{"id":10887,"date":"2025-07-21T12:51:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T12:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/10887\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T12:51:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T12:51:09","slug":"anc-earbuds-for-sleep-that-can-save-your-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/10887\/","title":{"rendered":"ANC Earbuds for Sleep That Can Save Your Marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"

I absolutely, positively, cannot sleep without ambient noise. I\u2019m not sure when that neurotic prerequisite for sleep took root, but it\u2019s here now, and I regard it as a fact of life. As you might imagine, that quirk is fine when I\u2019m at home since I have plenty of noise machines at my disposal\u2014an air conditioner, a smart speaker, and tons of earbuds<\/a>\u2014to fill the haunting silence that prevents me from sleep like unresolved vengeance prevents a ghost from passing on. But when I\u2019m not\u00a0at home, things get tricky.<\/p>\n

Usually, if I\u2019m at my parents\u2019 house or traveling, I\u2019ll whip out my phone and play my main guy Erik Eriksson\u2019s \u201cWhite Noise 3 Hour Long<\/a>\u201d on Spotify. It\u2019s truly the most important composition ever made for extremely personal reasons (it\u2019s 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\u2019t good, and it kills my battery big time. It also may subject others to what they may regard as \u201cannoying-ass noise.\u201d It\u2019s not ideal, but sleeping with regular earbuds<\/a> also sucks big time\u2014in fact, it hurts. Regular wireless earbuds aren\u2019t meant to be slept with, since their shape causes them to press into your ears, which then causes a phenomenon known as \u201couch.\u201d For those reasons, there\u2019s a new category of earbuds, and Soundcore decided to throw its hat into that ring.<\/p>\n

Soundcore Sleep A30<\/p>\n

Surprisingly good at blocking out unwanted noise.<\/p>\n

Pros<\/p>\n

Good noise cancellation Lots of in-app sound options Clever trick for extending battery life <\/p>\n

Cons<\/p>\n

No earbud is comfortable long-term Still some noise bleed <\/p>\n

The $229 Soundcore Sleep A30<\/a> are the successor to the A20 wireless earbuds, and they\u2019re designed specifically for sleep. When I say \u201cspecifically\u201d here, I mean very specifically.\u00a0Everything from the buds\u2019 features to the shape is meant to help you block out noise or soothe you to sleep. Speaking of the shape, it\u2019ll 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\u2019t bother the f**k out of your ears while you\u2019re lying down. As a side sleeper,<\/a> that design is especially important since my head\u2014even with a cushy pillow\u2014ends 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.<\/p>\n

\"Soundcore\u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

The verdict? Pretty good, but note the \u201cpretty\u201d 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\u2019s an unavoidable discomfort with sticking something in your ear that even Soundcore\u2019s emphasis on design can\u2019t fully mitigate. Don\u2019t get me wrong, that slight discomfort is by no means a dealbreaker, but it is something to keep in mind if you\u2019re very sensitive to that sort of thing. It\u2019s even less of a dealbreaker, however, when you factor in how well these earbuds actually work.<\/p>\n

The first thing you need to know feature-wise about the Sleep A30 is that they\u2019re 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\u00a0you block those sounds depends on what you choose via Soundcore\u2019s corresponding app. If you\u2019re looking for something soothing, there\u2019s a selection of \u201cAI Brainwave Audio,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\"Soundcore\u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

The second category of audio is \u201cSnore Masking,\u201d which is obviously designed to block out any snorers nearby. These sounds drop the synths and double down on the nature sound effects like \u201cWhistling Winds\u201d or \u201cHimalayan Downpour.\u201d There\u2019s one called \u201cUrban Breeze\u201d that I enjoy since it feels like a soundscape that could be happening right outside my window. If none of those are what you\u2019re looking for, though, you can use the \u201cWhite Noise\u201d tab to create your own tracks by combining sounds like light rain and campfire. Or, I don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\"Soundcore<\/a> \t\t\t \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo \t\t\t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t\t\"Soundcore<\/a> \t\t\t \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo \t\t\t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t\t\"Soundcore<\/a> \t\t\t \t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo \t\t\t\t \t\t <\/p>\n

But enough about the sounds, let\u2019s 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\u2019t 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\u2019m sure many people interested in buying these buds would agree.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> next to me. On this test, the Sleep A30 also performed well, though they didn\u2019t drown out the snoring entirely. Everyone is different, but for me, I think the noise cancelling was more than adequate if you\u2019re trying to get to sleep, though I guess that depends on what kind of snoring you\u2019re 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\u2019t encounter snoring a lot in my life, I would definitely want these buds by my side if I did.<\/p>\n

\"Soundcore\u00a9 Raymond Wong \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

If you\u2019re 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\u2019t apply to audio you\u2019re 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\u2019s rest for most people), you need to stream audio locally. That means you\u2019ll 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\u2019t that bad. It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the Sleep A30 buds are designed to do just one thing, and that\u2019s block out noise and help you sleep. On that front, I think Soundcore is succeeding. They\u2019re not perfect, but for what\u2019s basically a nonexistent category of sleep-focused earbuds, they feel genuinely effective and thoughtful. It definitely doesn\u2019t hurt to have a companion app that\u2019s full of various sounds and features, and augments the hardware in all the ways companion software should. If you\u2019re often in bed with a snorer, and you need a little relief, I think it\u2019s worth springing for the Sleep A30. They might just save you a few restless nights, or shit, maybe your marriage.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I absolutely, positively, cannot sleep without ambient noise. I\u2019m not sure when that neurotic prerequisite for sleep took…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,63,12896,229,12897,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-10887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-earbuds","11":"tag-reviews","12":"tag-soundcore","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}