The Best Air Mattresses For 2019
The air mattress is a dizzyingly crowded product category, with more than 10,000 search results on Amazon alone. Which is why we've taken the most popular and the best air mattresses we've found on Amazon and put them through a battery of hands-on testing. This includes repeatedly inflating and deflating them, evaluating their construction and durability, and subjecting them to the rigors of camping and a series of children's sleepovers to test them for air pressure, comfort and how puncture resistant they are. Below, the best air mattresses you can order from your own, well, real bed.
Best Overall
It's not cheap, but it's worth the money seeing how it inflates fully and is well-constructed. SoundAsleep calls this a "double-height" mattress — you're sleeping a good 18 inches off the ground. The included pump took a reasonable 3.5 minutes to fully inflate the mattress. Just be warned: it's also one of the more pungent beds we tested, and people who are sensitive to off-gassing may want to choose an alternative.
Best Value
Though it's on the cheaper side, it's sturdy, impressively firm and ultimately comfortable enough to sleep on. The integrated, plug-in pump isn't as fast an inflater as others, but it's plenty powerful, and the bed ranks among the firmest we tested. The movements of a person on one side shouldn't bother a companion. And, compared to the others, we didn't find it particularly pungent.
Best Warranty
The powerful pump delivers high degree of firmness and has a built-in electric pump that's fast and powerful. Beside the integrated pump controls, this mattress also has a plastic valve that you can open to deflate quickly. AirExpect offers one of the longest warranty periods of any manufacturer (two years) and will provide a full refund within 30 days. Just know that many of the unflattering reviews cite customer service communication woes.
Least Pungent
Designed for camping, the Lightspeed Outdoors Air Bed Mattress lives up to its name: At 6 pounds, pump included, it's undeniably lightweight. It's constructed out of Thermoplastic polyurethane, which feels more durable and smells less plasticky than the material used for most other air mattresses. If you're sensitive to chemical smells, or offgassing, this mattress deserves special consideration.
