Summary: Dow and GoodBed have teamed up to create a standardized mattress testing program, combining GoodBed’s mattress evaluation framework with Dow’s materials testing capabilities. This collaboration aims to establish scientific testing standards for the mattress industry to help consumers better understand mattress comfort, guide manufacturers in improving their products, and assist suppliers in developing innovative materials.
Key Takeaways:
- Standardized Testing for Mattresses: Dow and GoodBed are developing a new benchmark for scientifically evaluating mattress comfort, addressing the industry’s lack of standardized testing methods.
- Holistic Mattress Evaluation: The partnership aims to quantify key mattress factors like temperature, humidity, durability, spinal alignment, and pressure relief to provide consumers with better guidance when shopping for mattresses.
- Industry Impact: The collaboration will benefit consumers, manufacturers, and raw material suppliers by offering data-driven insights into mattress performance.
Dow and GoodBed, a mattress information resource for consumers, have collaborated to develop a benchmark lab testing program for the mattress industry.
This partnership combines GoodBed’s bedding expertise and proprietary mattress evaluation framework, Mattress DNA, with the lab testing capabilities of Dow’s ComfortScience Studio.
One of the key challenges in understanding mattress performance is the lack of standardized testing to describe comfort in a quantifiable way. This results in consumers being unaware of how to properly shop for mattresses that best suit their needs, manufacturers being unfamiliar with how to make the best mattress or properly differentiate their products from competitors, and raw material suppliers being uninformed of how to develop innovative and effective materials, according to a release from the companies.
Comfort is a fusion of perceptions that can be easy to experience but difficult to describe and measure. Through this partnership, Dow and GoodBed aim to fill this knowledge gap and strengthen their shared commitment to evaluating and communicating the holistic experience of a given mattress by developing a new industry standard of scientific mattress tests.
A portion of the initial phase of the collaborative research from Dow and GoodBed is detailed in their first published paper, which was selected for presentation at this year’s Center for Polyurethanes Polyurethanes Technical Conference.
Key Factors Influencing Mattress Microclimates
The paper highlights key factors influencing mattress microclimates, such as temperature, humidity, and airflow, as well as showcases quantitative testing methods developed through the partnership. Additional test results in areas such as durability, spinal alignment, and pressure relief are planned for future publication.
“Dow is a well-established global leader in materials science and testing. Over the last three years, we’ve worked hand-in-hand to develop scientific tests that can accurately measure the attributes we know to be most important in determining the performance and suitability of a given mattress for different sleepers,” says Michael Magnuson, founder and chief executive officer at GoodBed, in a release. “Together, we’re excited by the unprecedented quality of mattress information that we can now provide and our ability to give consumers confidence in choosing the best possible mattress.”
Kevin Meyer, associate technical service and development director at Dow, adds in a release, “Our ComfortScience Studio was established to study the different properties of bedding products and their contribution to comfort. By joining forces with GoodBed, the most knowledgeable and trustworthy source of mattress information in the market today, we’re transforming the mattress industry with a first-of-its-kind standard of testing. This will offer numerous benefits for key audiences, from consumers all the way to raw material suppliers.”
ID 316962345 © Volodymyr Pastushenko | Dreamstime.com
Leave a Reply