Since 2023, Premier Inn’s mattresses have been made by Silentnight.
Prior to that, Premier Inn had a long partnership with Hypnos (see our guide to the Hypnos Premier Inn mattress, and similar alternatives). This switch was big news in the mattress-bloggers-community (well, I told my wife about it).
The Silentnight mattress is called the Premier Inn Mattress 2.0 and you can buy it from Premier Inn for:
You can also buy a ‘luxury divan’ and a ‘luxury bed frame’ to go with it.
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You’ve probably already slept on it and liked it, otherwise you wouldn’t be searching for advice – but let’s look at its specification and see whether you should buy it. We will also suggest some cheaper alternatives including the Happy Beds Signature 2000 (about £300 cheaper) and the Silentnight Mirapocket 1000 Geltex (about £100 cheaper).
What type of mattress is the Premier Inn Mattress 2.0 by Silentnight?
The short answer is that the Premier Inn Mattress 2.0 is a pocket sprung mattress.
The vast majority of mattresses sold in the UK fall into one of these three categories:
- Pocket sprung mattresses, which is the traditional way to make a good quality mattress. You lie on lots of tiny springs in mini fabric pockets. See our favourites.
- Open coil mattresses, which are a cheaper way of making a sprung mattress. Make it your goal to avoid sleeping on one of these monstrosities. Perhaps that’s a bit harsh, but they are certainly less supportive than pocket sprung mattresses.
- Memory foam mattresses, which use various layers of foam to provide support. Some of these are very good, others are less good. See our favourites.
So, the good news is that the Premier Inn Mattress 2.0 by Silentnight is made using high quality manufacturing methods. Silentnight refer to their pocket sprung mattresses as ‘Mirapocket’ but they are basically the same thing as a standard pocket sprung design.
The caveat to this is that a lot of mattresses are actually hybrids, because they use both springs and foam. The Premier Inn mattress by Silentnight uses several layers of manmade materials on top of the springs including some foam (more on that later…).
So, it’s a pocket sprung mattress. Can you tell me eight fascinating things about the design of the Premier Inn Mattress 2.0 by Silentnight?
That’s a very specific question, but I’ll do my best.
1. The Silentnight Premier Inn Mattress has got a good spring count
The number of springs on a pocket sprung mattress is important.
My rule of thumb is that 1000 or more springs is perfectly fine for most people. If you are much larger than average then you would get better support from a mattress with a higher number of springs – such as the similarly priced Silentnight London 2000.
The Premier Inn mattress by Silentnight has 1000 springs, so it will provide good support unless you are particularly heavy.
Don’t get too excited about a mattress with 8000 springs or some other massive number. I’m afraid it doesn’t mean that it is four times as good as a mattress with 2000 springs.
You can only fit about 2000 springs on a single layer on a mattress. Higher spring count mattresses usually have layers of tiny little springs, which don’t make such a massive difference to the level of support. It’s a bit like the megapixels on a digital camera – you don’t want a very low number but after a while the bigger numbers don’t really add very much.
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2. The Silentnight Premier Inn Mattress has a topper
Mattresses don’t just use pocket springs and nothing else. Oh no, siree…
They also have a comfort layer of some sort so you don’t feel every spring poking you in the back. Some mattresses – including some very expensive ones – take a simple approach and just use a single layer of material. Other mattresses – such as the Silentnight Premier Inn Mattress 2.0 – go for a more complicated setup. You end up with something that looks like a club sandwich with multiple layers. The challenge is deciphering the baffling names that the layers are given by the mattress manufacturer.
But wait! There’s an important addition!
When we first wrote this guide, the Silentnight Premier Inn Mattress that you could buy for home came with a detachable topper. This was an unusual design that aimed to make life easier for housekeepers in the hotels (and avoid injuring themselves via heavy lifting).
More recently, the home version of the mattress was redesigned so that the topper is no longer zippable. Instead, it is permanently attached. Silentnight say that it still has the same ‘support and comfort’ as the version you get in hotels.
That means it is not exactly the same mattress as you’ll in hotels, but it’s pretty close.
3. The Silentnight Premier Inn Mattress has a top layer made from synthetic materials
The obvious next question is what is actually inside the removable topper.
The short answer is that it is layers of synthetic (i.e. manmade) materials. This is generally a cheaper option than using natural materials like wool or cotton but it is perfectly normal in a mattress around this price. Mattresses made using lots of natural materials often cost £1000+.
Three of the layers in the Premier Inn Silentnight Mattress are called Geltex, Memory and Eternity. Coincidentally, those were also the names of the triplets at my children’s pre-school.
