“Cooling” is one of the most frequently advertised features in sleep products, from mattresses and pillows to toppers and sheets. It makes sense — many sleep experts recommend a slightly chilly environment for optimal sleep, and even anecdotally most people know how impossible it is to sleep if you’re too hot. But staying cool is often a trickier issue to solve than by cranking the AC or strategically placing fans around your room. And one thing I’ve learned from years of testing cooling sleep products is that most of them take a more passive approach, aiming to stop you from overheating rather than actively cooling you. While components like latex foam, phase-change materials, and gel infusions can play their part, the truly hot sleeper may need something a little stronger. If that’s you, there’s a whole category of cooling sleep systems that use water or air to control the temperature of your bed. But they don’t come cheap, so we tested four of the best-known options to break down the pros and cons of each.
Updated on May 14, 2025
All these picks are still our favorites. The Chilipad Dock Pro Bed Cooling System is 15 percent off right now, if you’d like to shop on sale.
Eight Sleep Pod
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Type: Mattress pad | Cooling mechanism: Water-powered | Sizes: Full, queen, king, California king | Temperature range: 55 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit | Return policy: 30-day free returns | Warranty: Two-year limited
How it works
The Eight Sleep mattress pad fits over your mattress like a fitted sheet and connects via tubing to the “Hub,” which is about the size and shape of the tower of a desktop computer. You fill the Hub with water, which flows through the tubing to change the mattress pad’s temperature.
There’s a corresponding app that allows you to raise or lower the temperature, automate temperature changes, set vibrational alarms, and track your sleep statistics. (There are also physical controls, but they only adjust the temperature and turn off any alarms you’ve set through the app.) The Eight Sleep uses a subscription-based AI called Autopilot to monitor your sleep stats and make micro-adjustments as needed in response to your body temperature. An Autopilot subscription costs $17 per month and is required for the first year that you own the Eight Sleep Pod.
What we liked
It’s nicely designed and easy to use: If I had to pick the best cooling sleep system without any regard for price, it would be the Eight Sleep Pod. The brand has clearly put a lot of effort into the user experience — the app is intuitive, and there’s a really well-done guided walkthrough to make setup seamless.
It’s relatively unobtrusive: The mattress pad itself didn’t alter the feel of my mattress and generally went unnoticed. The tubing is large and clunky, but I was able to tuck it out of sight behind my bed. And even though the Hub is large, it’s all black, without ornamentation, so it doesn’t draw much attention. There is only one small light on the Hub, which I didn’t find distracting, and the system, while not completely silent, doesn’t make too much noise.
There’s a wide temperature range with dual controls: With settings that correspond to about 55 degrees Fahrenheit at the lowest to 110 degrees Fahrenheit at the highest, you can make your bed quite cool or warm. If you share a bed, you and a partner can each download the app and independently control the temperature on your own side.
There are sleep-tracking features too, if you’re into that: While I’m personally not as interested in the AI and the sleep-tracking features, if you want a device that does those tasks, it could be useful to combine them with the Eight Sleep’s temperature regulation.
What we didn’t like
It’s expensive: The Pod itself costs over $2,500, and that’s before you add the Autopilot membership, which is required for the first year you own the Pod. You can cancel it after that, but you’ll lose access to some of the features.
The physical controls don’t work as well as the app: There is a spot on the side of the pad that you can tap to control the temperature if you don’t want to use your phone, but it didn’t work as well for me as just going through the app.
There’s some upkeep involved: The Hub will have to be refilled with water periodically and requires some light maintenance: replacing a filter, draining and refilling, and/or adding hydrogen peroxide to keep the system clean (this will be true of any cooling system that uses water and is not unique to the Eight Sleep Pod).
It only comes only in “whole mattress sizes”: There’s no option for half-sizes with the Eight Sleep — unlike with its most direct competitor, the Chilisleep Dock Pro, reviewed below.
Get the Eight Sleep Pod if …
You want a top-of-the-line system that includes sleep tracking and AI-driven temperature adjustments, but you aren’t concerned about price.
Read my full review of the Eight Sleep Pod.
