Victoria Inventor’s Cooling Mattress Topper Helps Users Deal With Hot Flashes
Experiencing the comfort of a Perfectly Snug mattress topper
VICTORIA – Marty Furse has invented something cool to deal with hot flashes in the night.
Perfectly Snug is a mattress topper that monitors body temperature and increases or decreases fresh air flow around the body as needed.
Perfectly Snug has captured the attention of the Sleep Awards 2022’s “30 products to help you sleep better” list, adjudicated by a panel of medical professionals assembled by Health: Trusted and Empathetic Health and Wellness Information (www.health.com).
Marty Furse has invented the award winning Perfectly Snug cooling mattress
Their award summary states: “The right temperature can mean the difference between a restful night of quality sleep or one spent tossing and turning. This topper has built-in sensors that automatically adjust to keep your body at optimal sleep temperature.
“It works with all mattresses and comes in eight sizes. The best part is that you can use the app to set your preferences, and its dual-zone climate control allows your partner to control their side.”
It’s the sixth patent registered by the Comox Valley born Furse, a graduate of the engineering program at the University of British Columbia. As General Manager of International Business for imaging and software company CREO (since purchased by Eastman Kodak), he oversaw sales and marketing for Japan, Australia, Israel and South America. Next he formed Quantitative Imaging with two partners, where they designed and manufactured super-cooled medical imaging cameras for microscopy that have even been used in space missions. They sold the company and Furse started Prosilica, which created machine vision cameras, one of which is actually printed on the back of the Canadian $100 bill.
“It was the first machine-vision camera that has gigabit ethernet capabilities,” he notes, “With this, you can have cable runs of 100 metres in length, where before it would be limited to 3 metres.”
Furse’ team was the first to bring the technology to market.
“Because we made it first, all of the machine vision software companies built their gigabit ethernet (GigE-Vision) offering around our technology,” he states. “At the start, we were the only ones that had a GigE Vision camera. It’s 30 percent faster than other products, and even today, 15 years later, it’s still being used.”
Furse and his wife, Carolyn, an accomplished photographer and their partners sold that to Allied Vision Technologies in 2008, and was effectively retired until long-time friend Jason Elliott nudged him back into business.
“I used to tell him, ‘You should quit your job and we can start a company together’,” he recalls. “One day, he called me and said ‘Hey, I quit my job’, and we started a company.”
One of their inventions was a water-jet cutter for small shops, but when Elliott noted he was having difficulty sleeping, getting too hot at night, the seeds of Perfectly Snug were sown.
It took two years of research and development before Perfectly Snug was ready for market. The trick, Furse says, was to make it cool where the person lay in the bed.
“It cools and heats and has sensors in it, so it adjusts throughout the night,” Furse says. “Women can even sleep through hot flashes with it.
“It has a two inch layer on top of the mattress, and you can control it with your cell phone and schedule your sleep,” he adds. “You can set it up a half hour before you go to bed, set only one side of the bed if you want, and it shuts off in the morning.”
Perfectly Snug comes in numerous sizes from King to Twin, including California King, which is longer and narrower than conventional king beds.
“Most of the units have been sold in the United States,” says Furse. “One woman bought eight of them, for herself and friends.”
Perfectly Snug is available through their website, and Furse has spoken with the Dragon’s Den, and is in conversations with mattress manufacturers about taking the product forward. They are also working on their own mattress-Perfectly Snug combination sleeping unit.
By Mark MacDonald