Mattress Firm to offer beds with heating, cooling units

Technology has been used in luxury automobile seats

Larry Thomas -- Furniture Today, September 3, 2010

HOUSTON — Specialty bedding retailer Mattress Firm is set to launch a line of mattresses that employs a heating and cooling unit like those found in many luxury automobile seats.

The line, which will be exclusive to Mattress Firm, has a proprietary technology that uses ambient air to heat and cool the mattress surface. Each side of the bed can be controlled independently.

"This is truly a revolutionary product never before seen in the bedding industry," said CEO Steve Stagner. "The ability to use ambient air to effectively heat and cool the surface of a mattress is the solution many sleepers have been dreaming of. Finally, there is a holistic solution for many sleep needs."

He said the line, to be sold under the brand name Yume, initially will be available at stores in the Austin, Texas, market beginning Sept. 19. It also will be displayed in a booth at the Texas State Fair in Dallas, which runs Sept. 24-Oct. 17.

Stagner said he hopes to roll out the product nationally in the company's more than 580 stores early next year.

The new beds probably will retail for $3,999 in queen, he said.

He said the mattresses are made of a foam produced from coconut oil. The heating and cooling units are in the foundation and force the ambient air through the foam and onto the mattress surface. The temperature can be adjusted 7 to 10 degrees.

The units feature a proprietary thermoelectric technology developed by Amerigon Inc., which supplies heating and cooling units for automobile seats.

"This technology has been proven to work in hundreds of thousands of automobile seats," Stagner said. "It is an unprecedented retail partnership that marries proven technology from very different industries."

The beds will be built at the Corsicana, Texas, plant of bedding producer Sleep Inc.