Waveless Waterbed Mattress Guide
If you've looked at the possibility of owning a waterbed, you've probably seen the advertisements for waveless or motionless mattresses. Manufacturers tout their product's ability to stop the waves and make your waterbed experience as stable as a traditional inner spring mattress. But how much truth is there in such claims? It depends on the specific mattress.
When waterbeds first came out in the 1970s, the mattresses were just big vinyl bags filled with water. Every little bit of motion on the bed produced a wave that could be felt for 10-15 seconds. It was fun for waterbed owners at first, but a lot of them regretted their decision to purchase a waterbed mattress once nausea and dizziness set in. Even so, there were enough customers to keep advancing the technology.
Methods to Reduce Waves in Waterbed Mattresses
Today's waveless waterbed mattress uses two basic methods to reduce the amount of wave the user feels. The first of those methods is the fiber insert. This method does not do much to actually reduce the waves in the mattress. Instead, it absorbs the energy of the wave to a degree that the user is not bothered by it.
The construction of a fiber insert mattress consists of the insert placed inside the mattress where it floats in the water. It is tethered to the side walls and corners to keep in position. These mattresses range from 1 to 5 layers, with the expectation that the more fiber layers, the higher the waveless properties of the bed. Some manufacturers claim 98% wave reduction with five fiber layers.
The second type of waveless waterbed mattress does indeed reduce the amount of wave in the mattress, though never completely eliminating it. This mattress uses a series of baffles to limit water movement. The earliest baffled mattresses consisted of half a dozen tubes which ran lengthwise through the inside. Today's baffled mattress employ a system similar to a honeycomb, where a large number of smaller compartments work in tandem to limit water movement.
A New Waveless Waterbed Mattress Method
A new kind of baffled mattress using “hydraulic chambers” is also getting some notice. Rather than vinyl baffles being incorporated into the mattress body, a hollow, soft platform of sorts is built into it instead. This platform consists of 9-12 individual chambers, similar to boxes, with holes to allow the water to fill them. The chambers isolate wave energy so it doesn't travel through the entire bed.
The trick with baffled mattresses is to limit water movement without sacrificing what makes a waterbed so attractive: conforming to the individual and providing full-body support. Only a few nights of testing can really determine how comfortable an individual will be with a specific model of baffled mattress. Whether or not a mattress is truly waveless is ultimately determined by the one who sleeps on it.