and Origin.
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Specifications
Type: hybrid
Firmness: advertised as medium-firm, panel rated as 6/10
Depth: 25cm
Cover: unzip to wash at 60C (upper section); 40C (lower section)
Turn or rotate: rotate monthly for six months, then every three months
Trial period: 200 nights
Warranty: 10 years
Old mattress recycling: not offered
Sustainability credentials: Emma’s Second Life programme refurbishes returned mattresses for resale; the company aims to “uphold human, environmental and labour rights” and achieve net zero by 2030
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Delivery
Emma’s reputation for customer service could be better. On Trustpilot, the UK’s most widely used customer feedback platform, Emma receives a higher proportion of one-star reviews and a lower proportion of five-star reviews than comparable companies whose products I’ve reviewed, including Dunelm, Simba, Otty, Dreams and Woolroom. Only Ikea fares worse (much worse, it’s fair to say).
We asked Emma’s CEO and founder, Dennis Schmoltzi, what the company has done to address the mixed feedback. “[Some older reviews] don’t represent the experience we work hard to deliver in the UK today,” he said. “Over the past 12 months, we have redesigned our supply chain, improved inventory management, invested in customer support and overhauled our delivery process.”
Even so, my expectations were limited when I placed my order for a double Emma Hybrid Premium. I wasn’t keen on the upselling attempts (I definitely didn’t add that pillow to my cart by myself), and I would have welcomed an offer to take away my old mattress. However, for speed, tracking and efficiency, I have no complaints about Emma’s delivery.
I placed the order on a Friday, received tracking texts on a Monday with a two-hour delivery window, and had the mattress delivered by my familiar local DPD guy on Wednesday morning (Emma also delivers via UPS and Rhenus). This was my first DPD mattress delivery, contrasting with the in-house teams who delivered the Ikea Valevåg and the Tempur, and the furniture specialists who delivered others. There was no offer to carry it upstairs for me, but you can pay an extra £35 for delivery to the room of your choice.
Fortunately, the Hybrid Premium is quite light, so Alan and I had no trouble hefting it ourselves. I also found it much easier to unpack than most bed-in-a-box hybrids, not least because it comes wrapped in far less plastic than, say, the Simba or the Origin.
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What we love
My first few impressions of the Hybrid Premium were excellent. Delivery was quick, unboxing was easy, and it felt wonderfully comfortable to lie on. My husband and our helpful local family members agreed: Emma was a hit.
Its foam and springs strike a lovely balance between softness and support, which feels consistent wherever you lie on the mattress. I asked Alan to take a photo of me lying down on my side, so I could see how well my spine aligned. Good spinal alignment is important for avoiding back pain from a mattress, and judging by our quick check, the Hybrid Premium was a good match for me. My hip felt cradled, and my upper back felt supported.
The Hybrid Premium has good motion isolation, with the slim foam layers absorbing our movements whenever we turned over. Oddly, though, we both thought the mattress felt bouncy when we sat on it. This may be because the springs take up significantly more space than the foam.
This composition makes for a lightweight mattress that’s airy and breathable, as well as being easy to manoeuvre. The fabric cover doesn’t have cooling properties like the Tempur SmartCool’s cover, and the foam isn’t infused with cooling materials like Panda’s mattress topper; in fact, it feels warm and snuggly to touch. Yet the airiness of the mattress itself helped it achieve excellent results in our heat-retention tests, so it’s a great choice if you tend to overheat at night.
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What we don’t love
I enjoyed my first encounter with the Hybrid Premium enough to genuinely look forward to sleeping on it. However, once I’d spent a few hours on it, I found myself craving a return to the much firmer Otty Original Hybrid – the only mattress I’ve bought after testing. I wanted to give the Emma a few weeks to get used to, but my lower back protested so much that I couldn’t quite make it to a full week.
This surprised me. Not only had I found it comfy on first try, but I’m small and I sleep on my side – two factors that should make me a better fit for the softer end of medium firm. In practice, while my shoulders and knees felt well supported, my hips did not, and the muscles in my lower back took the strain. Alan had a similar experience.
As with many modern mattresses, the Hybrid Premium claims to have a “zoned” system that provides more support for your back versus more cushioning for pressure points, such as hips and shoulders, but none of my family noticed this. There was no visible evidence of zoned areas, and neither Alan (5ft 10in) nor I (5ft on my tiptoes) felt additional support under any particular points of our bodies. We re-ran our sinkage tests at different spots on the sleeping surface to correspond roughly with pressure points and back support, and found no discernible pattern. In fact, we were impressed by the consistency of the mattress’s tension – it just wasn’t firm enough for our preferences.
You may not feel the same as us. Firmness preference varies widely, and it’s a big part of choosing a mattress. Our slatted Ikea bed base will have had a slight impact on our impressions of the mattress’s firmness; a solid bed base – such as a divan – would add a slightly more supportive foundation. But even on the firmest foundation, foam always softens in its first few months, and this mattress will feel softer than medium-firm after you’ve slept on it for a while.
On a less subjective note, my Hybrid Premium never seemed to expand fully. The fabric along the sides remained a little creased, and a fold down the middle never disappeared. These are minor quibbles that didn’t affect my comfort or sleep.
I usually donate my test mattresses to Southampton hardship charity Scratch, but I wanted to test the mattress’s free trial, considering Emma’s customer service history. Initiating my return was quick and easy online. Emma tried to dissuade me by offering a complimentary mattress topper, but a quick “thanks but no thanks” sufficed, and they accepted my return in principle.
The mattress was collected a week later by furniture specialists Rhenus, who brought a mattress-sized plastic bag, and Emma issued my refund just two days after that. Emma’s terms and conditions – similar to those of any mattress company – state that the returning mattress should be undamaged (“We may reduce your refund of the price [excluding delivery costs] to reflect any reduction in value of the product”), so it’s wise to use a mattress protector and sheets throughout the free trial period.
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Sustainability
The Emma website doesn’t have much to say on green matters. There’s no sustainability section, no mention of certifications, such as CertiPur or Planet Mark, and no offer to recycle your old mattress. I am, though, reassured by a deeper dig into the company’s activities, and by the packaging and composition of this mattress.
As mentioned, the Emma came wrapped in less plastic than its bulkier rivals. Its relatively light weight and low foam content suggest a smaller carbon footprint, too. Memory foam (high-viscosity polyurethane foam) is chemical-intensive to manufacture and isn’t biodegradable, so the Emma earns green points by not containing very much of it. Springs and fabric are also much easier to recycle.
Behind the scenes, Emma uses the Waro platform to monitor its carbon footprint and suggest improvements. Emma has stated via Waro that it aims to be net zero by 2030, and its Corporate Social Responsibility statement pledges to “uphold human, environmental and labour rights”.
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Emma Hybrid Premium: should I buy it?
The Hybrid Premium isn’t really a “premium” mattress in either price or composition. It’s a worthwhile buy if you’re after a medium-tension mattress that’s easy to manoeuvre and doesn’t overheat when you sleep, but don’t expect too much in the way of support or durability, especially if you have a larger build. My undercover experience of Emma’s delivery and customer service was good, but I’m now waiting to see whether its free trial, typical of bed-in-a-box companies, is quite as hassle-free as it sounds.
View at EmmaFor more:
• The best mattress toppers, tested
• How to choose a mattress
• I tested the most-hyped sleep aids – here’s what worked
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Jane Hoskyn is a features journalist and WFH pioneer with three decades of experience in rearranging bookshelves and “testing” coffee machines while deadlines loom. Her work has made her a low-key expert in all manner of consumables, from sports watches to solar panels. She would always rather be in the woods
