If you have spent any time reading our many reviews and guides on The Sleep Guy then you will know that we are sometimes not very complimentary about mattresses that use a coil design of spring.
Apologies if you’ve already started to fall asleep, but bear with me and I’ll try and explain what I mean without making it too tedious.
Most high quality mattresses use pocket springs with individual springs that are designed to offer support without offering too much sideways wobble.
They move independently, which is generally seen to be a better design.
With this in mind I must admit I was slightly unsure about the Sealy Riley mattress, which we tested out recently.
Design of the Sealy Riley Mattress with Align Support from the Elevate Collection
The Sealy Riley uses what’s described as an ‘AlignSupport Coil’. A fair amount of technical description came with the one that we were testing, which said it was ‘twice tempered for an initial response and deep down support’. The gist of it is that the springs don’t appear to be in separate pockets.
I feared this might mean that it was a bit of a wobbler and would have poor motion transfer. In other words, I was concerned that if I got up then my wife would feel the bed move a significant amount.
Motion transfer on the Sealy Riley Mattress
As it happened, I wouldn’t say that really is the case, which may well be a result of the other clever bits of mattress design that are working alongside the springs. I concluded that overall the motion transfer on the Sealy Riley is actually pretty impressive.
This may also be partly due to the fact that it’s a quite a firm mattress. Generally speaking, firmer mattresses don’t seem to wobble as much as softer sprung mattresses.
Firmness rating of the Sealy Riley Mattress
So then, what about the firmness? How would we rate it? Personally, I would give this mattress an 8 out of 10 for firmness with 10 being firm and one being soft.
I’m a natural front sleeper and so I started my test in this position. It felt a little bit firm for me in this position but it may be right for you if you are a little heavier than me (I weigh about 13 stone and I’m about six foot tall).
I then flipped over onto my back and came to a similar conclusion that it was pretty comfortable, but ever so slightly too firm for my weight, build and personal preference.
Whilst on my back, I also carried out the simple test of putting my hand underneath my spine. You’ll find it is very easy to put your hand underneath if the mattress is too firm for you, and very difficult to put your hand underneath if it’s a bit too soft.
In this case, I found it a little too easy to get my hand underneath which confirmed that it was just a touch too firm for me. That’s not to say that it won’t be right for you – but will hopefully give you a starting point when you are on the hunt for a mattress.
The top layer is not the sort of tufted finish that you get on a lot of mattresses but it’s what you would call a quilted finish. There is a school of thought that this structure is less strong than a tufted finish but it does mean that the top is very plush and soft and can give a good mix of a firm mattress with a soft top.
I then flipped onto my side and concluded this mattress was far too firm for me. My shoulders and my hips felt under quite a lot of pressure and some parts of my body weren’t being sufficiently supported.
Edge support on the Sealy Riley Mattress
The next test that I always do on a mattress is to sit on the edge and see how much it compresses. This Sealy mattress stood up pretty well in this regard and didn’t have a huge amount of give to it, partly because it’s a firm mattress. The follow-up is to lie on the edge of the mattress, which is a useful test if you’re next to someone that tends to gently shove you out of the bed during the night.
Again, the Sealy Riley mattress performed very well and I felt well supported right towards the edge of the mattress.
Design and features of the Sealy Riley Mattress
This mattress is made by a very big brand called Sealy, who you’ve probably already heard of.
This particular model is single sided and uses a mixture of foam and the springs mentioned earlier. It isn’t a particularly natural mattress and uses quite a lot of synthetic materials alongside the springs. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but, as a general rule, mattresses using natural materials tend to cost quite a bit more than synthetic ones.
Price of the Sealy Riley Mattress
When we tested this mattress out it was for sale at £999 in the double size with a king size for £1125 and a single size at £845.
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