Review of the Embark Flocked Twin Airbed with Pump

I have never used an air mattress before, so when the time came for me to purchase one I just went and purchased the Embark Flocked Twin Airbed with Pump. I picked it because it was cheap and came with a pump. I didn't like the idea of huffing and puffing for an hour to fill the airbed.

When I got it home I was somewhat disappointed to find that I would have to charge the pump for 12 hours before using it. I had kind of hoped to be able to use it when I opened the box. This was only a minor annoyance, though, so I charged the pump and waited.

Twelve hours later I inflated the bed. The pump was loud but extremely fast. I had the bed inflated in less than a minute. Upon trying it out, I found the mattress to be comfortable but not tremendously warm. I found myself very cold and had to add a lot of blankets and still wasn't able to get warm. I believe this is due to the vinyl material that the mattress is constructed of. Most cloth mattresses help keep heat in, but the vinyl material seems to just disperse it. This was not a big deal, though, as I could just add more blankets.

The manual said that due to expansion of the vinyl I would likely have to re-inflate the mattress two or three times after the initial inflation to keep it at a full level. With this in mind, I was not worried when the mattress seemed to be getting softer each of the first few days I used it. I just re-inflated it and hoped for the best.

The loss of air continued for beyond the first few uses, and I found myself having to inflate the bed daily. I chalked this up to a tiny leak and hoped that it would be slow enough that the mattress would make it through each night, but after about a week I woke up in the middle of the night with my entire body touching the floor. The mattress was almost completely deflated.

I took the mattress back to Target and got a refund, which I used to purchase a different mattress. There is a patch kit that comes with the mattress, but unless I had a pool and could submerse the mattress underwater, there was no way I could find it.

I wouldn't recommend this mattress, as I feel the vinyl is simply too prone to leakage. To get a mattress with a decent level of quality, I think you're going to have to spend around $60 or $70. This mattress only cost $30.

A final tip for anybody purchasing an air mattress: Be extremely careful when inflating the mattress. If you want your mattress to be firm enough to bounce a quarter off, you have to be careful to avoid over inflating.