I put in months of hard sleep to test Simba’s flagship “bed-in-a-box” mattress, and for the most part, I found it so comfortable that I told everyone it was the best mattress I’d ever reviewed. It ultimately lost that crown to the Otty Original Hybrid but, goodness me, it gave me some glorious sleep along the way.
As with other hybrid mattresses, the Simba Hybrid Pro combines pocket springs with various types of memory foam to offer a balance of support and softness. Its outstanding motion isolation makes it a particularly fine choice for couples who need some peace from each other’s nocturnal fidgeting.
Given its price of £1,149 for a double, you’d hope it would provide the sleep of your dreams – but it’s hard to find out for yourself until you actually buy it because Simba doesn’t have showrooms. You can follow expert advice on choosing your ideal mattress and avail yourself of Simba’s 200-night free trial period, but you’re still buying blind. Here, I’ll try to shed some light on the matter (… ess) and reveal why I think it’s a worthy investment.
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How I tested
I slept on a Simba Hybrid Pro double for three months, alongside my husband, on our slatted bed base. As with all the mattresses I’ve tested for the Filter, I tracked its impact on our sleep quality and other factors, such as body aches, night sweats and disturbances from tossing and turning, and ran tests to measure things like sinkage and heat retention. I also enlisted the help of our locally based family to assess its firmness, comfort and value for money.
What you need to know, from price to firmness
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The Hybrid Pro is the middle child in Simba’s Hybrid range, which all have pocket springs and different types of memory foam. It sits halfway between the averagely pricey Hybrid Essential (£599 for a double) and the outrageously expensive Hybrid Ultra (£2,799 for a double). The Pro merely costs “a lot”, starting at £799 for a single and rising to £1,349 for a super king.
You get what you pay for in terms of sophisticated construction. The Hybrid Pro’s eight layers exceed the usual five or six in a hybrid mattress, and its spring count is more than four times the typical 1,000. There are up to 4,800 springs in a king size, individually wrapped and with a layer of “micro springs” to add bounce and durability.
The largest foam layer is a high-density base for support and durability, while more technologically advanced layers include one made from open-cell graphite-infused foam to encourage airflow. There’s also a top layer of natural wool for cushioning and temperature regulation and a fabric cover you can unzip and wash in the machine.
Simba describes the Hybrid Pro as “medium firm”, and my tests with weights suggested it’s about right. During my first month of testing, the Hybrid Pro sank a maximum of 29mm under 7.5kg of weight – halfway between the firmest mattress I’ve tested (the Origin Hybrid Pro, which sank 18mm) and the softest (the Eve Wunderflip Hybrid, 40mm).
The Simba Hybrid Pro isn’t the heaviest mattress I’ve tested but it is beefy, measuring 28cm deep and weighing about 40kg for a double. Luckily, you’re not supposed to flip it, but you should rotate it from head to toe once a month to avoid indentations where you sleep. A 10-year guarantee covers manufacturing defects and there’s the 200-night trial – during which you can return the mattress for a full refund if you don’t get on with it.
Specifications
Type: hybrid
Firmness: advertised as medium firm, panel rated as 7/10
Depth: 28cm
Cover: unzip to wash at 40C
Turn or rotate: rotate once a month for first three months, then every three months
Trial period: 200 nights
Warranty: 10 years
Old mattress recycling: £50
Sustainability credentials: Simba is B Corp certified and aiming for net zero by 2030. Hybrid Pro foam is CertiPUR approved
Delivery
The Hybrid Pro, as with most of the mattresses I’ve tested, was delivered by third-party couriers (Expert Logistics, in this case), and I had to be at home to receive it. This worked well enough, with regular text alerts from Simba, a driver tracking link and a four-hour delivery window.
Simba claims it will deliver your mattress to any room you want, but this was never presented as an option by the delivery team. The boxed mattress was heavy, weighing more than 40kg, so I’d recommend asking the drivers if they’d carry it upstairs if needed. In the event, my husband and I unwrapped the Simba downstairs so we could run tests and let our family try it, later ferrying it upstairs with some effort and the odd bleepable word.
What we love
A new mattress often requires an adjustment period, so I’ve had a few sleepless nights reviewing mattresses (I know, it’s a tough job). The Hybrid Pro, however, had me sleeping soundly from the start. I woke up feeling refreshed, and there was no sign of the lower back pain I’d suffered with some firm beds.
