Review of Slumberdown’s incredibly warm electric blanket

Slumberdown’s Wonderfully Warm electric blanket is a reasonably priced offering that will be a godsend on those cold winter nights (or most of the year, if you’re cold like me). It follows a standard mattress pad design, with straps to attach it to the mattress, and has multiple temperature and time settings.

There was a lot I liked about the Slumberdown blanket and I was impressed with how quickly it warmed up, but I had some reservations about its design. With this in mind, does it deserve a spot on our list of the best electric blankets? Read on to find out how it fared in my tests.

Slumberdown Incredibly Warm Electric Blanket Review: What do you get for the money?

The Slumberdown Warm Blanket is available in four sizes: single, double, king and king, with prices starting at £47 for a single and rising to £66, £72 and £80 respectively. Confusingly, you can also find a blanket at Argos, where it’s called the Perfectly Warm Luxury Electric Blanket. It’s worth checking both sites, as sometimes you’ll find a blanket on sale.

It’s cheaper than the Dreamland Hunker Down Scandi Sherpa electric blanket, which costs £115 for a double, but it’s not the cheapest option either: the Silentnight Comfort Control electric blanket, for example, costs £35 for a double. The two-year warranty insures you against any manufacturing problems (but not accidental damage or wear and tear).

While most electric blankets have four corner straps to secure them to your mattress, instead you have two large reinforced elastic straps here – one for the floor and one for the bed.

It comes with two controls in all but one size (which was the size I tested), so if you’re sharing a bed with a partner, you can both adjust the side of the blanket independently. There are nine heat settings to choose from, with independent heat settings for the body and feet. There is also a timer that allows you to set the garment for one, five, eight or 12 hours. And there’s built-in heat protection, so you don’t have to worry about the garment getting too warm.

The whole thing is made of polyester and is machine washable, but not suitable for tumble drying. And last but not least, it comes in a reusable zipper bag so you can easily store it in the summer.

Comfort, performance and test results

Despite this 100% polyester construction, the fleece cover of the Incredibly Warm blanket feels really nice to the touch. And it’s thick enough that you can’t feel the heating cable: something that can’t be said about the Silentnight Comfort Control blanket. It’s comfortable to lie on and the controls stick to the bottom of the blanket, so you don’t have a hard plastic lump on top to wrestle with.

Having different settings for the body and feet is a nice feature that I wish was included in more electric clothing, especially considering how well the feet are used to the cold. As the owner of particularly snowy feet, I’m very happy here, and the choice of timer settings means I can keep the dress on all night.

I was impressed by how quickly the Slumberdown heated up and, after an hour, it felt warm and ready for a night of low temperatures. For the sake of consistency, I use the same tests for all the thermal throws and electric blankets I review. With a temperature probe attached near the heating element, I measured how long it took the blanket to warm up. After 10 minutes at full power, the blanket reached 27.4°C, warming even further to 33.8°C when I repeated the test with a duvet on. It’s not the warmest blanket I’ve tested and it won’t compete with products like the Stoov Huge Hug 3 battery, but I think it’s good enough for cold nights.

I followed these tests by letting the garment heat for an hour as recommended, before returning and checking the temperatures with an infrared thermometer gun. By this time, the blanket had reached an astonishing 32°C in the center and even hotter temperatures at the foot end, where it had reached 35°C and 34.°2C in the left and right corners.

Finally, I did an energy consumption test to see how energy efficient the Slumberdown dress is. It used 47W of total power, with a cumulative consumption of 0.02kWh over 30 minutes. At the current price of energy (around 28p per kWh), those 30 minutes would cost a fraction of a penny.

What can be improved?

Although the Slumberdown Wonderfully Warm Electric Blanket is comfortable and produces excellent results, I had one major problem with it. The blanket does not cover the full length of the bed and only extends to your pillows (also like Silentnight Comfort Control). It is also much narrower than the width of the bed.

While I realize it’s not designed to cover the entire mattress, this was still disappointing. It also meant that getting it into bed was a challenge. You have to really stretch the elastic band up so it fits over the mattress, while making sure you don’t pull it down too high and lose the coverage over the feet. Once there, it stayed there without a problem, but I found stopping it annoying me.

Slumberdown Incredibly Warm Electric Blanket Review: Should You Buy It?

There’s a lot to love about Slumberdown. It is comfortable to sleep in, heats well and offers many options for temperatures and timers. It also has a satisfactory price in the electric blanket world.

But I didn’t find it to be a very well-designed blanket, and I wish the brand would rethink its size when it comes to mattress covers – and those elastic bands.

However, if you’re looking for an affordable and functional electric blanket that’s cheap to use, Slumberdown is a great choice.