I absolutely, positively, cannot sleep without ambient noise. I’m not sure when that neurotic prerequisite for sleep took root, but it’s here now, and I regard it as a fact of life. As you might imagine, that quirk is fine when I’m at home since I have plenty of noise machines at my disposal—an air conditioner, a smart speaker, and tons of earbuds—to fill the haunting silence that prevents me from sleep like unresolved vengeance prevents a ghost from passing on. But when I’m not at home, things get tricky.
Usually, if I’m at my parents’ house or traveling, I’ll whip out my phone and play my main guy Erik Eriksson’s “White Noise 3 Hour Long” on Spotify. It’s truly the most important composition ever made for extremely personal reasons (it’s just 3 hours of white noise that plays on repeat). This technique works in a pinch, but it also kind of sucks. My phone speakers aren’t good, and it kills my battery big time. It also may subject others to what they may regard as “annoying-ass noise.” It’s not ideal, but sleeping with regular earbuds also sucks big time—in fact, it hurts. Regular wireless earbuds aren’t meant to be slept with, since their shape causes them to press into your ears, which then causes a phenomenon known as “ouch.” For those reasons, there’s a new category of earbuds, and Soundcore decided to throw its hat into that ring.
Soundcore Sleep A30
Surprisingly good at blocking out unwanted noise.
Pros
- Good noise cancellation
- Lots of in-app sound options
- Clever trick for extending battery life
Cons
- No earbud is comfortable long-term
- Still some noise bleed
The $229 Soundcore Sleep A30 are the successor to the A20 wireless earbuds, and they’re designed specifically for sleep. When I say “specifically” here, I mean very specifically. Everything from the buds’ features to the shape is meant to help you block out noise or soothe you to sleep. Speaking of the shape, it’ll probably be the first thing you notice. Instead of regular earbuds that have stems and bulbs, the Sleep A30 are flat. This is critical for ensuring that the buds don’t bother the f**k out of your ears while you’re lying down. As a side sleeper, that design is especially important since my head—even with a cushy pillow—ends up putting lots of pressure on one ear. Because of that, the first thing I wanted to test was how they felt in my ears.
The verdict? Pretty good, but note the “pretty” part. While the Sleep A30 are far and away the only earbuds I would ever venture to wear in my ears all night long, they still get a little uncomfortable with longer periods of use. There’s an unavoidable discomfort with sticking something in your ear that even Soundcore’s emphasis on design can’t fully mitigate. Don’t get me wrong, that slight discomfort is by no means a dealbreaker, but it is something to keep in mind if you’re very sensitive to that sort of thing. It’s even less of a dealbreaker, however, when you factor in how well these earbuds actually work.
The first thing you need to know feature-wise about the Sleep A30 is that they’re the first pair of active noise cancellation (ANC) earbuds for sleep, which puts the emphasis on being able to block out disruptive sounds. How exactly you block those sounds depends on what you choose via Soundcore’s corresponding app. If you’re looking for something soothing, there’s a selection of “AI Brainwave Audio,” which are binaural beats that are supposed to trick your brain into a calm state with the right frequencies. Audio selections in this category include Starry Sky, Ocean, and Forest, which are all long, droning synth sounds played over an ambient nature backdrop.
The second category of audio is “Snore Masking,” which is obviously designed to block out any snorers nearby. These sounds drop the synths and double down on the nature sound effects like “Whistling Winds” or “Himalayan Downpour.” There’s one called “Urban Breeze” that I enjoy since it feels like a soundscape that could be happening right outside my window. If none of those are what you’re looking for, though, you can use the “White Noise” tab to create your own tracks by combining sounds like light rain and campfire. Or, I don’t know, get real weird and go with boiling soup over the sound of a keyboard typing. There are no rules in the create-your-own section, and I love that.
But enough about the sounds, let’s talk about whether they can actually protect you from the horrors of snoring. To test that, I ran the Sleep A30 through some noise tests while lying down. To start, I turned on my AC at full blast, laid my head down on the pillow, and selected one of the snore-masking audio tracks. Not going to lie, the Sleep A30 shut out my AC noise (which, by the way, is just a couple of feet from my bed) entirely. But AC noise isn’t really my priority; in fact, I kind of like the natural (or unnatural, I guess) white noise it lends. Snoring is the real enemy here, and I’m sure many people interested in buying these buds would agree.
To test that, I pulled up a looped YouTube video of a man snoring LOUDLY and played it at full volume on a MacBook Pro next to me. On this test, the Sleep A30 also performed well, though they didn’t drown out the snoring entirely. Everyone is different, but for me, I think the noise cancelling was more than adequate if you’re trying to get to sleep, though I guess that depends on what kind of snoring you’re dealing with. Overall, I would say that I was surprised with the level of noise cancellation the Sleep A30 brings to the table, and while I don’t encounter snoring a lot in my life, I would definitely want these buds by my side if I did.
If you’re wondering about battery life, there are some caveats here to note. While the Sleep A30 buds are rated for 9 hours of playback with ANC on, that actually doesn’t apply to audio you’re streaming via Bluetooth. While streaming via Bluetooth, that figure drops down to 6.5 hours of audio playback. To get the full 9 hours (a normal night’s rest for most people), you need to stream audio locally. That means you’ll have to download one of the audio tracks you want to listen to by pressing the down arrow button in the app, which downloads the sound to the actual earbuds. With the audio in your buds, you should be able to sleep all night without any battery disasters. Downloading airplane noises took about 45 seconds for me, which wasn’t that bad. It’s a quirk of the buds, obviously, but also kind of a smart and relatively painless workaround to a battery life problem that all earbuds with ANC face.
Ultimately, the Sleep A30 buds are designed to do just one thing, and that’s block out noise and help you sleep. On that front, I think Soundcore is succeeding. They’re not perfect, but for what’s basically a nonexistent category of sleep-focused earbuds, they feel genuinely effective and thoughtful. It definitely doesn’t hurt to have a companion app that’s full of various sounds and features, and augments the hardware in all the ways companion software should. If you’re often in bed with a snorer, and you need a little relief, I think it’s worth springing for the Sleep A30. They might just save you a few restless nights, or shit, maybe your marriage.
A Kickstarter was successfully funded, and orders are currently closed for the Sleep A30, but Gizmodo will update this review when more information on future stock is available.