Chilipad Dock Pro
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Type: Mattress pad | Cooling mechanism: Water-powered | Sizes: Half-queen, queen, half-king, king, half–California king, and California king | Temperature range: 55 to 116 degrees Fahrenheit | Return policy: 30-day trial period | Warranty: One-year limited
How it works
The Dock Pro is functionally similar to the Eight Sleep. It has a control unit piece like the Hub — though it’s shorter, wider, and frankly a bit uglier — that connects via tubing to a mattress pad. You fill the control unit’s tank with water, which flows through the tubing to adjust the system’s temperature. The Dock Pro is also controlled by an app, though there are physical buttons on the control unit too. Within the app, you can control the temperature, schedule specific temperature changes, and set a “warm awake” alarm that gradually heats the bed to wake you up.
What we liked
It works very similar to the Eight Sleep, at a lower price: The Dock Pro’s temperature regulation is just as effective as the Eight Sleep Pod’s; the two products’ temperature ranges are almost identical, and subjectively, they felt equally powerful to me. But the Dock Pro is cheaper than the Eight Sleep. It’s still not cheap, but if you want functional temperature controls and don’t care about the extra features the Eight Sleep offers — namely nicer aesthetics, a sleeker app, and sophisticated sleep-tracking features via the monthly subscription — this is the cooling system I’d point you toward.
The app is perfectly functional: It’s not as sleek as the Eight Sleep app, but it doesn’t feel outdated or clunky.
There are more size options, especially for couples: The Dock Pro comes in half-queen, half-king, and half–California king sizes, which cover just one side of the bed and could save you a little money if you sleep alone or if your bed partner doesn’t care for temperature controls. If both partners want temperature controls, each side of queen, king, and California king sizes can be controlled independently, just like with the Eight Sleep.
What we didn’t like
The mattress pad is more noticeable: The half-size mattress pad I tested was a little difficult to set up on the mattress, and it did cause some weird bunching. Even the sizes that cover the whole mattress don’t fully encase the mattress like the Eight Sleep’s do, so there’s more room for things to shift and scrunch up. But overall that’s a minor complaint.
It doesn’t have as many extra features: Compared to the Eight Sleep, the Dock Pro lacks sleep tracking, automatic AI-driven adjustments, and vibrational alarms, though most of these aren’t deal breakers for me. The Dock Pro really just deals in temperature control.
It will require some upkeep: Like the Eight Sleep, because the Dock Pro uses water to control the temperature, it has to be refilled periodically and there is some required maintenance.
Get the Chilipad Dock Pro if …
You want effective cooling and warming at a slightly lower price and don’t care about extra features, or if you only need temperature controls on one side of the bed.
Read my full review of the Chilipad Dock Pro.
Perfectly Snug Mattress Topper
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Type: Mattress topper | Cooling mechanism: Air-powered | Sizes: Single-zone twin, twin XL, and full; Dual-zone queen, king, California king; Two-piece split king | Temperature range: Not specified | Return policy: 30-day free returns | Warranty: One-year limited
How it works
The Perfectly Snug uses air to control the temperature; there isn’t any water involved, you just plug it into a wall outlet. And unlike the Eight Sleep and the Dock Pro, it’s actually a functional mattress topper — instead of fairly flat mattress pad, it’s a two-inch topper that layers one inch of foam over one inch of plastic “3-D mesh” that air can flow through. The topper has mini-fans at the corners or the foot of the topper, depending on which size you get, to blow warm or cool air through its surface. You can control the temperature through the app, but there are also physical buttons on the side of the topper that can turn it on or off and increase or decrease the temperature.
What we liked
The topper actually adds some comfort to your bed: Since the Perfectly Snug topper is a true mattress topper, not just a mattress pad, it adds some noticeable cushioning to your mattress. With just an inch of foam, it’s not a ton. But it’s nice if your mattress is a touch too firm.
It can change temperatures fast, and there are dual-control options: The Perfectly Snug’s temperatures aren’t specified in degrees, but you can choose a setting between 10 and negative 10. Compared to the water-powered cooling systems above, I found the temperature changes kicked in more quickly on the Perfectly Snug. Where it could take a few minutes for the Dock Pro or Eight Sleep to shift temperatures, I felt changes on the Perfectly Snug take place almost immediately. And for those who share a bed, each side of the Perfectly Snug can be controlled independently, as with the Dock Pro and the Eight Sleep.
It comes in twin, twin XL, and full sizes: The Eight Sleep Pod starts at a queen size, and where the Dock Pro has half-king and half–California king sizes that would roughly fit a twin and a twin XL, respectively, it doesn’t have a full-size option.
