I spent quite a bit of time trying to get the name right of this mattress when writing up my review. Was it the Sleep Easy Breathe Harmony or the Sleep Harmony Breathe Easy? As you’ll gather, it was the Silentnight Sleepharmony Breatheasy 1000 Mattress, with a little bit of word blending for good measure.
When we tested it, it was at a reduced price of:
- £479 in single
- £599 in double or small double
- £679 in king size
- £799 in super king size.
First impressions and firmness of the Silentnight Sleepharmony Breatheasy 1000 Mattress
One of the first things that you’ll notice about this mattress is that it has a quilted top rather than a tufted finish. Apologies for drifting into some tedious mattress jargon within the first sentence of this review.
The gist of it is that a mattress with a quilted top tends to be flat. A tufted finish looks like it has buttons holding it together. A quilted finish can offer a nice comfy and plush surface. There is a school of thought that a tufted finish provides long-lasting strength.
And what about firmness?
Officially, this mattress is rated as a very firm mattress. As much discussed on The Sleep Guy, there is always a little ambiguity around firmness as each manufacturer sets its own guidelines and standards for describing firmness. I’m going to give this mattress a score of 8/10 for firmness. That is with 1/10 being very soft and 10/10 being very firm.
Firmness tests
I made my way through the various tests that I like to do when reviewing a mattress. First, I lay on my back and put my hand underneath my spine (I call this The Spine Test).
My hand went under very easily. That suggests that the mattress was ever so slightly too firm for my weight and build. You really want a mattress that will support you just the right amount. You don’t want to sink in like it’s a bowl of custard but don’t want to lie on top like it’s a wooden board.
I would say that it was only just too firm for me as someone who is 6ft tall and 13 stone.
Sleeping position is also very important when you are trying to ascertain if a mattress is the right firmness for you. On my back and front it was only slightly too firm by about 5% or 10%. However, on my side it was much too firm and I felt that I would wake up with sore shoulders and hips after a night on this mattress.
That is not intended as a criticism or a pejorative comment about the mattress. There is no perfect firmness that works for everybody and it’s important that you figure out what is right for you.
You might find that this mattress is suitable for your weight and build if you are a little heavier than me and if you also sleep on your front or back. If you are considerably heavier than me and sleep on your side then it might be about right for you. I would caution that a test in a store would be very helpful or at least the option of a return.
Edge support on the Silentnight Sleepharmony Breatheasy 1000 Mattress and the Custard Slice Test
A mattress that feels consistently supportive all over should be seen as a very good thing. I have a theory that mattresses that are too soft at the edges are more likely to develop dips because there is only a small section of the mattress that you can actually sleep on.
To test this out, I always like to lie on my side on the very edge of the mattress. This Silentnight mattress performed quite well in this regard and I felt that I was almost as supported at the very edges as I was in the middle of the mattress.
It showed quite a lot more compression when I was sitting on the edge of the mattress. We call this the Custard Slice Test, as it has a similar effect to biting into a custard slice on some mattresses.
This factor is slightly less important but it’s still a good indication of build quality and will be relevant if you sit on the edge of the bed to get dressed regularly.
Motion transfer on the Silentnight Sleepharmony Breatheasy 1000 Mattress (the Wibble Wobble Test)
We are drifting into tedious jargon now, but I would say that this is an important thing to consider.
Some mattresses wobble from side to side when your spouse gets in or out of bed (I would caution that it is not wise to point this out to your spouse).
Other mattresses are much less wobbly because of the way they’ve been designed.
I would say this mattress had a good motion transfer rating. We like to test it out by lying on the mattress and getting in and out, whilst a second person responds by saying how much movement they can feel.
In my opinion, there are some high quality foam mattresses that perform better on motion transfer than this mattress, but it certainly did not perform badly.
The Silentnight Sleepharmony Breatheasy 1000 Mattress is quite a bouncy mattress due to the way that it has been designed with a relatively low pocket spring count. I have generally found that mattresses with a higher pocket spring count tend to perform better on motion transfer.
Handles on the Silentnight Sleepharmony Breatheasy 1000 Mattress
In my desperate attempt to provide the world’s most thorough mattress reviews, I like to delve into the quality of its handles. This may seem like a small point (and it probably is) but we have noticed a considerable difference in the design of mattress handles on the market in the UK. We like a mattress handle that looks like it is built to last.
This Silentnight mattress is not as heavy as some as it is not particularly deep and it has a relatively low spring count. However, I did feel the mattress’s handles could have been a little bit more robust. They have a similar design to those used by some bed in the box brands, where vertical handles are stitched into the top layer of the mattress.
Personally, I find it easier to move a mattress with horizontal handles. Honestly though, this is a pretty minor point so I wouldn’t lose sleep over it.
Design, specification and brand
I am a fan of the Silentnight brand and have owned some of their mattresses personally before. They sit very much in the middle of the market but are quite an unusual brand.
The company is such a big one and has perhaps the biggest range of any mattress brand. Some are at the very cheap end of the market and some are towards the lower end of the luxury market.
I would put this mattress towards the middle of the Silentnight range in terms of its specification. It uses pocket springs, as mentioned earlier. Pocket springs are what most of us have slept on all of our lives.
My usual advice is that you should aim for a pocket sprung mattress with at least 1,000 springs. If you are heavier then you would see some benefit from a slightly higher number as there may be less wobble when you get in and out of the bed. You do need to be aware of some creative design from manufacturers though as some use multiple layers of mini springs to bump up the numbers significantly.
As well as the springs, this mattress uses synthetic fibres. That is not necessarily a negative point, but it is worth saying that natural fibres tend to be more expensive.
Final thoughts on the Silentnight Sleepharmony Breatheasy 1000 Mattress
This Silentnight mattress was a little too firm for me but wasn’t far off what I look for. It doesn’t have some of the luxurious features that you would find on more expensive mattresses, such as a tufted finish or a higher pocket spring count. However, for the price tag I would say this is a pretty good mattress from a reliable and trusted British brand.
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