Otty Flex mattress review: Up to £200 cheaper right now

Otty’s Hybrid mattress won as many plaudits as any product we’ve ever tested at Expert Reviews. Along with the Best Buy award it picked up when we first published our review, it made a clean sweep at the Expert Reviews Awards 2019, grabbing the title of Best Mattress and, most impressively, Product of the Year. 

Since the Hybrid’s release, the company has launched a cheaper alternative: the Essential, and, more recently, this all-foam model, the Flex. Although it represents a tempting option, sadly this latest model doesn’t quite live up to the high standards the company set with the Hybrid.

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Otty Flex review: What you need to know

As with many of its all-foam rivals, the Otty Flex has three main layers. Below its removable, washable cover, there’s a 35mm AirTech comfort layer, 35mm of AirTech support foam and 180mm of firmer foam providing a foundation. This final layer also has contour cuts to deliver softer levels of support around the shoulders and hips.

That makes for an overall depth of 250mm, which is pretty standard for bed-in-a-box mattresses in this price range and means it should be compatible with all fitted sheets. As for the quality of materials used, Otty’s foams are all Certipur certified, meaning they’ve been independently tested to ensure they contain nothing harmful. The Flex is also the only Otty mattress that’s made here in the UK.

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Otty claims the Flex is softer than its Hybrid model, which I’d definitely agree with. As with its stablemates, it comes with a 100-night trial, which means you can return it for a full refund within that time if you don’t like it. It’s also protected by a ten-year guarantee against manufacturing defects.

Otty Flex review: Price and competition

Priced at £500 and £600 in double and king sizes, the Flex is £50 cheaper than the Hybrid and just £25 more than the Essential, which appears to be on the brink of being phased out judging from its lack of availability on the Otty website. At the time of writing, however, the Flex is reduced by 30% meaning you can pick it up for £350 and £420, depending on which size you opt for.

At that price, only the budget mattresses from Eve and Casper can compete with the Flex. The Eve Light will set you back £400 and £500 in double and king sizes, while the Casper Essential costs £400 and £450, respectively. Both budget models are thinner than the Flex and have one fewer foam layer but we didn’t find them any less supportive.

Alternatively, if you can stretch your budget can stretch by another £100, the Eve Original is a great option, costing £600 and £700 for double and king sizes. The original Casper mattress also follows this pricing model and will cost you £600 or £700 depending on which size you pick.

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Otty Flex review: Performance and comfort

Despite its lower price, the Otty Flex offers many of the same features of these pricier rivals and, at first glance, appears every bit as good as them. It arrives rolled up, vacuum-packed and boxed and comes with a removable, washable cover that also has handles on its underside to make rotating it – recommend once a month for the first year – much easier.

Where it differs from some of its rivals, though, is in one of the finer details of its design. To elaborate, it has deep, two-layer, contour cuts that correspond with both the shoulders and hips in its foundation layer. These cuts soften the overall level of support in these areas. In my experience, however, they simply soften the mattress too much in the area around your hips.

On some of our favourite mattresses such as Emma, Casper and Eve, you’ll also find contour cuts around the hips but they’re either more shallow, more sparsely interspersed or both, to deliver a level of support that’s firmer than the area surrounding your shoulders. With the Otty Flex, though, there are as many cuts in the hip section as the shoulder area and, when I first lay on it, I could feel my hips drop further than I’d like relative to my head, shoulders and heels when lying on my back.

That’s something that you may notice more or less according to your height and weight, but at around 75kg and 6ft tall, I’m not of a drastically different build to the average male. If you’re considerably lighter than me, you might not have any problems but similarly, if you weigh more then it may well feel even softer.

The flipside to this is that the Flex does do a good job of accommodating the shape of your hips when you lie on your side and, as such, I found myself adopting this position more often than not when sleeping on the mattress. If you only ever sleep on your side, then, its lack of hip support might not be a dealbreaker for you.

READ NEXT: Emma Original Mattress review

The good news is that I also didn’t notice the levels of support change drastically when the mattress was used on a yielding foundation such as sprung slatted base or when it warmed up, as can be the case with some memory foam products. 

However, that’s not to say that the Flex doesn’t warm up. Although I never woke feeling excessively clammy or sweaty, the mattress still got relatively warm during a cold November night using only a 4.5-tog duvet and a single cotton blanket.

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Otty Flex review: Verdict

It’s a shame, but because of one subtle flaw in its design, it’s impossible for me to recommend the Otty Flex. A lack of support around the hips when a mattress is new should always be a red flag, especially when you consider most foam mattresses only soften over time.

If you sleep exclusively on your side then this shortcoming needn’t put you off, but for everyone else, I’d still recommend opting for the Otty Hybrid. If that’s too firm for you, or you want something that’s made entirely from foam, the budget models from Eve and Casper are very good, providing you have a sturdy foundation to use them on.