Tom's Guide Verdict
The Levitex Gravity Defying Mattress is a bed-in-a-box with a difference. There are no springs or memory foam here. Instead the mattress is made from patented Levitex foam and has been clinically researched to help people with back pain sleep more comfortably. The mattress offers a medium firm feel – which during testing we felt veered on the firmer side – and while it's supportive, it does have a good amount of give. We found that the unique Levitex foam provided excellent comfort and pressure relief as soon as laid down, keeping our body properly aligned and supported. The off-gassing took quite a while to clear with our test model, and the trial period and warranty are shorter than we'd like, but otherwise we found little to fault with the Levitex Gravity Defying Mattress and would recommend it to people with aches and pains.
Pros
- +
Medium firm feel with some 'give'
- +
Great relief for back pain
- +
Supports you in all the right places
Cons
- -
Very short sleep trial and warranty
- -
It’s slimmer (20cm) than standard mattresses
- -
Off-gassing took a while to clear
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Levitex Gravity Defying Mattress review in brief
Levitex is a relatively new yet increasingly popular mattress brand that focuses on sleep posture and relief from back pack in bed. The Levitex Gravity Defying Mattress is the brand's flagship offering, designed to help your body recover from physical activity while you sleep. But is it any good and does it actually work? We reviewed the mattress in a king size for six weeks to find out and are sharing our test data here.
Levitex founder James Leinhardt spent over 10 years helping the injured and chronically ill and realised that ‘the impact of sleep quality, and specifically what we sleep on, can’t be underestimated’. With this in mind he set about creating the optimum sleep surface and, with the help of medical director Dr Ilan, the Levitex foam pillow and mattress were launched a few years ago.
Type: Foam
Materials: Levitex foam
Firmness: Firm, 8/10 (our rating)
Depth: 20cm
Trial period: 44 days
Warranty: 5 year guarantee
RRP: From £499 for a single
When choosing the best mattress for your body and sleep, comfort and support should be top of your list of factors to consider. You'll get both from the Levitex mattress. Made from clinically trialled non-temperature sensitive Levitex foam, the mattress is unlike anything we’ve tested before. At 20cm it's slimmer than a standard 25cm memory foam bed, which took some getting used to. And while it’s not as plush as some memory foam designs we’ve tried – and there are no springs or pocket coils here – we still think it’s supportive.
Levitex states that at 25% compression, which is a light squeeze, the softness takes pressure off the body, while with a firm squeeze of 65% compression, the Gravity Defying Mattress offers support and maintains pressure. In our tests, the mattress delivered head to toe support and great pressure relief.
When we initially lay star-like on top we felt as though we were floating on the surface. It was particularly comfortable for back and side sleeping, but we also felt comfortable when we slept on our front. Edge support was good too, and we felt supported when sitting on the side and found it easy getting in and out of the bed.
Overall, we were impressed with the Levitex Gravity Defying Mattress and would recommend it to people with general aches and pains who are searching for a comfortable foam bed to relieve pressure without charging the earth. The only downsides are the off-gassing, and the short sleep trial and warranty period. Otherwise, we feel the Levitex mattress is well worth investing in for a more comfortable night's sleep.
Levitex Gravity Defying Mattress review: Price
- At £689 for a double we consider this a mid-range mattress
- The sleep trial is shorter than average at only 44 nights
- Flash sales can be found on Levitex's TikTok shop
The Levitex mattress is a mid-range bed with a luxurious finish. The company is purposefully not a discount brand competing on price like some of the best mattress in a box brands like Nectar Sleep and Emma Sleep, so you won’t find regular discounts to shave money off the RRP.
At the time of writing we didn’t see any bundle offers for the Levitex mattress, but that’s not to say that you won’t be able to find Levitex on sale at peak season sale times such as Black Friday, so it’s worth keeping a close eye on monthly mattress sales for the latest savings. The company also offers a discount on its TikTok shop with flash sales landing every few months.
At the time of testing, the Levitex Gravity Defying Mattress is made four sizes so you can choose from small, double, king size and super king. The price for each size is as follows:
- Single size RRP – £499
- Double size RRP – £689
- King size – RRP £829
- Super king size RRP – £979
Levitex Gravity Defying Mattress review: Design
- 20cm deep, all foam mattress
- Antimicrobial treatment included
- Proprietary, clinically researched foam designed for back pain
Created by Levitex founder James Leinhardt who spent over 10 years working with the chronically ill and injured, the Levitex mattress is designed to ‘help with pressure relief and posture management so you can wake up rested and free from back pain’. Leinhardt took what he learnt in healthcare and launched the Levitex mattress to offer the optimum sleeping surface as with good sleep posture your muscles get a chance to relax and recover through the night.
