BED COOLERS June 2020
Sleeping Hot
For the starting price of $400, someone who sleeps hot can easily cool their bed; for a queen mattress, it’s a minimum of $800 for 2 units. There are currently 2 main products on the market to do the job: an air cooling gizmo and a water cooling one. Both products will heat or cool your bed. There is a 3rd option, an entire queen mattress system for $3,000; the base model from this manufacturer is called The Pod.
The Bedjet is the air cooled design: http://bedjet.com. It blows cooled air into the foot of your bed, between the sheets, or inside their baffled top sheet. It’s stated cooling range is to a room temperature of 80°. It’s the product we bought in May 2020.
The Chili is the water cooled version: http://chilitechnology.com. It cools by circulating water through a special mattress topper laced with tubules. The Chili has a considerably greater cooling range than the Bedjet, up to a room temperature of 115°.
Bedjet 3 vs the Chili
Pro’s
..cheaper
..quieter
..no risk of water leaks
..no lumpy tubules on the mattress
Con’s
..less cooling capacity
Our Story
From 1 Unit to 2
I bought a Bedjet 3 unit for myself ($400) without the special sheet. After 1 hot night in the trailer, Bill wanted to share it. We thought it possible to share because it had sufficient cooling capacity, but our temperature and timing needs were too different. Bill turned on the heat function early one morning and I leaped out of bed thinking I had a doozy of a hot flash.
Sleeping Hot
For the starting price of $400, someone who sleeps hot can easily cool their bed; for a queen mattress, it’s a minimum of $800 for 2 units. There are currently 2 main products on the market to do the job: an air cooling gizmo and a water cooling one. Both products will heat or cool your bed. There is a 3rd option, an entire queen mattress system for $3,000; the base model from this manufacturer is called The Pod.
The Bedjet is the air cooled design: http://bedjet.com. It blows cooled air into the foot of your bed, between the sheets, or inside their baffled top sheet. It’s stated cooling range is to a room temperature of 80°. It’s the product we bought in May 2020.
The Chili is the water cooled version: http://chilitechnology.com. It cools by circulating water through a special mattress topper laced with tubules. The Chili has a considerably greater cooling range than the Bedjet, up to a room temperature of 115°.
Bedjet 3 vs the Chili
Pro’s
..cheaper
..quieter
..no risk of water leaks
..no lumpy tubules on the mattress
Con’s
..less cooling capacity
Our Story
From 1 Unit to 2
I bought a Bedjet 3 unit for myself ($400) without the special sheet. After 1 hot night in the trailer, Bill wanted to share it. We thought it possible to share because it had sufficient cooling capacity, but our temperature and timing needs were too different. Bill turned on the heat function early one morning and I leaped out of bed thinking I had a doozy of a hot flash.
Attempting to share a single Bedjet unit using our ‘cage’ to lift our top sheet for better air distribution.
We were delighted with the 2 units, each with a remote control, and the special Cloud sheet. Adding the second unit required quite a bit more set-up time than the single unit, but once it was done, it was done.
The special 5 pound sheet is worth the money: it takes the system from OK to perfect. It’s a clever duvet-type design with a tightly woven fabric on top to keep the air in the bag and a more loosely woven fabric underneath, to allow the cooled air to escape on to you. We’ll never be without a Bedjet and its special sheet again and fortunately, the units can easily be moved between our apartment and our trailer.
Heat Wave While in Our Trailer
August temperatures were running rampant in April and May in western Colorado, giving us plenty of practice with our new Bedjets. Initially, we feared that the published information was correct, that a 79° room temperature was all it could handle, but that wasn’t the case. We didn’t establish what its upper limit was, but many nights the interior temperature in our trailer was about 80° at bedtime, with the air conditioner (AC) running, and the Bedjets performed beautifully. On those nights, we used a moderate fan setting of 35% and a low temperature setting of 66° on the Bedjets. They clearly had capacity to spare at an 80° ambient temperature.
The 2 Bedjet 3 units, the air-filled Bedjet Cloud sheet (100% fan setting), our blanket, & the 2 remotes.
The first 10 days or so, I would awaken 3 or 4 times to make adjustments. Too cold, too hot, fuss, fuss but suddenly I got it right and no longer had to fiddle with it. It was actually easier when it was hot all night; one night the overnight low was 75°!
If the outside temperature was still in the mid-80’s when we went to bed, we’d leave the trailer AC running, with the thermostat set on 75°. If one of us got up during the night, we’d turn the AC off, primarily to decrease the noise. There is no way we would have slept so well without the Bedjets in the relentless heat because of the inadequate and uneven cooling provided by the trailer’s AC.
We slept with a light blanket over the sheet (a $10, twin-sized, summer-weight blanket), like recommended by the manufacturer, to keep the cool air in the sheet. On the rare mornings that were actually cold, we each sometimes turned the heat mode on about an hour before getting up.
I can imagine that for some individuals in certain situations, that the Bedjets might not be sufficiently cooling and that the Chili would be a better choice. So far, we have had no regrets about selecting the Bedjet 3 product and purr with delight every night we use it in the persistent heat.