Bear earned top cooling honors from Tom’s Guide after the Bear Elite Hybrid achieved a perfect 5/5 temperature-regulation score and the fastest heat-shedding performance recorded in the publication’s testing.
We’ve spent years thinking about what makes a mattress genuinely comfortable for people who sleep hot. Not “cooling” because the label says so, but actually comfortable when you’re under the covers for eight hours, the room is warm, or you simply tend to overheat at night.
That’s why we’re excited to share that Tom’s Guide has named the Bear Elite Hybrid the Best Cooling Mattress in its best mattresses of 2026 guide.
And this wasn’t a quick first-impression test. Tom’s Guide says its sleep team has tested more than 140 mattresses, combining seven lab tests with at-home sleep testing to evaluate factors including pressure relief, temperature regulation, motion isolation and edge support.
When it came to cooling, the Elite Hybrid stood out.
The Bear Elite Hybrid Earned a Perfect 5/5 for Cooling
Here’s the line that made our day:
“The Bear Elite Hybrid is the best cooling mattress we've tested.”
Tom’s Guide awarded the Bear Elite Hybrid a perfect 5 out of 5 for temperature regulation, making it the only mattress in its 2026 best-mattress lineup to receive a perfect score in that category. It also recorded what Tom’s Guide called the “fastest heat shedding rate we've recorded.”
For us, that second part is especially meaningful.
A mattress can feel cool when you first climb into bed. The bigger challenge is what happens after you’ve been lying there and your body has been producing heat for hours.
That’s exactly what Tom’s Guide set out to measure.
Putting Our Cooling to the Test
During its testing, the Tom’s Guide team used thermal imaging to measure how much heat the Bear Elite Hybrid absorbed while a tester initially lay on the mattress, and then over time. Within just one minute, the Bear Elite Hybrid dropped 7.2°F.
That result helps explain why the Bear Elite Hybrid received its perfect temperature-regulation score. It also gets to the heart of what we wanted this mattress to do: move heat away instead of letting it build up around your body.
"Our tests showed that the Bear Elite Hybrid with Celliant cover has exceptional thermal effusivity, quickly removing heat from the bed to keep you cool. It's built with advanced cooling materials, including copper foams and Phase Change Material (PCM), which regulates temperature by absorbing body heat and dissipating it through the surface of the mattress.
During the heat absorption part of our temperature regulation test, our thermal camera tracked a maximum temperature increase (MTI) of 10.5°F on the Bear Elite Hybrid.
While we normally view heat absorption between 9.1°F and 10.5°F as fair — it implies the bed is trapping some warmth — the Bear Elite has a unique approach to thermoregulation. This initial rapid absorption of heat is purposeful. High-tech cooling layers, including PCM, are designed to instantly absorb excess heat, pulling it away from the body, and they just as quickly throw the heat out...
The Bear Elite absorbed the most amount of heat (shown via the high MTI) when we tested our top five mattresses in the lab because the specialist active cooling materials (PCM and Celliant) suck up heat, pulling it away from the body. The Bear has the fastest cooling rate shedding 1.82°F/min, showing it sheds this heat equally as fast, giving a cool sleep experience..."
Tom’s Guide went even further, describing the Elite Hybrid as:
“The only mattress we've tested with enough cooling power to stand up to night sweats and hot flashes.”
For anyone who regularly wakes up hot, throws off the covers in the middle of the night, or flips their pillow looking for the cool side, that’s a pretty compelling endorsement.
So, What Makes the Bear Elite Hybrid Sleep So Cool?
We designed the Bear Elite Hybrid as a premium hybrid mattress that balances cooling, pressure relief and support.
The mattress stands 14 inches tall and is available in Soft, Medium and Firm options, because cooling shouldn’t mean compromising on the feel that works best for your body and sleep position.
Tom’s Guide specifically called out the Elite Hybrid’s Celliant-infused cover and copper-infused comfort foam, noting that the combination helps the mattress absorb and quickly release heat to maintain a more temperature-neutral sleep environment.
Cooling wasn’t the only area where the Elite Hybrid performed well, either.
Tom’s Guide gave it a 4.6 out of 5 for pressure relief, the second-highest pressure-relief score among the six mattresses in its 2026 guide. Its testers also highlighted the mattress’s targeted lumbar support, ease of movement and premium, hotel-bed feel.
A Win We’re Proud Of
We can tell you all day why we think the Bear Elite Hybrid is a great mattress. Hearing it from independent testers is different.
Tom’s Guide put the Elite Hybrid through objective lab testing, slept on it at home and compared its performance against a deep field of mattresses. The result was a perfect cooling score and the title of Best Cooling Mattress in its 2026 best-mattress guide.
We’re proud of that recognition—but mostly, we’re excited about what it means for sleepers.
If you’ve spent too many nights kicking off the covers, waking up sweaty or searching for a mattress that actually does something about excess heat, the Bear Elite Hybrid was made with you in mind.
And now we have some pretty cool test results to prove it.
Disclaimer: Bear does not provide medical advice. All resources on the Bear blog, including this article, are informational only and do not replace professional medical counsel. Talk to your doctor about any health, mental health, or sleep-related issues.