The layers on the Silentnight Premier Inn mattress are mostly made from polyester, which is similar to the material inside a synthetic duvet. Geltex is the exception, as it is a type of foam mixed with a gel. The idea is to combine the comfort of foam with a gel to stop you getting too warm. Some people find that foam layers can feel a bit hot but adding a little gel aims to counteract that.
4. The Silentnight Premier Inn Mattress has something called ‘zoned pockets’
Buried deep within the description for the Silentnight Premier Inn mattress is the phrase ‘zoned pockets’. This does rather sound like something Gary Neville would say shortly after discussing a ‘false nine’ in the Manchester derby.
You will be staggered to hear that it is much less interesting.
‘Zoned pockets’ means that some springs are firmer than others. The idea is that you get ‘support where you need it’. In other words, they allow for the fact that your body has curves, even if you don’t think it does. They also make it firmer at the edge so you don’t fall out of bed.
5. The Silentnight Premier Inn Mattress is single sided
Some mattresses are designed so that you can turn them over. Others are designed so that you just rotate them round without flipping them over.
As a general rule, cheaper pocket sprung mattresses are single sided whilst more expensive pocket sprung mattresses are double sided. The rule doesn’t apply to memory foam mattresses as they are nearly all single sided.
I personally prefer double sided pocket sprung mattresses as they can last a little longer and are less prone to indents and sagging (thanks to my large bottom). However, it will only make a difference if you actually get round to turning your mattress over. Ask yourself when you last flipped a mattress over. If it was in the 1990s then you are unlikely to start now.
There are many good reasons why a mattress might be single sided. In this case, it’s because it has a big topper for comfort. To make it double sided it would need to have a topper on both sides.
Of course, this mattress has the unusual design feature of a removeable topper. You could theoretically remove the topper and put it on the other side, and then hold it in place with a fitted sheet. However, this isn’t how it has been designed so I wouldn’t like to suggest that it’s a good idea.
6. The Silentnight Premier Inn Mattress doesn’t have a trial period (unlike lots of mattresses nowadays)
The Silentnight Premier Inn 2.0 is an unusual mattress because you can actually try it out for a night or two. The chances are you that you already have.
You also get to try a model that has had some wear, which gives a more realistic idea of what it will feel like after a few months. New mattresses take a while to settle in and they often smell a bit at first.
However, you don’t get a ‘home trial period’ that lots of competing mattress companies offer. This has become an increasingly common offer in recent years, as more mattresses have been sold online rather than in a shop. Some popular examples include Nectar Memory Foam Mattress, which has a 365 night and Simba Hybrid Original Mattress, which has a 200 night trial. Both will give you a refund if you don’t like it.
Honestly, I think that the most important night in a trial period is the first one but there is certainly an advantage in being able to try a mattress in hot and cold weather. But on the other hand, could you actually be bothered to return a mattress and start searching again if you were only slightly disappointed with it?
If you want a similar Silentnight mattress with a trial period then I would go for the succinctly titled Silentnight Mirapocket 1000 Geltex Pillow Top Limited Edition Mattress. It uses a fairly similar design and you get 60 days to try it via Mattress Online. However, not all trial periods are created equal. In this case, you can only swap the mattress for another one and there are some other rules about what happens if you swap for a cheaper one.
7. The Silentnight Premier Inn Mattress warranty is OK but not spectacular
The Premier Inn 2.0 Silentnight mattress comes with a six year warranty.
That’s not bad, but there are lots of memory foam mattresses for a similar price that come with warranties of 10 years, 15 years or even ‘forever’ (e.g. Nectar Memory Foam Mattress).
There are a couple of things to say about this.
Firstly, long warranties have turned into something of an arms race between memory foam mattress brands. Many of the companies offering long warranties haven’t been trading for as long as their warranties. If they go bust or stop trading in the UK, the warranty is worthless. We’ve seen this in recent years with brands such as Leesa. Other brands have gone through complicated changes that mean the company name lives on, but the warranty on older mattresses is no longer valid (e.g. Brook + Wilde Sleep, which ceased trading and was replaced by a new company called Brook + Wilde Sleep Sleep).
Silentnight has been trading for decades and is the UK’s most popular mattress brand (according to themselves) so I would have more confidence that the company will outlast the warranty.
Secondly, pocket spring warranties do tend to be shorter than memory foam mattress warranties. At this price, I would expect a warranty of somewhere between five and ten years. Six years is not bad.
8. The Silentnight Premier Inn Mattress is medium firm
I think we can assume that you like the firmness level of the Silentnight Premier Inn mattress, or you wouldn’t be searching for it.
Silentnight considers their Premier Inn mattress to be medium/firm.
This is useful when we are comparing it with other Silentnight mattresses – but it’s less useful when we are comparing with other brands of mattress.
