
The Squishiest, Sweetest Sleep - kawera
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/06/style/water-bed-founder.html
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m-i-l
I wish there was a good way to try mattresses properly before buying them. Not
just lie down on it for a few minutes in a shop, but sleep the whole night on
it. Like a bed shop teaming up with a hotel chain to let you choose which bed
and/or mattress you want to try for a night. The ones in the article start at
US$1995 - I wouldn't want to spend that much money on something so important
without trying it, and would consider spending 5-10% of that to try it in a
hotel room for a night. I know they say they'll have a "100-night guarantee
with a full refund, as Casper does", but it is a huge hassle getting that sort
of thing delivered and then returning it.

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atombender
All the popular mattress sellers (including this new Afloat, apparently) have
a very flexible refund policy. You don't need to lift a finger (except
figuratively) to receive or return it.

~~~
witten
You don't need to lift a finger, but you do need to recognize that any
"returned" mattress is likely going straight to a landfill.

~~~
rrock
Sometimes, used mattresses can be handy. Such as when you accidentally punch a
hole in the bottom of a river, and need a way to plug it.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_flood](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_flood)

~~~
feross
Wow, thanks for linking that. Super fascinating. I just watched
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-qD6h6wlU0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-qD6h6wlU0)
to learn more about the Chicago flood. Hard to believe!

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duskwuff
An interesting aside not mentioned in the article: an initial patent
application for the waterbed was rejected due to prior art by Robert Heinlein.
He described a (fictional) waterbed in his 1961 novel _Stranger in a Strange
Land_.

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type-2
I actually cannot sleep in a soft squishy bed. I almost prefer a hard one,
probably because I grew up in them. Once I got a really nice memory foam
mattress and it is like sleeping in a cloud, but I found out that I don't like
sleeping in cloud.

~~~
emerongi
I had to stay at my parents' place for a few months where the bed has a soft
mattress and I downgraded to the floor after a month because my back started
hurting really bad. It took more than two weeks of back excercises and
sleeping on the floor to fix that.

~~~
r00fus
Sleeping on the floor can be great for fixing back issues. A good part of the
world sleeps on the floor even today (with matting/blankets/etc).

~~~
pmoriarty
_" Sleeping on the floor can be great for fixing back issues."_

I can vouch for this. I've recently started sleeping on the floor, and at
first my back hurt some, but after a couple of days I got used to it and now
it's feeling so much better. I have really poor posture and constantly slouch
when I'm sitting in my chair, and so usually have back issues. Sleeping on the
floor has worked wonders.

Even when I'm not sleeping on the floor, I prefer firm mattresses, as soft
ones are horrible for my back.

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mikestew
Meh, the water bed's time kind of came and went, IMO. I bought them because
they were generally cheap, and I did like sleeping on them. Get a mattress
with some baffles in it, and it gets rid of the sloshing. TFA raises the
question of sex, and my experience and those reported to me say it doesn't
diminish it at a minimum, and greatly enhances it for some. Without baffles,
it can be a bit of a rodeo ride, though.

That said, they use electricity (you will _not_ sleep long on an unheated
water bed), take a small bit of maintenance, and keep the dogs and cats off
it. I'm happy with our memory foam mattress.

~~~
pmoriarty
How safe are they?

An electrically heated water bed sounds like a recipe for disaster.

~~~
mikestew
In the 35 years since I bought my first one, I’ve never heard of anyone
getting electrocuted. That would be quite a feat. First, the vinyl bladder has
to leak. The electrical insulation of the heater has to have worn through to
bare metal. That’s a trick because the heater lies pressed down by a few
hundred kg of water. Finally, the vinyl “tub” the mattress sits in (in case
the mattress leaks) has to have leaked, too, in order for water to get to the
heater. Even then I think the odds are slim because it’s just a big resistive
element. I suppose if both wires some how got exposed. Did I mention the
several hundred kgs of water lying on it?

IOW, file it under “Things I Worry About When I am Done Worry About Killer Bee
Attack’s”. It ain’t gonna happen.

~~~
pmoriarty
_" The electrical insulation of the heater has to have worn through to bare
metal"_

I'm less worried about vinyl wearing through than I am about punctures, tears
and shoddy manufacturing.

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bitwize
Fun fact: East-coast furniture magnate Bob Kaufman (Bob's Discount Furniture)
got his start selling waterbeds in Connecticut after he'd used one to help
recover from a motorcycle accident, and branched out into other kinds of
furniture as the waterbed faded in popularity.

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seymour333
“It’s like salmon,” he said. “They’ll return to the place where they were
spawned.”

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ggm
Slept in one once. It was very very wierd. With two of you, its a bit more
dynamic when one rolls over, than I think I like. I had a metric french tonne
of lucid dreams (no, not that kind)

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BenjiWiebe
I grew up sleeping in a water bed for a number of years. Pretty nice, though
it does take some getting used to. And the phrase talking about it being a
microclimate is spot on. Turn the temperature down in the summer, turn it up
in the winter.

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Groxx
I generally liked my waterbed while growing up. There was one _significant_
downside though:

If the heater broke, you were in for miserable nights until it was fixed.
Sleeping on top of multiple layers of blankets, if you even have that many
(try fitting them in a small apt) only partially mitigates it - your bed will
suck the heat right out of you.

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andrew_
I will never forget the sensation of being sucked into the wavy vortex that
was my parents' mid-80s waterbed.

