Soundcore by Anker Sleep Earbuds

The media could not be loaded. I didn't find any online reviews or videos of the sleep sounds so I attached a video. The attached video basically goes through all the sleep sounds and alarm sounds. The alarm sounds in the vid are played completely (they are like 3 seconds long). I've rewatched the vid in case amazon maybe compresses audio and the video sounds are accurate to the ones on the actual earbuds. Basically what you hear in the video is what you will hear while wearing the earbuds; don't worry about possible compression. Sorry for the low brightness in the videoTLDR: Great comfort for sidesleeping once you get used to it, sleep sound quality varies and is mono but good customization of sleep sounds, good features but lacking a fewComfort:These are pretty comfortable buds for sleeping. If you are sleeping on your back there will be no issues whatsoever. I also found these decently comfortable for side sleeping. Of course, you will still have the feeling of the earbud itself pushing into your ear depending on how firm your pillow is but coming from someone who used the galaxy buds to sleep, these are significantly more comfortable. If you shift your head while side sleeping so that the earbud puts uneven pressure and it puts pressure on some cartilage/skin against the earbud, it may cause some soreness in an area. Ex: On one night a significant part of the weight of my head was put on my antitragus because my head was sliding down which caused some soreness on my antitragus. For me, that occurrence went away for me after a few days of regular wearing or I just got used to it.Battery life:For about an 11 hour sleep with an hour of that being bluetooth audio and the rest being sleep mode on about 50% volume, with no alarm set, I had about 20% battery left on both earbuds. Note that setting an alarm decreases your battery life by 20% according to their FAQSounds:The sounds in the video I believe are in mono. You can't add your own sleep or alarm sounds. Honestly I wish the sounds were better. Some were good (thunderstorm, rain on tent, storm, train), others sounded like they were low quality and compressed (rain, river, calm stream, shower) as if you were watching a video on low resolution. My favorite sleep sound combo is "Train" + "Hail on Window" which I call the Hogwarts Express. I also wish they had longer and more natural options for the alarm sounds. The alarm sounds are like 3 seconds in length (whatever is shown in the video is their entire length) which just pause then repeat until you turn off the alarm. The sleep sounds are longer (maybe 45 seconds) and just loop. For general sound quality through the earbuds, they are actually quite decent for being used for sleep. They definitely aren't as good as standard bluetooth earbuds, and they do sound quite sibilant (I used EQ to fix), but I could imagine myself using these as general purpose earbuds.Noise cancelling:There is only passive noise cancelling. Without listening to any audio at all, the noise cancelling is pretty bad. It's better than nothing, but foam earplugs work better. If you play the correct masking audio according to your environment (play low freq sleep audio if you have low freq background noise), then it is actually quite good. I have thought about buying 3rd party foam eartips that specifically can fit on these (just google around) which would combine the best of both worlds but so far the silicone eartips have been good enough.Features:The earbuds have two modes: sleep and bluetooth. Sleep mode plays sleep sounds that are saved onto the buds themselves and bluetooth plays any kind of media through your phone. You can switch between the modes by tapping the earbud or through the app. Sleep mode saves battery. You do have to tap quite hard since the earbuds don't have capacitive sensors but rely on the force from your finger.Smart switch automatically switches from bluetooth mode to sleep mode when the buds detect that you had fallen asleep. I'm guessing they detect how much you move and if you are still for awhile it automatically switches. According to support, it is based on how much you moved within a 30 minute period. If low movement is detected within that period, it will switch to sleep mode. There is no way to switch from bluetooth to sleep mode based on a timer which is a big oversight in my opinion. You have to manually switch to sleep mode or rely on the smart switch which I found unreliable sometimes. It will automatically switch even if you are still awake sometimes. But this doesn't happen often for me.There is a feature where as long as you keep the app running in the background, you can have it automatically adjust your earbuds volume based on how loud the environment is using your phone's microphones. I have never tried this and I'm unsure on how reliable it is.You can set playback duration so that whatever sound you are playing (sleep sounds/bluetooth) can play all night or play from 0.5hr - 8hrs in 0.5 increments. Ex: If set to 6 hours, after the earbuds detect you are asleep, it will continue to play the audio for 6 hours then stop.You can set an alarm which you do not need to be connected to your phone for it to work. I tested it by setting an alarm, then turning off my phone's bluetooth. The alarm is able to function without the need for your phone besides initially setting the alarm which is nice. The alarm sounds play for like 3 seconds, pause, then plays the same sound increasing in volume each repeat. After the highest volume, it decreases to a moderate volume and just keeps playing until you turn the alarm off by tapping the earbud. Note that setting an alarm decreases your battery life by 20% as mentioned on their website FAQThe earbuds keep track of sleep data like when you fell asleep, when you woke up, most common sleeping position, times you rolled over, and periods when you were awake, in light, or in deep sleep based on the movement of the buds. I don't think the tracking is entirely accurate but for general info I believe it is close enough.You can create a custom sleep sound using one or more of the provided sleep sounds (shown in