The 100% foam Levitex Gravity Defying Mattress is unlike any memory foam or hybrid mattress we’ve tested and it isn’t temperature responsive. This means you won’t have to worry about it overheating you during sleep, as it will remain temperature neutral. The base of the mattress is made up of 10cm high resistance foam, while the top is 10cm of pure Levitex foam.
Its unique foam is also designed to retain its shape – without any sagging – and won’t need rotating either so maintenance is easy once the mattress is installed in your bedroom. The cover is removable too and the Gravity Defying Mattress boasts an antimicrobial treatment that deters bacteria, mould and mildew. We found the firm structure to be thoroughly supportive, yet it still felt comfortable and not too hard like some firm mattresses we’ve tried.
Levitex Gravity Defying Mattress review: Support & comfort
- A medium firm mattress that we rate as an 8/10 on the firmness scale
- All foam design made from patented Levitex Foam
- The top layer has some give yet is still highly supportive
Levitex doesn’t state how firm the mattress is on a scale of 1 to 10 on its website like brands such as Otty, Nectar and Emma do. But having recently tried a host of other medium-firm mattresses, we’d give the Levitex an 8/10 firmness rating in comparison.
Unlike memory foam, Levitex foam isn’t temperature sensitive. With memory foam the longer you lie on it the softer it becomes and the more you become immersed in the foam. As Levitex isn’t affected by heat you’ll have less body contact with the surface and you won’t find yourself sinking into the foam uncomfortably.
Having slept on the mattress over the course of six weeks, we were surprised at how well supported we felt on the surface, and noticed just how deep a sleep we got.
Not overly keen on the feel of firmer mattresses in general (and we appreciate that this is highly subjective, of course) we didn’t expect to like the Levitex mattress as much as we did as it initially felt quite solid. Our primary tester who is 5.2” tried it and reported how comfortable it felt when she was laying on her back. She noted how each part of her body felt equally supported and well balanced and her body didn’t sink in at heavier parts of the body such as at the hips and lumbar area.
She pointed out that front sleeping was comfortable too as the mattress retained its shape without her feeling like she was lost in the foam. Our secondary tester, who is tall at 6ft, felt particularly comfortable while sleeping on his side and back – he noted that his spine felt straight and he didn’t feel the need to put a pillow under his knees for extra comfort like he sometimes does.
To gain some sort of insight into the support of this mattress, we used an 8kg weight to measure to simulate the feel of a person’s body sinking into the mattress. With the weight placed in the middle of the mattress we measured it to have a 4cm sinkage value, which we think is good for a medium-firm mattress and gives some indication of how well it retains its shape.
Levitex Gravity Defying mattress review: Performance
- Supportive surface that makes it easy to change sleep position
- Levitex foam will keep you at the optimum temperature
- Excellent edge support
To find out if the Levitex mattress ticked all the boxes in terms of comfort, motion isolation, edge support and generally helping us snooze better, we slept on a kingsize mattress over the course of six weeks. This gave us a good surface area to test and we were able to trial it with two people sleeping alongside each other.
We teamed the mattress with Levitex pillows for extra support and as a result, we highly recommend this combination as we found that the pillow and mattress complement each other well.
While there is no memory foam or springs included, this mattress provides the nice squish of a memory foam design, with the bounce and breathability that springs offer - but without any of the downsides. For a start, the Levitex mattress is designed to retain its shape and won’t sag over time. It also isn’t temperature sensitive, and we felt reassured knowing that the mattress would keep us at the optimum temperature throughout the night – which it certainly did.
We also found its edge support to be excellent as it held its structure very well – both in our weight test and when we were simply sitting on the edges. Our primary tester was particularly impressed at how supportive the sleep surface felt at the middle and sides and ends of the mattress – maintaining an evenly comfortable surface.
Motion isolation
If you’re sharing a bed with your partner, good motion isolation in a mattress is essential. Choosing a mattress that is built to limit movement from side to side means you’ve less chance of being disturbed by your partners every move.
Likewise, even when you’re sleeping on your own, you’ll want the mattress to stay in place without rolling up on one side when you snuggle alongside the other, which is what makes good motion isolation (and base support) even more important in a mattress.
To find out how well the Levitex mattress did at limiting movement we asked our testers to sleep side by side and report back if they noticed their partner move in the night. As a result, both our testers were impressed with just how well the mattress limited movement in the night.
