After a decade owning a mattress factory, Karl can tell you: mattress zoning doesn’t work. It’s that simple. These supposed “comfort zones” are clever marketing, not clever engineering. In this video, Karl cuts through the nonsense about 3, 5, and 7-zone mattresses that companies love to push. His data is clear: when he blind-tested non-zoned designs, return rates dropped dramatically. People slept better without the zones.
🔍 What you’ll learn:
âś“ Why these pre-determined zones can’t possibly match your unique body
âś“ The customer whose hip pain vanished days after ditching their expensive “7-zone technology” mattress
âś“ Why spring quality and proper tension for YOUR weight actually matter
âś“ The fact that premium brands like Hästens (yes, the million-dollar mattresses) don’t bother with zones
âś“ How custom fitting beats marketing features every time
[0:00] Introduction and the zoned mattress pitch
[0:27] Blind testing zoned vs non-zoned springs. So I started getting some test springs in that didn’t have zones. I blind tested those with customers overwhelmingly the non-zoned springs, people like them a lot better
[0:37] Why zones don’t work. Reason one, people move around a lot. You might be on your back so you’ll need something firmer on your back. However,when you go on your side you’ll need it to be softer. So the zones don’t work there. Men have smaller hips than women. They probably need different zoning to women. So that’s a problem.
[0:55] Real customer’s hip pain story: so I recently had a customer they had bought a mattress from a big retailer and they were getting a pinched hip on the side on their hip and they had they said they’re not sure why cause they got a 7 zone mattress. What was actually happening was the spring was actually too firm so it wasn’t compressing under their body weight so the foam was getting squashed and the hip was hitting the spring.
[1:39] What works better than zoning. I’ve found patterns in different people’s body weights. So basically personalising it to your body like medium spring uh will serve medium weights light uh a softer spring for lighter people and a firmer spring for heavier people. So we get the spring right for the body weight, sometimes that’s not correct and it’s important to be able to change that spring out very easily. So we’re able to just drive to the house, take the spring out, put another one in see if you like that.
[2:09] More insider info nuggets about zoned springs. Zones actually don’t cost extra money for the manufacturers they just change the zones. So they are purely there for marketing reasons. Premium brands don’t use these springs. Drake bought a million dollar mattress made by the best mattress company in the world, Hastens, and it doesn’t have zones. They actually adjusted the spring tension to his body weight the same way I do it. That’s where I got it from. The best companies in the world do that.
[2:42] Conclusion: BODYWEIGHT & SPRING TENSION MATCH beats mattress zoning. The mattress industry wants you to think that a 5 zone mattress is better than a 3 zone, and a 7 zone mattress is better than a 5 zone, because it’s a simple thing to understand. What actually matters is not a marketing term. It’s the relationship between your body weight and the spring tension. That’s how you get it right!
For more insights, check out our comprehensive Mattress Guide.