The surface feels cosy without being too soft, and supportive without being too firm. In the mattress game, that’s bullseye. In the words of my 22-year-old niece, “It has squishiness but it’s surprisingly firm when you actually lie on it.” The hint of softness is ideal for us side sleepers because our hips, shoulders and knees need cushioning, but I also felt a reassuring pushback when I laid on my back and front. I felt fully supported when I sat up to read in bed, too, and the support continued right up to the edge and corners of the bed. That’s a distinct advantage over the cheaper Otty Original Hybrid.
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The Hybrid Pro’s motion isolation is excellent, absorbing our movements to help us both sleep in peace. I also liked the feel of the natural wool layer immediately beneath the sleeping surface, although I was torn on its supposed cooling powers. More on that in a moment.
At 28cm deep, the Simba is chunky enough to look and feel luxurious, but slim enough to accommodate our non-stretchy fitted sheets, albeit with an effort to get all the corners snug. The 31cm-deep Origin Hybrid Pro, by contrast, is too big for any standard-depth fitted sheet.
What we don’t love
With a collective firmness score of 7/10 from our panel, the Hybrid Pro won’t be firm enough if you love the solid pressure relief of a hard mattress. This may be especially noticeable if you’re a larger person and you sleep on your back, but my husband (a back and side sleeper) and sister (side sleeper) – perfectly average-size, middle-aged people, if they’ll forgive me – felt it was slightly too soft. My niece and I, who agreed with the 7/10 firmness measure, awarded 9/10 for overall comfort. Clearly, firmness preference is subjective.
Less subjective is the sinkage effect of foam. All mattresses that contain memory foam soften in their first few months. After I’d slept on the Hybrid Pro for three months and rotated it as instructed, the central section of the sleeping surface felt noticeably softer. I whipped out the weights again and, sure enough, the central area now sank 41mm under 7.5kg instead of 29mm.
This alarmed me at first – especially considering the issues some customers have had in the past – but apparently it’s quite normal. Simba claims a “dip tolerance” of 25mm in the first six months, and my October and December measurements were well under 25mm. That initial sinkage is a bit like wearing in cushioned shoes and hard to avoid, so be aware of it – especially given that you can’t flip a hybrid mattress to get a freshly firm surface.
Memory foam also tends to hold on to body heat, and this can spell misery if you suffer from night sweats like I do. I didn’t get sweaty while sleeping on the Simba, but it was autumn and winter. My tests with a heat pad, thermometer and my husband’s bottom found that it hung on to body heat marginally longer than the Otty Original Hybrid, the Origin Hybrid Pro and the airy-but-much-less-robust Ikea Valevåg.
Sustainability
Bed-in-a-box delivery is an environmental challenge in itself. Like its rivals, the Hybrid Pro is vacuum-packed into a sausage-roll shape and wrapped tightly so it can’t expand en route to your front door. This requires metres of plastic that you probably won’t reuse unless you’re decorating and need a dust sheet. Most household waste centres will accept it for recycling, but bin collections won’t.
Then there’s memory foam used in hybrid mattresses like the Hybrid Pro. Viscoelastic LRPu (low-resistance polyurethane foam), to give it its full name, is made using energy-intensive processes, and is not biodegradable. Simba, like many of its rivals, has made notable green efforts, perhaps in a bid to compensate.
Simba’s online Sustainability Hub declares its aim to be net zero by 2030 and says it’s the UK’s first sleep brand to be certified by global body B Corp, which demands strict and constantly monitored environmental and social standards from its members. All its foam is certified by CertiPur to minimise the impact on health and the environment.
Simba runs a mattress recycling service and, again, this is common among bed-in-a-box companies. It’s not free – it charges £50 to take away your old mattress and recycle it, whether it’s a Simba or not – but it does at least offer peace of mind that it’ll be handled by specialists.
I gave the recycling service a try. Simba sent me a collection bag (essentially a thick, mattress-size bin bag) and then dispatched third-party couriers to collect it. “Oh no, it’s a mattress,” they lamented. Interesting that they’d not been forewarned, and it made me wonder for a moment where my old mattress might end up, but Simba guarantees that its collected mattresses are recycled responsibly with UK recycling partners.
Simba Hybrid Pro: should I buy it?
The Hybrid Pro is a sumptuously comfortable mattress that improved my sleep from the first night, offering the luxury of softness without sacrificing support. Its price is pretty deluxe, too, and it’s worth being aware that memory foam can soften in time, though if you treat it well this mattress is a worthwhile investment.
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Jane Hoskyn is a freelance consumer journalist and WFH pioneer with three decades of experience in rearranging bookshelves and ‘testing’ coffee machines while deadlines loom. Her work has made her a low-key expert in all manner of consumables, from sports watches to solar panels. She would always rather be in the woods
