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- Foam is comfortable and supportive
- Good temperature regulation
- Comes with a 30-night trial
- Very expensive
- Tempur memory foam will be divisive
Tempur is well known for its “slow-response” memory foam that contours to your body. But it’s a bit like Marmite: while some enjoy the “weightless” comfort and support it offers (our Sleep Awards 2026 survey shows many of you do), others describe it as feeling “stuck in the mud” or being swallowed by a giant marshmallow.
My opinion of the Tempur Cloud SmartCool Pillow is largely positive. During my weeks of testing it, I’ve found it comfortable, supportive and never too hot – even when UK temperatures skyrocketed over several heatwaves.
Tempur Cloud SmartCool Pillow: What do you get for the money?
The Tempur Cloud SmartCool Pillow is listed at £165 on the Tempur website, making it the most expensive pillow I’ve ever tested. The Original SmartCool Pillow costs the same, but has increased in price since I reviewed it last summer, when it cost £149. The only other brand I’m familiar with that sells pillows at such steep prices is Simba: its Hybrid Pillow (featured on our Best pillows roundup) costs £109, while its CustomFlex pillow is £159.
Some of my favourite pillows are much more affordable by contrast. Let’s consider some memory foam rivals first: the Best Buy award-winning Otty Deluxe Pure pillow is £70, while our best-value foam option, Panda’s Memory Foam Bamboo Pillow, is £45.
Pillows made with natural materials are often more expensive than synthetic ones, but most still don’t match Tempur’s lofty prices. For instance, the Woolroom Deluxe Washable Wool Pillow, which won “Best pillow” in our Sleep Awards 2026, is £100 – significantly cheaper than the Cloud SmartCool pillow.
It’s worth noting that Tempur offers a 30-night trial period during which you can try the pillow out. Should you decide it’s not for you, you can return it (for free) and get a refund – provided you’ve first spoken to Tempur’s customer service team, who will “work with you to answer your questions and resolve your concerns”.
Unlike the curved Original SmartCool Pillow I put through its paces in June 2025, the Cloud SmartCool is much more malleable. A foam sleeve is filled with what Tempur calls “micro-cushions”: shreds of the brand’s patented “Adapt” memory foam. The pillow comes in two firmness options, Medium and Soft, the difference being the type of material used for the sleeve: a “Tempur Advanced” foam for the former and a “Tempur Extra Soft” foam for the latter.
Around all this is a removable cover (a synthetic blend of polyester, polyethylene and elastine), stitched with a thin padding that runs across it in curved stripes. This can be machine washed at 40°C, turned inside out with the zipper closed, but it’s not suitable for tumble drying.
The pillow’s cover has “SmartCool” technology woven into it for a cool-to-the-touch feeling and better temperature regulation. I always treat the “cooling tech” claims of mattress and bedding brands with a healthy amount of scepticism. According to Tempur, this cover uses “specialised fibres woven into the fabric that actively draw excess body heat away from your skin” to “provide an instant cooling sensation (…), which helps prevent you from overheating”. Testing such claims objectively is very difficult, but I’ll provide my subjective impressions of the pillow’s temperature regulation later in this review.
How I tested the Tempur Cloud SmartCool Pillow
There aren’t many standardised tests on which we can rely for objective data when testing pillows – at least not any that are viable with the resources at my disposal. Instead, I test all the pillows I review at home, sleeping on them night after night over a period of at least two weeks.
During this period, I make a note of how comfortable and supportive the pillow feels in a range of sleeping positions, how well it keeps its shape throughout the night and whether or not it becomes uncomfortably warm. In addition to how the pillow feels, I assess how it compares with its rivals in terms of cost and any trial period included.
Comfort and support
The first thing that struck me about the Tempur Cloud SmartCool Pillow was just how hefty it is. It’s one of the heaviest pillows I’ve reviewed. This didn’t have much bearing on how it feels, though: I found it comfortable and supportive.
Because of its “micro-cushion” filling, the Tempur Cloud SmartCool feels more plush than the Original SmartCool, which is made of a solid lump of memory foam. As a result, those who don’t get on with memory foam, may have a better experience here. That said, it still has the distinctive feel of Tempur’s slow-response memory foam, which took me a little while to adjust to.
Since the first few nights, though, I’ve not had a bad sleep on the Cloud SmartCool. I’ve seen some customer reviews complain that it’s too flat and the filling is unevenly distributed. However, following Tempur’s advice of “daily fluffing and puffing” has helped keep the pillow in shape without much hassle.
Temperature regulation
The Tempur Cloud SmartCool is, of course, marketed as a cooling pillow. As I said, I’m more than a little sceptical when brands talk of their proprietary “cooling technology”. Once more for the record: no material, unless it contains some sort of refrigerant, will actively cool you down. What good cooling design can do, however, is make use of breathable materials that allow your body to more easily regulate its own temperature.
Tempur’s Cloud SmartCool pillow does this pretty well. I tested it during a couple of intense heatwaves, and my head never felt too hot and clammy. Of course, the material of your chosen pillowcase will also have an impact here: I’ve been using a silk pillowcase, and if you’re a hot sleeper, I recommend you also use bedding made from breathable, natural materials.
While the cover isn’t as obviously “cool-to-the-touch” as Tempur suggests, I was pleased with the Cloud SmartCool’s temperature regulation – particularly for a pillow made primarily from synthetic fabrics and memory foam.
Is any pillow worth a three-figure price tag?
I don’t like marking down a product on its price alone – particularly when something is actually good, as the Tempur Cloud SmartCool is. Some things are genuinely worth investing in, and good bedding is among them. I certainly don’t recommend skimping here, given how much of our lives we spend sleeping.
However, the Tempur Cloud SmartCool pillow is particularly pricey. It’s the most expensive pillow I’ve reviewed, with very few other brands straying far into the three figures (I’m looking at you, Simba).
What makes me uncomfortable about this particular investment is just how many pillows I’ve tested and enthusiastically recommended that cost half the price, or even less, than the Cloud SmartCool. The mattress and bedding market is intensely competitive, and when there are so many good options at more affordable prices, a memory foam pillow costing this much is not going to be my first recommendation.
Should I buy the Tempur Cloud SmartCool Pillow?
If you’ve already bought into the Tempur ecosystem, then the Cloud SmartCool might seem like an obvious choice. And there’s a lot to like about it: it’s comfortable, supportive, doesn’t feel too hot (even in a heatwave) and the choice of firmness options and 30-night trial are certainly not to be sniffed at.
But there will be plenty of people who write off the Cloud SmartCool because of its price, and I can’t blame them. If I had to buy myself a memory foam pillow tomorrow, I’d opt for the Otty Deluxe Pure or the Panda Bamboo Pillow; they’re just as comfortable and much more affordable.