To further test the mattresses motion isolation we placed a wine glass in the centre of the mattress and dropped a 5kg weight 4" 10" and then 25" away from it. The wine glass defiantly held its position without falling over – only wobbling, but not falling, when the weight was just 4 inches away. This is testament to how good the motion isolation is in the Levitex mattress.
Score: 5 out of 5
Temperature regulation
Being too hot can be a major sleep disrupter, but fortunately the Levitex mattress isn’t temperature sensitive like memory foam. This means you will sink less into the foam – compared to memory foam – and have less body contact with the surface – which helps you relax and give you that good proprioception, which is that feeling that you’re defying gravity as you sleep.
To further promote airflow and keep the mattress fresh it includes an antimicrobial treatment where bacteria, mould and mildew cannot live. The cover is also zipped and removable for cleaning.
We tested the mattress during the summer months, in a room that reached 25° on the hottest nights. We used cotton sheets and a 4.5 tog summer duvet. Both our testers reported how soundly they slept without waking up feeling too hot or too cool. The mattress also remained cool to touch.
Score: 5 out of 5
Edge support
Good edge support is vital to a mattress so you don’t fall off the edges while you sleep and so that you can get in and out of bed easily, without feeling like you’re sliding off the edges. Both our testers particularly liked just how well the surface of this mattress retained its shape at the sides, without any of the sides dipping as we moved nearer to the edge.
We asked our primary tester to roll around the mattress from side to side and from top to the end and comment on how well balanced they felt the mattress was. They found the surface to have an even firmness, and noted that they found it to be one of the most supportive mattresses that they’ve ever tried.
To assess the sinkage at the sides we placed our 8kg weight on one side and measured the sinkage. It was quite hard to keep the weight from falling off the side, but we managed to measure the sinkage at 4cm again - just like in the centre of the mattress - and this is testament to how evenly supportive the mattress is across its sleeping surface.
Even though the mattress had been rolled up and folded when it was delivered, it didn’t take long for it to fully expand and take shape with no signs of the fold or compression at the edges. The good edge support on this mattress also adds to the area of usable sleep surface and helps premature sagging around the edge of the mattress. Interestingly, Levitex states that this design doesn’t need turning like some mattresses do, and it’s designed not to sag like some can after a while, which is reassuring to know.
Score: 5 out of 5
Delivery and setup
Arrival of the Levitex mattress was swift and we found it easy to click to buy online and select a suitable delivery date. The delivery firm brought the mattress right up to the door and offered to take it up the stairs to the bedroom too. There is quite a bit of packaging to contend with as it comes in a box and is vacuum packed in plastic, but this should be easy to recycle.
Once we had lay the mattress on the wooden slatted bed we cut the packaging with a knife and the mattress unravelled. Interestingly, the mattress is folded as well as rolled and it took a few hours for any signs of the fold to fade. We left it for 72 hours before sleeping on the mattress to give it a chance to reach its full potential.
The off-gassing on unravelling the mattress – which is that factory smell you can get with a new mattress – was strong and it took a good few days to fade. There was still a fair bit of off-gassing to contend with after a couple of weeks, so we made sure we aired the bed by taking off the sheets and opening the window at any opportunity we could get.
Score: 4 out of 5
Levitex Gravity Defying Mattress review: Customer reviews
- Average of 5 stars on Trustpilot but only a small pool of reviews
- 5 stars based on 26 reviews on the Levitex website
- Lots of praise for its back-relieving benefits
While the reviews on both Trustpilot and directly on the Levitex website were all positive, we didn’t discover that many reviews in total. There are just 7 on Trustpilot and 26 on Levitex’s own website, for example. We struggled to find any negative comments about the Levitex mattress – or the Levitex pillow, for that matter – which is testament to how well the mattress has performed since its launch.
One person has reviewed the mattress stating how ‘comfortable yet protective it feels’, while another has stated ‘what a positive impact it has had’ on their sleep. The overall consensus is that it’s excellent for anyone looking to improve their sleep – and help with any potential back pain in the process.
Should you buy the Levitex Gravity Defying Mattress?
If you’re someone who suffers from a bad back or you simply want an all-foam mattress that is going to feel comfortable and supportive from edge to edge, this medium-firm design is worth consideration. We found it great at relieving pressure in all the right places and it provided comfort in all sleep positions.
It’s ideal in larger sizes such as kingsize and superking as you can share it with your partner and go undisturbed from any movement from the other side. While it doesn’t have the cosiness of a design with an extra layer of memory foam on top, overall this well-structured and fuss-free design provides the chance for an excellent night’s sleep.