There’s nothing to put on the floor near the bed, and there’s no maintenance: Since the Perfectly Snug uses fans built into the topper, there’s no external unit like the Eight Sleep’s Hub or the Dock Pro’s control unit, so you don’t have to worry about concealing a semi-ugly piece of machinery. And as someone who is lazy about maintaining things, I appreciate that the Perfectly Snug uses air for cooling so there is no water tank to refill or clean.
What we didn’t like
There are more limitations on the temperature control: The Perfectly Snug’s temperature adjustments aren’t quite as powerful as those on the two water-powered systems. The cooling function doesn’t work like air-conditioning; the topper just pulls air in from the room and circulates it with fans, so the room temperature can greatly affect how cold the air can get — when you crank up the cooling, the topper just blows more air. The heating function is powered by the same fans and works more like a forced-air space heater, so it should be effective regardless of room temperature.
The app is workable, but not great: The Perfectly Snug’s app feels extremely dated. The interface is a little clunky and can be confusing to use. Once you figure it out, it’s not the biggest impediment, but compared to the extremely slick Eight Sleep app, using the Perfectly Snug app made me feel like I’d gone ten years back in time.
Get the Perfectly Snug if …
You want some additional cushioning along with your heating and cooling, or you don’t want to deal with the upkeep of a water-based system.
Read my review of the Perfectly Snug topper in our roundup of the best-in-class cooling mattress toppers.
BedJet 3 Climate Control System
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Type: Air hose with nozzle | Cooling mechanism: Air-powered | Sizes: One size fits all beds | Temperature range: 66 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit | Return policy: 60-day free returns | Warranty: Two years
How it works
The BedJet also uses air to control the temperature, but instead of changing the surface temperature of your mattress like the pads and topper above, it blows air into your sheets — like a central-air unit under your covers, as Strategist contributor Claire Zulkey put it. Like the Eight Sleep and Dock Pro, the BedJet has an external control unit with an air-hose attachment. The air hose’s nozzle rests on the edge of the bed and is held in place with a bracket that attaches to the bed frame. You can use the BedJet with your existing sheets, or you can add on the brand’s two-layer Cloud Sheet, which has an opening for the nozzle to blow air through the middle of the sheet. (With the Cloud Sheet, you won’t feel the air blowing onto you, like you might if you use the BedJet with your regular sheets.) Either way, it does slightly “inflate” your bedding. You can operate the BedJet with either an app or a remote control.
What we liked
It’s fast to set up and use: The BedJet is extremely easy to set up; it takes only a few minutes to attach the nozzle to your bed frame, hook it up to the control unit, and get the air flowing.
The air blows directly onto you: The BedJet’s effect is more similar to sleeping in front of a fan than with the Perfectly Snug (where the air blows underneath you). You are much more likely to physically feel the blast of cooling air — especially if you don’t use the Cloud Sheet.
There’s no upkeep: Like the Perfectly Snug, the BedJet is lower-maintenance than the Eight Sleep or Dock Pro.
It’s the least expensive option we’ve tried: Even though the BedJet isn’t cheap by any means, it’s easily the least expensive cooling system on this list. It’s the only one under $1,000, and handily so at just over $500. If you want the most bang for your buck, the BedJet is an easy winner. Though if you want the ability to control each side of the bed independently (as you can with the three systems above), you’ll be paying significantly more — prices for the BedJet for couples start around $1,300.
What we didn’t like
Not everyone will like the non-subtle blast of air: Feeling the air blowing into your bedding likely won’t be for everyone. The BedJet system is more akin to the AC vents in a car than sitting in a climate-controlled room. The blowing air also causes your bedding to puff like a mushroom, which could be irritating to some.
You may have to do some troubleshooting: Though I found the BedJet very easy to set up, Zulkey had some technical problems with hers — it caused her circuit breaker to trip, which required her to call customer service and input a code on her remote to prevent interference. Also, her nozzle sometimes comes loose and falls off the side of the bed if she moves around too much.
It’s ugly — and the most difficult system to “hide”: The BedJet is pretty squarely unattractive. Zulkey called it the “ugliest machine alive,” even though she loves it. The big white hose is hard to hide, especially compared to the easily-tucked-away tubing on the Dock Pro or Eight Sleep.
Get the Bedjet if …
You want the cheapest option or you like the idea of air blowing directly into your bedding.
Read Zulkey’s full review of the BedJet Climate Control system.
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