What Is An Adjustable Base Bed? (Reviewing The Features & Benefits Of Adjustable Bases in 2024

Are you shopping for a new mattress? If so, you may have done a bit of online shopping or perhaps visited a furniture showroom floor in your pursuit of a better night’s sleep. If you’ve spent much time looking for a mattress, then you may have come across another mysterious addition to a better night’s sleep.

Many people have difficulty getting to sleep on traditional mattresses. Difficult resting during the night could be due to various issues such as poor circulation, sleep apnea, muscle aches, joint pains, or other related annoyances.

Adjustable bases are rapidly becoming an essential part of many people’s sleep setup, and more and more of these fancy bases are making their way into homes. But what is an adjustable base, and why could owning one help you sleep better?

At Furniture Fair, we’ve been selling adjustable bases for 50 years, and we’ve sold many different styles of adjustable bases throughout our history. We’ve seen adjustable bases go from novelty items to an essential part of a better night’s sleep.

Read on to learn about what adjustable bases are, where they came from, and why they might be right for you. After reading this, you can better understand the features and benefits of an adjustable base and this impressive sleep-assisting technology history.

Let’s start at the beginning and figure out just what exactly an adjustable base is. Simply put, an adjustable base is a mattress base that can move to multiple sleep positions through power controls.

Adjustable bases take the place of a box spring underneath your mattress and offer support to your mattress and your body. Unlike the basic support that a box spring provides, an adjustable base has multiple ways to support your body depending on your needs.

An adjustable base uses power functions to raise and lower your mattress’s different portions as you need them. The power motion operates through a remote that connects to the power base.

Now that we know what an adjustable base is let’s look at the development process behind this most recent sleep innovation. Believe it or not, a reclining and inclining bed traces back to the Roman Empire.

The Romans used adjustable beds that look a bit more like our versions of beach or patio lounge chairs. The long chairs had back support that could be folded down to create a full bed for napping after a rigorous day of eating and probably yelling at servants.

The next innovation in the adjustable base’s evolution came in 1874 when Andrew Wuest and Son’s moveable bed frame revolutionized the bedding world. Unlike the intricate adjustable bases we see today, the movable bed of the 1800s only featured a reclining and inclining head area.

The next innovation in adjustable bedding technology happened in 1909 when Dr. Willis Gatch created his version of an adjustable bed, which ended up serving alongside soldiers in World War 1, helping them recover from their injuries.

The adjustable bed had three individual sections designed to allow the patient to move without further injuring themselves or getting life-threatening infections. The Gatch Bed became so well-known that the majority of hospitals adopted the bed for their uses.

The Gatch bed is the ancestor to modern adjustable bases and why many people view adjustable bases as “hospital beds.” As medical technology advanced, so did the technical abilities of the adjustable bed.

Modern medical beds began to have fully integrated power motion, allowing the user and the medical staff to raise and lower the patient at will. Other medical additions, such as wheels, side rails, and paging functions, were added.

The Fowler position, created by Dr. George Ryerson Fowler, was a method to raise the patient further on the bed to allow for more comfortable feeding and other necessary medical procedures. This innovation led to the development of adjustable bases that could rise into a seated position.

Around the early 1970s, many people realized that if an adjustable bed was useful in hospitals, it could also help people sleep better at home. This realization brought on a revolution in home sleep comfort.

The mainstream adoption of home televisions had led to many people watching TV in the bedroom from a bed that doesn’t support a seated position. In 1974 the Craftmatic Adjustable Base Company began to bring adjustable beds into mainstream home use.

While initially not much different from hospitals’ beds, companies began catering to eager customers’ demands and created more stylish beds.

The 21st century has brought about significant revolutions in adjustable bedding, which created a distinct rift between the simple hospital bed and the new adjustable bases for home use.

Today the adjustable base is similar only in the reclining and inclining functions. Simultaneously, the newest features and details make the standard hospital bed seem much more practical and not comfort-focused.

Puns aside, owning an adjustable base can raise your sleep quality as effortlessly as it raises your back or legs. Here are a few reasons that owning an adjustable base can create a better sleep experience for you.

An important thing to note is that, while adjustable beds have many healthy lifestyle benefits, an adjustable base is not a “hospital bed.” The modern adjustable bed is a way to help with healthier living while also providing a stylish, convenient way to sleep and relax.

Another thing to note is that while an adjustable base may help alleviate some of the symptoms of these health issues, an adjustable base is not a cure or replacement for proper medical care. Always consult your doctor when encountering any medical issues related to your sleep.

