As the bedding industry speculates about Sleep Number after its recent acquisition by Sleep Country Canada, let’s not forget who they are or what they’ve built.
The company has 572 stores and a known household brand name that’s nearly as popular as Tempur-Pedic and Serta. Despite recently filing for bankruptcy, they reported $1.4 billion in annual sales last year and are No. 17 on Home News Now’s Top 125 list.
The retailer is continuing to invest in the sleep category with one of the largest real-world sleep studies of its kind, which has real benefits for both consumers and members of the mattress industry.
Sleep Number researchers analyzed sleep data from nearly 82,000 people across more than one million sleep sessions gathered directly from Climate360 sleepers in their home. The study looked at how using the Climate360 bed’s different temperature settings and adjustments throughout the night influenced sleep patterns.
The data showed that adjusting the mattress temperature increased sleep duration by more than 52 additional minutes per night compared with those who did not adjust the temperature.
The study says the most effective approach “gently warms the bed early in the night to promote heat loss from the body and support the natural drop in core body temperature, then later cools the sleeper by actively drawing warm air away from their body to align with the body’s natural sleep cycle. Together, these findings provide strong, population-scale evidence that dynamic temperature control is an effective, science-backed way to improve sleep.”
“Temperature has a powerful impact on your comfort and your sleep,” said Melissa Barra, Sleep Number’s EVP and chief product, strategy and technology officer. “This research shows how mattresses are evolving, and how personalized comfort that adapts to you can help improve sleep and wellness over time.”
“This large-scale, real-world study provides compelling evidence that actively managing bed temperature can help people sleep longer,” Sleep Numbers Sr Public Relations Manager Nichole Teixeira told Bedding News Now. “The findings are important because they validate, at population scale, that dynamic temperature optimization is a practical, science-backed way to improve sleep.
On the B2B side, Teixeira said these findings show that temperature plays a bigger role in sleep than the bedding industry may have traditionally recognized and suggest that when and how temperature changes throughout the night matters.
“For example, actively adjusting temperature can help people sleep longer, with the best outcomes coming from warming at the start of the night and cooling later,” she said. “For the bedding industry, this highlights an opportunity to focus on solutions that deliver measurable sleep benefits and reinforces that temperature is not just a comfort feature, it’s a powerful tool for helping people get better sleep.”
