Cal King ChiliPad Cube - Dual Zone - Heating and Cooling Pad - Fits Your Existing Mattress, Delivers Precise Temperature Control, and Creates the Perfect Sleep Environment

I've completed 2 full nights with the chilipad. I have mixed feelings about it at this point. The chilipad is basically a heat exchanger. The system consists of 2 parts. The bed cover, which has small tubes embedded in it, and the cooling unit which circulates water through those tubes. The water is cooled by circulating it through a gid of tubes, much like a car radiator where fans blow air on the tubes, cooling the water inside. The water then flows through the mattress cover delivering the cooled water which absorbs the heat from your body, exiting the bed cover with that heat and the process repeats.The stated temperature range is a farce. There is no way that this system will ever be able to cool your bed down to 46 degrees in normal room temperature. I suppose if your bedroom were 50 degrees to begin with it might be possible, but the system simply doesn't have the cooling power to provide such a huge reduction in temperature. The system is very dependent on room temperature. If you're planning to try and replace or substitute this for room air conditioning during summer months you won't be happy with the results. It simply doesn't have the power to do so. You must begin with a room around 70 degrees to obtain a noticeable difference.I have a few concerns with this unit which has caused me to reconsider my purchase. The first issue is one I haven't seen any other reviewers discuss. If you're sensitive to noise while you sleep, this system is not quiet. The best way to describe the noise level would be to compare it to a desk fan turned on high. it's a constant whooshing sound that continues all night long. In my 69 degree bedroom, I had the unit set at 55 degrees and never saw it actually reach that temperature. It simply ran all night long non stop. While the unit did produce a noticeable difference, body heat still collects beneath you and does require that you move a little bit to reach a cold spot after a while.All in all, the concept is good, but I would have designed this system differently. The form factor of the cube shaped cooling unit is not practical, too noisy and should have been designed to sit at the foot of the bed rather than the head. For me, it's a struggle in selecting the lesser of 2 evils. The chilipad does help with keeping the bed cool, but at a the price of added noise to what was a very quiet bedroom. I should note that it is possible to turn the pad around, so the tubes do face the foot of the bed, however the small cubes are difficult to place at this location and just get in the way. I doubt it would help much with the noise level anyway. It's simply too loud.Finally, I should mention the remote. The remote does not require line of sight to operate such as the average tv remote does. The included remotes give you the ability to turn the unit on and off, and increase or lower the temperature. There is no fan speed adjustment. I found the remote to be a bit sluggish, often requiring several presses before the cube acknowledges the command.All in all, 3 stars from me for a unit that works, mostly but doesn't quite live up to its advertised specifications and emits too much noise for the bedroom.

1st off I am not an employee or have no affiliation for Chili Technologies. I am a consumer and user of the Chilipad for the last 4 years.I think most of the persons reviewing the chilipad thought they were purchasing an air conditioning unit for their bed. Their is no refrigerant in the Chilipad like your A/C unit to cool the water. My experience is that the Chilipad is more like a heat exchanger, it becomes more effective the cooler the ambient air is. When your body temp is 98 degrees and the room is 85 degrees the unit is not that effective. However, if your room is 75 degrees the Chilipad is more effective.I sleep on a sleep by numbers bed and found myself waking up hot and turning the thermostat down to 68 degrees to compensate. Now with the Chilipad I only turn it down to 71 and am able to sleep through the night without getting hot.The product works and I sleep better with it, but I think Chilipad lacks in telling the consumer exactly what they are buying or how it exactly works.UPDATE: 10/13/14- This being my 2nd Chilipad, I wanted to add a few things after now having the new version for 3 months. I had my 1st Chilipad right at 4 years and made the mistake of putting tap water in it because I had run out of the distilled water. That is why I probably had to buy a new one. The tap water had bacteria in it and created growth and made the pad ineffective even with adding hydrogen peroxide to it. Make sure you only put Distilled water in your cube.Here are a few pros and cons of the new version of the cube and pad.ProsQuieterAutomatic shutoff after 10 hours of use.Customer ServiceConsLacks a single mode Heat or Cool selection. Would like to see that you can either just select Heat or Cool. I've had a few instances where the Heat kicks and wakes me up when the A/C kicks on.Remote Control-Some buttons are dual purpose and it is difficult to get them to select which function you want it to perform. I had issues with it loosing sync to the cube and the On/Off button not turning it on. I contacted customer service and they sent me a new remote within a week, but I still have issues with the new remote of being able to turn it on/off.Cool Down Time- The cooling time is not as effective as the 1st generation. I now have to turn the unit on about 30 minutes prior to going to bed for it to reach the desired temp. I believe this has to do with the lower speed fans on the unit that made it quieter.Water Capacity- I use my Chilipad every night and have to refill it usually every 6-9 days. The first generation seemed to have a larger tank and I only had to refill it every 15-17 days.My Recommendations to ChilipadWould like to see a remote with individual buttons for each function.Would like to see the unit to have programmable auto on/off times.Larger water tank.

While this cooling and heating pad works well - cooling as it should and heating as it should, we both find it nosier that we would like - enough that ifI don't use earplugs - I don't sleep well. We may just have received 2 units that are noisier than they should be - but there's no way to tell if that's the case. Rather than the noise sounding like my computer fan (which I can't hear anyway), it sounds more like my vacuum cleaner because it's right at ear level for us as we have nowhere else to place the units. It's easy enough to turn off or on or adjust the temperature in the middle of the night with the lighted remote control.