I’ve lost count of how many pillows I’ve tried in the pursuit of a better night’s sleep. Some are too firm, others flatten within weeks, and there’s always that familiar moment in the middle of the night when you’re folding and flipping your pillow in a desperate attempt to get comfortable. So, when I heard about Simba’s hybrid pillow, which promises to combine softness with proper support – and can be adjusted to suit how you sleep – I was intrigued.
Rather than relying on one slab of memory foam, the pillow is filled with hundreds of tiny open-cell foam ‘nanocubes’. They give it a softer, more mouldable feel than traditional memory foam, while still providing the pressure-relieving support you’d expect from a foam pillow. Crucially, you can unzip the cover and add or remove the nanocubes yourself, allowing you to alter the pillow’s height and firmness until it feels right for you.
There’s also Simba’s temperature-regulating technology in the cover, designed to help draw excess heat away as you sleep. With plenty of clever features on paper, I wanted to see whether this pillow could actually make a noticeable difference to my sleep, so I put it through its paces to find out. Keep reading for my full review.
Read more: Best cooling pillows, reviewed
Simba hybrid pillow
Rating: 4/5
Why we love it
- Endlessly adaptable
- Synthetic fill makes this pillow ideal for anyone who suffers from allergies
- Plenty of support
Take note
- Expensive
Simba hybrid pillow firmness
Simba says the pillow is filled with “nanocubes” and uses “nanocube technology” to give you the perfect night’s sleep. But what does that mean? Unlike older pillows that use memory foam (usually made from a polymer known as polyurethane), Simba’s nanocubes are made from open-cell foam made up of lots of tiny sealed cells filled with air. They compress and bounce back with real spring, which makes the pillow feel more like a traditional feather or down fill, and less like you’re sleeping on a wedge of plastic.
In terms of firmness, it feels somewhere between a feather pillow and a memory foam pillow: the closest comparison I found was with a natural fibre like wool. There is plenty of support, particularly if you retain all the nanocubes and fluff them up occasionally, and your head doesn’t sink all the way to the mattress the same way it would with a down fill. But there is always a degree of give, which is particularly nice if you sleep on a firmer mattress and on your side (so you have a very low pillow).
Simba hybrid pillow comfort
Sure, this pillow doesn’t have the sumptuous, hotel-style plumpness of a fully-lofted down pillow. But it also won’t give you a chronic neck ache. The nanocube fill is a triumph: it is really comfortable and squishy. But where this pillow also shines is its climate control. Its two sides are made from different materials, and the turquoise-bordered side uses a technology Simba calls “stratos”. Microcapsules applied to the cover absorb, store and release body heat depending on how warm or cold you get.
The other side, with a silver border, is made from ethically sourced, breathable cotton. You can spot the difference between the two surfaces, but with a pillowcase on, you won’t feel any difference in texture. I naturally gravitated to the climate-controlled blue side and never had an uncomfortable night’s sleep.
The thick mesh stripe that runs around the middle of the pillow keeps air circulating around the cubes, which contributes to the coolness.
Read more: Best pillow for neck pain
Sleeping position
The amount of lift you get from this pillow is entirely customisable because you can move the cubes – or they seem to naturally drift – to where you most need them. You can even remove whole handfuls. So when Simba says this pillow is for every sleeping style, they’re not exaggerating.
I’m a side-front sleeper, so I moved most of the nanocubes from the base of the pillow to the top to give me a wedge-shaped pillow with a low profile at the neck. Front sleepers might like to remove some of the nanocubes to drop the height even more, while back sleepers can retain all the nanocubes and might like to open the pillow and move them around every week or so to keep maximum loft all over.
Adjusting the cubes is really simple: unzip the outer cover, then the inner cover, reach in and mess them up.
Is Simba’s hybrid pillow suitable for allergy sufferers?
The synthetic fill makes this pillow ideal for anyone who suffers from allergies and can’t sleep on a natural or traditional fill. The microfibre layer that sits between the cubes and the cover is also hypoallergenic, and the cover is really easy to take off and wash.
Read more: Best anti-allergy pillows, reviewed
Simba hybrid pillow care
You can wash the cover but not the fill – the nanocubes, with their little air cells, would probably never recover from the shock. Because the quilting on the cover is comfortable and the cover itself is so easy to wash (in a machine up to 40 degrees C), I didn’t find I needed a pillow protector.
After almost a year of relentless side-sleeping and occasionally working from bed, I did find that some of the nanocubes lost their bounce. This was easy to fix by opening up the fill compartment and moving them around a little: it’s worth doing this every couple of weeks, or whenever you notice the pillow has lost its height.
Simba hybrid pillow price
Costing more than £100, this is one of the pricier synthetic pillows on the market. But it doesn’t go near the dizzying cost of some high-end down pillows, which can easily cost upwards of £200. Given that the pillow gives you the benefits of a down pillow – loft and comfort – and the practicalities of a foam pillow, I think it’s reasonably priced.
It’s also endlessly adaptable: if you buy it when you’re pregnant and sleeping on your back, for example, you can adjust the fill later to suit it to side sleeping. If you’re injured and want a supportive pillow to aid recovery, you can buy it for that, then refill it with nanocubes when you’re back-to-back sleeping.
Key specifications:
Buy now £109, Simbasleep.com
Your questions about the Simba hybrid pillow answered
Is the Simba hybrid pillow worth it?
Of all the pillows I’ve tested – from the £300 down fills to the very best memory foam – Simba’s hybrid pillow is the one I sleep on every night. It’s a brilliant pillow for active people who are prone to the odd neck or shoulder strain, or anyone with a pre-existing injury, because it absolutely won’t exacerbate any damage.
It’s also supremely huggable – if you sleep on the climate-controlled side, you can snuggle your lower arm under its cotton base. A space-age pillow that lives up to its sci-fi promise.
How I tested the Simba hybrid pillow
I put Simba's claims to the ultimate long-term test by sleeping on the Hybrid pillow every night for 10 months, through the heat of summer and the chill of winter. Beyond just sleeping, I occasionally used it for back support while working from bed. My review focused on a handful of key criteria.
Why you can trust IndyBest reviews
IndyBest is The Independent’s product reviews section, where a team of experts tests sleep-related items over weeks, months or even years. IndyBest pros have tested everything from the best mattresses to the best duvets, and from top-rated bedding sets to the best mattress protectors. Their wealth of information and expert insights guide the product selection and testing process. Liz Dodd has written our guide on how to find the right pillow for your sleep position, so knew exactly what to look for when testing Simba’s hybrid pillow.
Read our review of the Simba hybrid luxe mattress, which came top of our best mattresses guide
