'A great affordable mattress' – if you're looking for an under £500 mattress, I think the OTTY Aura Hybrid is a winner

In this OTTY Aura Hybrid mattress review, I put the brand's most affordable mattress through its paces to see how it performs compared to the best mattresses on the market.

In a nutshell

Overall, the OTTY Aura Hybrid is a no-frills mattress that delivers a good sleeping experience at an affordable price point.

Under £500 for a double, I found it delivered medium-firm support and a good level of memory foam cushioning for my joints.

The encapsulated pocket springs provide good motion isolation, too. When I slept on the OTTY Aura with my husband, or one of my kids jumped into bed, I wasn’t disturbed by them moving around. The high-density foam edge support also meant the entire mattress surface was usable, with minimal dipping at the edges, unlike many mattresses at this price point.

The downside was that I did find it slept a little warmer than I'd have liked, and the lack of side handles was annoying when I wanted to rotate it on the bedframe. But, they're niggles that most mattresses at this price point share.

OTTY's 100-night sleep trial is another great feature, although, personally, I don’t think you’ll be needing it, because when I slept on this mattress I had a great night’s sleep!

All in all, if you're looking for a budget-friendly under £500 mattress, I think this is a great buy.

Specifications

• RRP (double): £474.99
• Type: hybrid
• Construction materials: memory foam, pocket springs, high-density support foam
• Sizes: single, double, king, super king
• Tensions available: medium-firm
• Height: 23cm
• Side handles: no
• Flip or rotate: rotate
• Manufacturer sleep trial: 100 night

1. Comfort

The OTTY Aura Hybrid Mattress is what the manufacturer describes as their ‘entry-level hybrid mattress, which has been designed to pack all the technology used in our Original, into a thinner, more affordable model.’

It combines a memory foam top layer with 16cm encapsulated pocket springs as base support to create what the brand promises to be a medium-firm mattress.

I love a firmer feeling mattress, and I was pleasantly surprised when I lay down on the OTTY Aura Hybrid. Although it looks fairly basic, and at 23cm total depth it's not as deep as some of the mattresses that I’ve recently tested (such as the 25cm deep DreamCloud Hybrid Mattress and the 31cm deep Origin Hybrid Pro Mattress), I'm impressed by how firm, and yet comfortable, it feels.

I've found most mattresses I've tested at this price point can tend to lack support, but this affordable OTTY mattress felt firmer than the DreamCloud and the Simba Hybrid Essential Mattress that I’ve recently tested, which I really enjoyed.

As a side sleeper, I also found the memory foam layer offered good cushioning for my joints. Despite being nicely firm, there was enough cushioning that my dodgy shoulder and hip didn’t feel numb or sore during the night or when I woke up.

2. Motion isolation

OTTY says that the 1000 individually housed pocket springs used in the Aura Hybrid mean that ‘each sleeper is supported individually, preventing any sleep disturbance caused by the other’s movement.’

I concur with this because when I slept on this mattress, the motion transfer was very minimal. When my husband slept on it next to me, I couldn’t feel him getting up early for work or moving around in the night.

It also didn't disturb me when he came to bed after I’d fallen asleep, whereas when we've tested mattresses without such good motion isolation, this will often wake me.

3. Responsiveness

The OTTY Aura Hybrid Mattress has a comfort memory foam top layer which is designed to mould to your body ‘creating the ultimate comfort.’ Beneath that is a layer of high density support foam which is used to add an additional support on top of the spring layer.

The foam layers mean this mattress doesn’t feel that bouncy when you lay on it, but I also didn’t have the feeling of sinking into the memory foam too deeply, meaning that it was responsive enough that I could turn over easily and change position comfortably.

When I pushed my hand into the mattress it sprang back and reshaped itself quickly. This means it would be a good choice for anyone who has mobility issues which make rolling over or getting out of bed trickier and needs extra support.

4. Temperature regulation

Unlike the Simba Hybrid Essential Mattress I recently tested, which employs graphite-infused memory foam to draw heat away from the body and an open-cell structure to increase airflow and aid temperature regulation, OTTY doesn't make any claims about utilising cooling technologies in its memory foam.

However, its hybrid design does mean the springs will aid airflow more than a pure memory foam mattress.

Admittedly, I'm not a particularly hot sleeper, but I slept on this mattress during a number of very hot nights, and I found it did make me feel a little warmer and clammier than the Simba Hybrid. If you're a hot sleeper, you may be best opting for a mattress with more cooling tech included.

5. Edge support

The side borders of this mattress are made of dense foam blocks. The manufacturer says that the side support ‘creates a wider sleeping area, allowing you to sleep near the edge of your bed, without rolling off.’

This foam edge support means that although the edge does collapse a bit when I sit on it, my bottom doesn’t touch the bed frame like it has on some mattresses that I’ve tested at this price point.