If you suffer from low blood circulation, an adjustable base is a great way to help alleviate some of the issues caused by having inadequate circulation. Poor circulation can be aggravated by sleeping on a standard mattress with your legs lower than your body.

An adjustable base bed reclines into positions that will help encourage better blood flow while also making you comfortable. Use the adjustable base to raise your legs slightly higher than the rest of your body, which will encourage better blood flow to your other extremities.

If you suffer from acid reflux, you are well-aware of the constant annoyance and downright pain that heartburn causes. An adjustable base can help to ease some of that pain by elevating your upper body and encouraging your digestive system to function as it should.

Raise the head of your adjustable base slightly to encourage your body to digest naturally. Sleeping on your back or side can make digestion harder and can lead to acid reflux. Sleeping on a slight elevation will encourage your body to digest naturally and help keep the stomach acid in your stomach.

An adjustable base can also combat snoring and sleep apnea. Elevated positions can help manage you or your significant other’s obnoxious (and potentially dangerous) snoring. A good night’s sleep that is free of snoring could be within reach of your bed’s remote.

Elevating the head of your bed can help better support your head and open up your airway. With better sleep posture, you are much less likely to have a restricted airway which can be responsible for your snoring.

If you frequently wake up with back, shoulder, or various other joint pains, an adjustable base could be the thing to help you rest with less pain. Whether you are a back, belly, or side sleeper, adjustable bases move into the optimal position for more painless sleep.

Many adjustable beds offer lumbar support for your lower back, while some even have massage functions to help slowly work out those muscle aches and pains. If a particular joint has been giving you pain, you can also adjust your mattress to remove pressure from that spot for a better night’s sleep.

While it may be clear that an adjustable base is excellent for more healthy living, there are many other features available for a convenient, luxurious, and welcome addition to your better night’s sleep. An adjustable base could provide way more benefits than you expected.

Here are just a few of the options that some adjustable base models feature. Keep in mind that different models have different features, and you should find out for yourself which options you want on your base.

Often a customer might be put off by the thought of having to place an adjustable base into their home because they don’t want to replace their bed with an unstylish-looking power base. The good news for anyone with this thought is that you probably won’t need to replace your bed.

Adjustable power bases are designed to replace your box spring and comfortably set right inside your favorite bed design. Even adjustable bases can be placed on top of storage beds, allowing for maximum convenience.

Think of your bed design as a beautiful packaging to complete your bed’s look, while the adjustable base is the hard-working inner part that is nevertheless important while not seen. An adjustable base can even add more support to your bed, eliminating annoying creaking noises.

Many adjustable bases can remember your favorite positions, which can be very useful if you want a consistent sleep experience. You can set presets for your favorite activities, like reading, watching TV, or sleeping.

Depending on the model, adjustable bases have a wide range of power motion available, including power headrests, power lumbar support, and even massage functions, for those days when you need a spa day but don’t want to leave the house.

Some adjustable power bases integrate with smart home devices such as Amazon’s Alexa or the Google Home system. Once Integrated, adjusting your power base becomes the simple task of telling your home device what position to set the bed.

Many bases now come with LED lighting features. Some have an LED flashlight built into the remote for those situations where you need to see where something fell but don’t want to get out of bed.

Others have LED lights built into the bed’s underside, making finding stuff stored under the bed more effortless than ever. If you hate the thought of having to turn on the light every time you can’t find that pesky charger or wall outlet, then this is perfect for you.

While it seems that every type of furniture known to man is now getting USB integrated functions (we’re still waiting for USB rugs), an adjustable base is one of the best ideas for USB ports.

We’ve all experienced that moment of frustration when the phone battery is low, and to charge it, we resort to fumbling around in the dark for those wall outlets that always seem to be somewhere other than where we are looking.

Take out that middleman wall outlet by having your bed tied to the source. With built-in USB ports, you can have easy access to power, and you will spend less time fumbling and more time sleeping (or scrolling).

Hopefully, after reading this article, you’ve realized that an adjustable base can be way more than just a hospital bed. While the health benefits of an adjustable base are many, adjustable bases are also an excellent way to make your sleep life more relaxing.

Elevate your sleep with benefits like USB, power headrest, lumbar, and massage, while also getting the full advantage of health benefits such as relief of sleep apnea, heartburn, and poor circulation.

If you are thinking about getting more information on adjustable bases, check out Furniture Fair, in-store, or online. We have been in business for over 50 years, and we have a wide variety of adjustable bases available.

We have over 11 locations throughout the Cincinnati, Dayton, and Louisville area, and we offer a wide variety of delivery options, including curbside shipping! Visit us today for an in-depth look at our collection of adjustable bed bases.