I'd heard of a modular sofa, but never a modular pillow! I put the £45 Groove Adjustable Pillow to the test, and I'm impressed

I put the Groove Adjustable Memory Foam pillow to the test on my own bed and slept on it for a week to see how it compares to the best pillows on the market.

In a nutshell

As you might guess from its name, the Groove Adjustable Memory Foam Pillow is adjustable, which means you can alter its height to suit your particular body frame.

This makes it a particularly useful option for side sleepers, as you can make it higher or lower to better suit broad shoulders or a petite frame. It's also ergonomically shaped, with 'cutouts' for your shoulders that aim to improve sleep posture and deliver better spinal alignment.

Because of this, it's one of the best pillows for side sleepers that I've tested, and even better, you get a 100-night sleep trial to test it out for yourself and see if you feel the same. Plus, at just £45 I think it's great value for money.

Does it have any downsides? Yes, at least it does for me. I found it a little too firm – my ear felt squashed compared to my usual bouncy latex pillow – and I found it warm to sleep on. I love a cool pillow, and I found I had a hot head after I'd been lying on it for 15 minutes or so.

However, if you can overlook those niggles, I think this pillow will suit a lot of people, so if you're looking for the best memory foam pillow, or a good pillow for side sleeping, it's definitely one well worth having on your radar.

Groove Adjustable Memory Foam Pillow review

Specifications

• Best for: side sleepers
• RRP: £45
• Feel: firm
• Heights available: adjustable
• Materials: poly-cotton and memory foam
• Care instructions: insert: do not wash; cover: machine wash at 30ºC
• Manufacturer sleep trial: 100 nights

Comfort

The main selling point of the Groove Adjustable Memory Foam Pillow is its adjustable height. The pillow has a zipped cover, and inside are four removable layers, which means you can adjust the pillow to multiple different heights.

Why is this important? Because, as the Groove product page explains, 'if your pillow is too high or too low for your frame, it can contribute to shoulder pain, headaches, and poor sleeping posture.'

As I've discovered during the five years I've been testing pillows as Ideal Home's Sleep Editor, this tends to mean that a one-size pillow that might suit one person perfectly can be completely wrong for another. And this is particularly the case if, like me, you're a side sleeper.

As the Groove website continues to explain, 'wider frames or broad shoulders need more loft to fill the gap between neck and mattress; too little, and the shoulder takes the strain instead.' In contrast, petite frames may find most side sleeping pillows offer too much height, which 'forces the neck to crane upward all night; less loft keeps the spine level.'

Those removable layers mean you can make the Groove Adjustable Memory Foam Pillow the exact right height for *your* body. Plus, it's ergonomically shaped, with moulded sections designed to support your neck whether you're lying on your side or back.

It took me some experimenting to find the right height for me. Initially, I removed two layers, but found I woke with a sore neck as the pillow was still too high. However, after removing another of the thinner layers, I found my 'just right'.

This meant that when I lay on my side, my head and neck were supported in alignment with my spine. I always use a body pillow to help prevent me from rolling forward or back at night (Woolroom's Washable Wool Body Pillow or the Simba Body Pillow are two of the best), and with the Groove pillow under my head and a body pillow at my side, I had good sleep posture all night long.

The downsides? I found this is a pretty firm pillow. I'm used to sleeping on a latex pillow (the Woolroom Natural Latex Washable Wool Pillow is my pillow of choice), and in contrast to latex's springy, zero-gravity feel, the memory foam-filled Groove Adjustable pillow felt very solid and dense under my ear.

As such, it was a little *too* firm for me, and I found I woke up with a bit of a squashed ear the first few nights, although I did get used to the firmer feel as my week's testing wore on.

Plus, I know a lot of people who love a firmer feel under their head. My colleague Zoe raves about the Simba Hybrid Firm Pillow, which I find *far* too firm, so pillow density does come down to personal preference.

Temperature regulation

I actually tested two of Groove's pillows over the summer: the Groove Adjustable Memory Foam Pillow and the Groove Air Cooling Pillow. However, unfortunately, I found both slept warmer than I would have liked.

This is a common problem with memory foam pillows, and despite the addition of cooling technologies, I found my head still got a lot hotter on these pillows than it does when I lay on latex, wool, or feather and down.

Admittedly, I'm a hot sleeper, and I tested these pillows during a heatwave. But I made sure to test them in much cooler weather too, and I still found I got a hot and slightly sweaty head after 15 minutes or so.

My overheating was helped by adding a cooling pillowcase to the pillow (I recommend one of the best silk pillowcases if your budget can stretch), but I wouldn't say that good temperature regulation is this pillow's strong suit.

Ease of care

Like all memory foam pillows, the inner core of the Groove Adjustable Memory Foam Pillow can't be washed. However, you can unzip the cover and wash that on a 30°C machine wash.

Being memory foam, there's also no need to plump this pillow or redistribute the filling, so there's really very little care involved in keeping it in good condition.

The only downside I found was finding somewhere to store the adjustable layers that I removed.

Sleep trial

Groove offers a *very* generous 100 nights to test out this pillow and see if it helps to improve your sleep. That's one of the longest sleep trials in the pillow market and should be plenty of time to see if its unusual shape and adjustable layers suit your sleep style.

Value for money

As of writing, the Groove Adjustable Memory Foam Pillow costs just £45, which I think is very good value for money for an adjustable pillow.

For comparison, the adjustable Simba Hybrid Pillow costs an eye-watering £109, and The Fine Bedding Company's Adjustable HoneyFoam Pillow will set you back £99. That said, both of these pillows do have infinitely adjustable fill. Instead of layers, they're constructed from hundreds of memory foam 'clusters' you can add or remove to your heart's content.

Both the Simba Hybrid and HoneyFoam pillows are also softer in feel, although I found they didn't keep my head as well-aligned for side sleeping as the firmer Groove Adjustable did.

How I tested

Amy Lockwood

I'm Amy, and as Ideal Home's Sleep Editor and certified Sleep Expert, I've spent the last five years testing sleep products by night and sharing my findings with our readers by day. That includes sleep-testing more than fifty different pillows on my own bed. I'm a side sleeper, and for this review, I tested out the Groove Adjustable Memory Foam Pillow.

To test out this pillow, I slept on it for a week on my own bed to assess its comfort and temperature regulation. I also assessed its ease of care, any sleep trials available, and how it compares to similar products on the market to see if it offers good value for money.