And lying on it, what the manufacturer says does ring true because I can roll very close to the edge and the mattress maintains its height, meaning that I don’t get a sense of it dipping or rolling off.

The edge of the Otty Aura Hybrid mattress looks and feels firm to the touch, too, in comparison to the edge of the Emma Hybrid Original Mattress, which looked more flaccid, and the fabric cover looked baggy.

6. Sleep trial

Sleeping on a mattress is the only way to really get a feel for how it impacts your sleep, good or bad. And so it’s great that OTTY offer a 100 night sleep trial on the Aura Hybrid.

The trial starts on the day of delivery. If you're not fully satisfied with your sleep experience, simply contact the manufacturer to arrange a return, and you'll receive a full refund.

Returned mattresses are either cleaned thoroughly and re-sold via OTTY's refurbished store, donated to local charities, or responsibly recycled, ensuring they don’t go to waste.

7. Ease of care

This is a mattress that needs to be rotated rather than flipped. OTTY suggests you rotate your mattress once a month for the first 12 months and then once every 3 months thereafter.

However, with this double mattress weighing 30kg and not having handles (annoying!), it was hard to do on my own. I had to enlist the help of a family member.

The mattress also has a removable cover that can be machine washed at 40 degrees. I found the cover easy to remove and it washed well and didn’t shrink. When I hung it on the line to dry it dried quickly too.

8. Delivery

The mattress delivery process was very smooth with great communication. I received a text message to confirm my order, and then subsequent messages to tell me the day my mattress would be delivered.

On the morning itself, I received a text message with a specific hour slot for the delivery time along with a tracking link. This meant that I didn’t have to wait at home for hours, not knowing when it would arrive.

In my case, the mattress was delivered downstairs, rather than to my room of choice. It's a mattress in a box, which means it's nice and compact, but it's still heavy, and getting it up the stairs on my own was impossible. However, my husband and I managed to push and pull it upstairs to the bedroom together.

If you don't want to get into a hot and sweaty mess on delivery day wrestling the mattress upstairs by yourself, OTTY does offer delivery to your room of choice for an additional £10, which I highly recommend. However, there's no white glove service whereby the mattress is unboxed and installed onto the bed frame for you.

There is also the option to have OTTY take away your old mattress. This is a service that can be added at the checkout when you place your mattress order, and costs an additional £40.

Once unboxed and unrolled, I did notice a slight off-gassing smell for the first few days. This smell dissipated over time, but I recommend keeping the windows open for the first few days if possible.

OTTY says you should be able to sleep on the mattress after 2-4 hours, but says it can take up to 48 hours for the mattress to fully expand after it's been unrolled.

9. Third-party reviews

Overall, OTTY has over 10,000 reviews on Trustpilot with an average customer rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars, which is impressive.

For comparison, market leader Simba has over 50,000 reviews on Trustpilot, with an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars. Similarly, Emma has just over 50,000 reviews on Trustpilot , but a much lower average rating of 2.9 out of 5 stars.

10. Value for money

As of writing, the OTTY Aura Hybrid mattress costs £474.99 for a double at full RRP. That's a very competitive price, and I think this mattress performs extremely well compared to other mattresses I've tested in the under £500 category.

In fact, I'd go as far as to say this is one of the best budget mattresses I've tested, especially if you prefer a slightly firmer feeling sleep surface.

For comparison, the DreamCloud Hybrid mattress costs £525 for a double, the REM-Fit Hybrid Pocket 1000 Mattress £449, and the Simba Hybrid Essential mattress £649.

I found the Simba mattress the slightly cooler of all four, but, it's more money. If you're not a hot sleeper, and looking for a good budget-friendly mattress, I don't think you'd go wrong with opting for either the OTTY Aura Hybrid, the DreamCloud, or the REM-Fit Hybrid Pocket 1000 Mattress. And if, like me, you prefer a slightly firmer sleep surface, the OTTY Aura would be my top choice.

How I tested

Rachel Tompkins

I’m Rachel, a mother of two and a freelance reviewer who helps the Ideal Home team put mattresses through their paces to find our top recommendations. For this review, I tested a double in the OTTY Aura Hybrid Mattress on a slatted bed base.

My sleep stats:

Sleep position: back or side
Tension preference: firm
Sleep problems: lower back pain and/or neck pain and occasional overheating
Height & weight: 5"5 and 9.5 stones

In putting the OTTY Aura Hybrid Mattress through Ideal Home's mattress testing process, I assessed 10 factors that we deem vital to any mattress purchase.

I tested the mattress for comfort, motion isolation, responsiveness, temperature regulation, and edge support. This means that my husband and I slept on the mattress for a month before I wrote my review.

I also took into consideration ease of care, any sleep trials available, the delivery process, the mattress's value for money, and, where possible, researched third-party customer reviews – to see if they aligned or were at odds with my own experience – before writing my own review and giving this mattress a star rating.