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- Great pressure relief for side sleepers
- Ideal for combination and back sleepers looking for some softness
- “Reactiv” layer bounces back well and keeps shape
- Struggles with temperature regulation in humid conditions
- Strong off-gassing smell
Zoma might be slightly better known in the US, but the company has been selling and manufacturing its Zoma mattresses in the UK for two years. They’re available in both all-foam and hybrid versions and I’ve tested the hybrid version, sleeping on it for a month to see how it performed.
I rate the Zoma Hybrid particularly highly for side sleepers, with the mattress offering excellent pressure relief and contouring. Its responsive feel means it’s also a good choice for combination sleepers and I think back sleepers looking for some softness will also enjoy it.
However, the mattress struggled to keep sleepers cool in a very hot, humid British summer and there is a little motion transfer. Bearing all this in mind, is the mattress the right fit for your sleeping style?
Zoma Hybrid Mattress review: What you need to know
My delivery was organised by Zoma as a press sample but if you’re ordering yourself and get that order in before 12 noon, you can expect delivery the next day, which is extraordinarily speedy, even in the bed-in-a-box world.
You’ll be contacted by the delivery company the evening before delivery to confirm and a two-person team will take the mattress to your bedroom. There’s also the option have your old mattress removed at the same time.
The mattress arrived in a box, vacuum-packed in plastic. It was simple to open and quick to inflate – I would have been happy to sleep on it after a few hours. However, there was a lot of off-gassing, and the smell did take about five days to fade completely.
Like the best hybrid mattresses, the Zoma Hybrid is made from a combination of foams and coils. The first layer is made with perforated gel-infused memory foam and is designed to help with pressure relief.
Underneath this is the brand’s proprietary Reactiv foam, which is designed to help with responsiveness and cushioning to give a floating feel to a sleeper. It’s also designed to bounce back quickly after you move off an area. These foams are all CertiPur certified and free of harmful materials.
Next up is the coil layer, with individually wrapped springs that are supposed to help with motion transfer and stability. The mattress rests on a firmer foam base and the whole structure is wrapped in a stretchy AirCloth cover. One thing to note is that there are no handles on the side of the mattress, which makes shifting it around a bit of a chore once it is fully free of its packaging.
Off-gassing is the smell that’s typically produced by bed-in-a-box mattresses when they are first unwrapped. This is a result of VOCs (volatile organic compounds) that are produced as a by-product of the manufacturing process, which are then trapped in the plastic vacuum packaging. The smell can last for a few days and some people find it unpleasant, but it has no known serious side effects.
Price and competition
At full price, a king size Zoma Hybrid will set you back £949 but, in reality, you’ll rarely see the mattress sold at full price. While we were testing, the king was reduced to £699 along with free old mattress removal. You also get free shipping and returns, a ten-year warranty and 100 nights to try it out to see if it suits.
At £699 for a king size, the price is puts it in line with the Emma Hybrid Premium at £639, while the DreamCloud Luxury Hybrid costs slightly more at £775.
There are some cheaper options available, too, such as the Nectar Memory Foam mattress at £549, although this is all-foam, and the Origin Hybrid mattress at £451, which I’d recommend for stomach sleepers).
Comfort and performance
Zoma describe its hybrid as “luxury firm”, a term more often used with American mattresses. They rate it at 7/10, which I’d agree with, although our test data suggests it’s actually on the firmer side of medium.
That’s an easy enough result to explain, though. The mattress has a good firm core, but with a lot of cushioning foam on top, a feature you’ll often find in the best mattresses for side sleepers. My husband and I are both combination sleepers, and we found the mattress particularly comfortable for side sleeping, with excellent pressure relief around the shoulders, hips and knees. The foam offers excellent contouring, too, and you can really feel it supporting the joints in this position.
If you like a bit of softness in your mattress as a back sleeper, I also think you’ll get on well with this mattress thanks to the firmer support of the coils helping to keep the spine aligned. However, I am a back pain sufferer and found the mattress didn’t provide adequate lumbar support, even though I’m quite light. However, I freely admit that I prefer a firmer mattress overall, so this wasn’t a huge surprise.
Nevertheless, if you do suffer with back pain, I’d recommend checking out the best mattresses for back pain instead. I wouldn’t recommend this mattress to stomach sleepers though, as the top layer is too soft at the top to keep the hips properly elevated. Instead, I’d suggest investigating the Origin Hybrid.
Of course, weight also plays a part in determining how firm we find a mattress. I carried out an objective sinkage test with a 10kg weight and found it sank 15mm around shoulder height when someone is lying on the bed. These findings aligned with my thoughts of the mattress as medium to medium firm.
Using the weight also made it easy to see how the Reactiv foam works – the indent left by the 10kg disappeared remarkably quickly – you can visibly see the pushback from this responsive foam. However, there is still some bounce with the Zoma overall and, if you share your bed with a very restless sleeper, you might be better off considering the all-foam version instead.
I also tested edge support, which is important as it allows sleepers to use the full width of the mattress as well as sit safely on the bed. With the same 10kg of weight, the mattress sank by 19cm at the edge, which is not that bad for a bed-in-a-box hybrid mattress – not the best, but not far off it.
Lastly, I conducted temperature tests – see our how we test mattresses guide for more details. I was testing the Zoma Hybrid in a particularly hot and humid period and the room temperature at the time was 25.3C. During the body temperature test, the temperature dropped from 30C down to 26.6C after three minutes, while the heat pad test saw the mattress temperature drop from 50C to 31.8C after three minutes.
Bearing all this in mind, I decided to retest the mattress once the temperature was a bit cooler, although the room temperature was still 22.5C. In this case, the body temperature test saw the temperature drop from 30C to 25.3 after three minutes, with the heat pad test seeing a drop from 50C down to 29.7C after three minutes.
Those numbers suggest the mattress isn’t as good as others we’ve tested at keeping you cool, and my experience with the mattress along with my husband’s (who is a hot sleeper) confirm these findings.
It’s worth bearing in mind, though, that other reviews of the mattress praise it for its cooling abilities, and I’d be prepared to say that I think the main problem was the humidity in the air at the time. So, whilst I wouldn’t advise this mattress for really hot sleepers, I think that it would be fine for most people – unless it’s a brief period of very humid weather.
Zoma Hybrid Mattress review: Verdict
At the discounted price, I think the price of £699 for a king size is fair. It sits in line with most of its main competitors and is reasonably priced for a mattress of this type. It is quite a simple design, though, and I wish it had handles for moving it about.
As for the sleeping experience, that’s great and if you like plenty of padding on top of a nicely supportive core, the Zoma should be on your list. It’s a fantastic mattress for side sleepers and combination sleepers, eases away any pressure points and provides a comfortable surface on which to sleep. I wouldn’t recommend it to stomach sleepers or those looking for firmer lumbar support, but its responsive surface makes it incredibly easy to move around on.
Along with my husband and I, we had a few people to stay during the testing period, and everyone slept really well on the Zoma Hybrid, waking up feeling rested and refreshed. Apart from the slight issues with temperature regulation in humid conditions, this mattress proved comfortable for all our side and combination sleepers.