Mattress manufacturers make up their own system for measuring firmness. There is no agreed system between brands. A firm mattress by one company might only be a medium mattress by another company.
The general advice is that lighter people need softer mattresses than heavier people. Also, people who sleep on their back or front need firmer people than those who sleep on their sides.
The idea is to combine the two to figure out roughly what level of support is best for your body, so that you are supported in the right places. You don’t want to sink into the mattress too much, but you don’t want to lie on top with big unsupported gaps.
My rule of thumb looks like this:
- Lighter than average people who sleep on their side need a soft mattress
- Lighter than average people who sleep on their front or back need a soft or medium mattress
- Average weight people who sleep on their side need a soft or medium mattress
- Average weight people who sleep on their front or back need a medium or firm mattress
- Heavier than average people who sleep on their side need a medium or firm mattress
- Heavier than average people who sleep on their front or back need a firm mattress
As I said, this is only a rule of thumb and it can’t be applied universally across all mattress brands. You ideally need to try a mattress first to figure out if it’s right for you.
What are the cheaper alternatives to the Silentnight Premier Inn Mattress?
Perhaps you like the general feel and design of the Silentnight Premier Inn Mattress – but don’t quite have the budget for it.
Let’s look at a couple of cheaper alternatives that use a similar design:
1. Silentnight Mirapocket 1000 Geltex Pillow Top Limited Edition Mattress – about £100 cheaper than the Premier Inn Silentnight Mattress
…And the prize for the longest name in the history of mattress production goes to…the Silentnight Mirapocket 1000 Geltex Pillow Top Limited Edition Mattress (or SM1000GPTLEM as it’s known to fans).
The design shares a lot in common with the Silentnight Premier Inn mattress. It’s got the same number of pocket springs and it uses a topper for comfort. The topper isn’t detachable, so it’s a bit more of an effort to rotate it round but that’s not a big deal for most people.
The Silentnight Mirapocket 1000 Geltex Pillow Top Limited Edition Mattress uses Geltex in the comfort layer (much like the Silentnight Premier Inn mattress), which is a mix of foam and gel to try and achieve a squishy later that won’t have you sweating like a pig. However, overall it has a simpler design with not quite as many layers in the topper. This isn’t really a good or bad thing, it’s just a different design.
The warranty is five years (one year shorter than the Premier Inn Silentnight Mattress) but it has a 60 day comfort trial via Mattress Online, so you can swap it if it’s not comfortable (read how this works).
As with the Silentnight Premier Inn mattress it is single sided.
The biggest difference is that this one has a medium feel rather than medium-firm, so it is slightly more suited to lighter people or people who sleep on their sides than the Premier Inn Silentnight mattress.
2. Happy Beds Signature 2000 Pocket Sprung Pillow Top Natural Fillings Mattress – about £300 cheaper than the Silentnight Premier Inn Mattress
Now let’s be clear. Happy Beds is not as famous a name in the mattress market as Silentnight. They are more at the budget end of mattress brands, whilst Silentnight are mid-market.
However, based on specification this Happy Beds mattress is superb value.
It has several things in common with the Silentnight Premier Inn mattress.
It’s a single sided, UK-made, pocket sprung, medium-firm mattress (which is the same as the Silentnight Premier Inn mattress in every aspect). Keep in mind what I said earlier about not every medium firm mattress feeling the same.
In some ways, the Happy Beds Signature 2000 has a better specification than the Silentnight Premier Inn mattress. You get 2000 pocket springs, which will provide better support for heavier people. If you are lighter than average then the difference will be much less significant.
A natural beauty
The Happy Beds Signature 2000 also uses natural materials in its topper including “wool, cotton and cashmere“. Of course, for this price it is unlikely to be vast amounts of cashmere but it’s something to boast about to guests (“you can sleep on the cashmere mattress” etc). Generally, natural materials are seen as superior to synthetic materials in a mattress. Some people with allergies find synthetic materials are better for them, but natural materials such as wool are particularly good at stopping you from getting too hot or cold.
It also uses some high quality manufacturing techniques called hand side stitching and a tufted finish. Both of these give a mattress lots of strength.
There are a few areas where the Silentnight Premier Inn mattress is superior to the Happy Beds Signature 2000.
You can’t try out the Happy Beds Signature 2000 in a shop and there is no trial period with this mattress so you are taking a bit of a punt. You can only return it if a) you pay for the courier and b) they can re-sell it (“If your order arrives in a condition that is not fit for resale or is damaged beyond what was initially reported, then we will reject the goods, and they will be returned to you immediately”.)
The Happy Beds warranty is five years, compared to six years with the Silentnight Premier Inn mattress. For the price though, you could probably live with that.
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