We were keen to try out the Huddle Never Deflate Luxury Double Air Bed because of its novel ‘Never Deflate’ feature. The idea is that rather than waking up and finding that you are lying on the floor, the mattress gradually reinflates throughout the night. 

Huddle were kind enough to send us one but this review is our own independent opinion. 

Price of the Huddle Never Deflate Luxury Double Air Bed

When we tested the Huddle Never Deflate Luxury Double Air Bed, it was being sold at about £118 in double, £135 in king and £100 in the single size. That puts it as slightly more expensive than most air beds but it sells itself as something of a top-end model, with some extra features (as we shall discuss shortly).

Firmness rating of the Huddle Never Deflate Luxury Double Air Bed

It is slightly unusual for us to be testing an airbed, but we will attempt to apply the same structure and strategy as we do to our other mattresses reviews. 

We always like to test out a mattress for its firmness level and give it a score between one and ten. We rate a mattress as one if it is incredibly soft and a mattress as 10 if it is very firm. The slight complication with the Huddle Never Deflate Luxury Double Air Bed is that you can choose how firm you want it. That may seem like a blindly obvious thing to point out about an air bed, but this mattress works slightly differently to most models that I’ve seen.

It uses a dial on the side where you can choose whether you want it to be plush, medium or firm. In this case, the word plush is being used to mean soft. I’ve seen it used on a couple of other other mattresses in the same way. 

The idea is that you choose the level you want and then press the inflate button. The mattress then automatically inflates until it reaches the level you want. It is this level that it tries to keep the mattress at during the night by slowly adding air if it starts to drop. 

We started off with the mattress in the medium firmness rating. After it gave a satisfactory clunk and switched the power off, we climbed on and lay on our back. The technique that we use involves putting a hand underneath your spine and seeing how easy or hard it is to move your hand around. If there’s a significant gap then it’s a very firm mattress and it’s probably a bit too firm for your weight and build. If it’s difficult to move your hand around then it’s a very soft mattress and probably won’t give you quite enough support. 

In this case, with the mattress inflated to its medium setting, we found that it had a rating of about 8/10 for firmness. We then changed to the ‘plush’ setting and would say that it was more like a 7/10. The firm setting was about 9/10. 

You’ll be aware that airbeds have a very different feel to a standard mattress, but I thought it would be useful to provide some guidance at least. 

Motion transfer of the Huddle Never Deflate Luxury Double Air Bed

The next test that we always like to carry out on any mattress is how much you feel the other person moving. I asked my wife to lie next to me and asked her to see how much she could feel me getting in and out of the bed. We swapped around and both concluded that the motion transfer rating was pretty good considering that this is an air bed. You could just about feel the plastic tightening when one person got in or out but I was impressed. 

Edge rating and firmness of the Huddle Never Deflate Luxury Double Air Bed

When I was laying on my side on the very edge of the bed, I found that it didn’t compress very much at all and I felt stable. This is a very good sign as you don’t really want to be rolling off a mattress in the night. I had the mattress on the medium setting but you could increase the firmness if you wanted to be slightly more supportive at the edges. 

I then sat on the edge of the bed as if I was put it on some socks. I call this the ‘custard slice test’ as some flimsy mattresses react in the same way that a custard slice would when you bite into it. Again, I felt that this mattress performed well, despite being an airbed. You can adjust the firmness if you feel it is sinking in too much for you. 

Handle design on the Huddle Never Deflate Luxury Double Air Bed 

We normally look at how robust a mattress is by inspecting the handles. We think this gives the good indication of how well it has been constructed inside. However, That’s not really a very fair test to apply to an airbed. This one doesn’t have any handles but I wouldn’t really hold that against it. We didn’t find it difficult to move it around. One end is heavier than the other due to the built in motor.

Construction and design of the Huddle Never Deflate Luxury Double Air Bed

Needless to say, this is where this bed varies significantly from the mattresses that we usually test. Most people, of course, won’t be sleeping on a mattress like this full-time, but will be using it when Aunt Maude turns up unexpectedly or when you are camping. 

I like the design and thought it was clever. As mentioned earlier, it has a feature where it adds a little bit more air when it deflates in the night. We were amused to find that this kicked in when I got in or out of the bed but not when my wife got in or out. She weighs a fair bit less than me and enjoyed this fact very much. 

You may be concerned at the noise that the mattress makes when it re-inflates. However, it is considerably quieter than the standard inflation noise. I would say it is quieter than a humming fridge. It only kicks in briefly and you can sleep at the opposite end so that is not directly beneath your head. 

You can also switch this feature off simply by unplugging the airbed. If you want this feature to run throughout the night then you need to keep it plugged in. 

There also a couple of other neat features including a small blue night light, which can be switched on or off. There’s also a USB socket so you can charge your phone up. Again, this is only an option if you keep it plugged in throughout the night. 

You may also be interested to know that it took 2 minutes 30 seconds to inflate and the same amount of time to deflate.

Final thoughts 

Overall, we liked the design of the Huddle Never Deflate Luxury Double Air Bed. Airbeds have a very different feel to a pocket sprung or memory foam mattress but it’s a neat temporary sleeping option. Personally, I would add an extra layer of softness to it by putting a single hollow fibre duvet over the top and then wrapping a fitted sheet around it. That would act as a topper and add extra comfort. It would work for me, as I like a mattress that is little bit softer than this particular model. The reinflating feature is a nice one and I think it justifies the slightly higher price than some airbeds.