Anyone who has one of these Sleep Number FlexFit Smart adjustable beds probably knows what this posting is about. The mattress cover has magnetic pucks that correspond to steel pucks fastened to the bed base. Since the base is adjustable, the mattress needs to somehow "adhere" to the base so it doesn't just slide around, so Sleep Number used these strong magnets embedded in the mattress cover to attach to the base pucks. Problem is, the mattress cover that the magnetic pucks are attached to is very flimsy, and over time the magnets pull out of the cover and leave gaping holes. I found multiple postings online of other folks having the same issue, and their recourse was to pay Sleep Number between $250 and $1000 to fix it. Sleep Number does not warranty this issue (shocking) and I'm cheap (also shocking), so I decided to try and fix the thing myself rather than buy a new mattress cover. Below is a photo of one of the blow-outs.
The next photo below shows what a normal puck looks like. The actual magnet is not shown in any of these photos, but it screws onto the puck.
Next is the second blow-out I need to repair. One thing I don't understand is what are the slits in the cover for? That only weakens things. It can't be to install the pucks, as the cover unzips from the mattress. Unless Sleep Number installs the pucks after they put the cover onto the mattress, but that seems...... odd.
When I was first looking into fixing this problem, I realized the part that attaches to the mattress cover was a two-piece affair that sandwiched the fabric, and I was hoping I could get the two halves apart without breaking anything. Fortunately Sleep Number made them so they could be disassembled. There are three prongs and I simply pried the prongs one by one and the two halves separated.
Next is the job of repairing the gaping holes in the cover. I had some Sunbrella fabric laying around and figured that would be at least as durable as the flimsy cover fabric, so I cut two squares and began sewing them in. I used an ancient 1950's Singer 111W155 industrial sewing machine, but pretty much any domestic machine would also work for this project.
One down, one to go.
I tried to line up the center of the blowouts with the middle of the patches.
Number two being sewn.
And below shows is the finished product. The bed is a King, so there are two Twin mattresses. The photo below only shows the top half of the one twin cover I worked on. There are also two pucks at the foot of the cover but they were still in good condition.
Here's an oddity though. There are four pucks shown in the photo below but there are only two corresponding steel pucks in the bed's base that match up to the two torn-out magnets. I'm not quite sure why Sleep Number went to the effort of putting in superfluous pucks, or why they didn't install corresponding steel pucks in the base. I also don't understand why two pucks are grey (plus the two not shown) and two are black. One of the great mysteries of life, I guess. *sigh*
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