vid) in the app. You add up to three provided sounds to your custom sleep sound, change the volume of each sound, and tune your overall custom sleep sound (basically an EQ but simplified to changing soft,brisk,soothing,bright).Controls are double tap or triple tap the right or left earbud. You can customize each control to be: switching mode to sleep/bluetooth, volume--, volume +, next track, previous track, play/pause, none.The app provides an equalizer with the presets: bass booster, acoustic, rock, pop, classical. It also allows you to make a custom EQ with an 8 band equalizer for controlling 100, 200, 400, 800, 1.6k, 3.2k, 6.4k, 12.8khz frequencies respectively. You don't need the app to be open/in the background for EQ to work; it is applied directly and saved onto the earbudsThe app allows you to play a loud tone through both or individual earbuds to help you find them.You can turn on or off the tones for : connecting/pairing, low battery, auto-shutdown, tapYou can turn on or off the voice prompt for: manual mode switchingYou can change the earbuds to default to bluetooth or sleep when taking them out of the case.Issues:The only issue I had was with smart switch. I usually listen to an audiobook with a timer for 30 minutes or so. I wake up with the earbuds in sleep mode, but often with the sleep sounds paused. I have enabled smart switch, set playback to "all night", disabled touch controls, and have tried factory resetting the earbuds. I have contacted support and am still trying to troubleshoot it. Smart switch did work for the first few days so I am so confused on how it could possibly stop working.Update:I have contacted support and they responded very quickly (in a day or so). So my issue isn't some mistake or anything, but is intended behavior. If you have smart switch enabled but your Bluetooth audio pauses before the earbuds switches to sleep mode, the earbud will later on switch to sleep mode but not play sleep audio. This actually makes a lot of sense since you wouldn't want to go from Bluetooth mode WITHOUT audio to sleep mode WITH audio as it would wake you up. If your bluetooth audio is NOT paused when the earbud switches mode, then the earbuds will play sleep sounds in sleep mode. So my solution was to just remove the timer on my audiobook and instead let the earbud pause my audiobook when it switches to sleep mode. Props to Anker support.Update 2:After 3 months of using them, I do not regret them at all. No issues, and I got even more used them being in my ear. Now I can't really tell if they're on or not even when side sleeping. I do wish you could add your own sleep sounds or they could provide better sleep sounds but they are still great earbudsUpdate 3:After around 4 months of daily usage, I found that the left earbud battery's life was less than expected. I did some calculations by measuring how long I used bluetooth and sleep mode and also tracked when the earbuds would die. I followed all battery saving advice from support. Assuming the normal battery life standard is 8 hour bluetooth or 14 hour sleep, I found that the left earbud would die about 1-1.5 hours earlier than the normal battery life standard. The right earbud followed normal battery life standard but maybe died early by about 18 minutes (which seems within margin of error). I contacted support and they tried to troubleshoot it by suggesting some settings that would save battery life. When that didn't work, I filed a warranty claim and I got a replacement a few days later. It was a really easy process and the new ones shipped very quickly. 11/10 customer support, fast, friendly, and easy

2 years ago I wanted some Bluetooth earbuds that would allow me to side sleep. After buying and returning a lot of lower priced earbuds that claimed to be small, I splurged and bought 2 pairs of the Soundcore by Anker A10 earbuds. These were comfortable. Their battery life usually but not always lasted 8 hours. I’d sometimes have to switch in the middle of the night to one of the cheaper earbuds I bought. Part of the reason for this is that the A10s are supposed to detect when you go to sleep and then switch from Bluetooth to internal sounds. But that feature didn’t work. Another issue is that my IPhone won’t play its alarm through the earbuds (or any other earbud) so I had to buy a separate alarm clock elastic band I could wear around my wrist or ankle so I could wake up without waking my wife. And I never got the hang of controlling the functions by tapping the buds.But the worst part is that one of the earbuds of each of the pairs I bought would fail within a few weeks. The good news is that Anker would send me replacement after I jumped through a few hoops. I got maybe 6 replacements that way over about 18 months. But it was really annoying. So I went shopping for something else that would provide an internal alarm clock.After reading reviews, it was clear that the A20’s were the most price effective. But given my experience with the A10’s, I was hesitant. But reviews of the very few alternatives were sufficient mixed that I took a chance. And I’m glad I did.The A20’s are much more comfortable, have a battery life that easily lasts all night, reliably detects when I go to sleep and switches to internal sounds, is responsive to controlling by tapping the buds, and has an alarm clock that plays through the earbuds and gently wakes you with gradually increasing volume sounds. Above all, I’ve used them daily for about 6 weeks and they haven’t broken yet.My theory is that the A10s fit more deeply in my ear canal and so my earwax eventually fouls one or the other earbud. It also can be irritating. The A20’s are more compact and seem to float on the outside rim of the ear canal making them far more comfortable and also less likely to suck up ear wax. That’s my guess.Finally, the app is great, is easy to program the alarm, and provides interesting sleep data. This doesn’t matter much to me, but others may value this feature.So far, the A20s are everything the A10s are not.My fingers are crossed they won’t fail. I’ll update if they do. But I’ve stopped traveling with and charging a backup set of cheap earbuds to get me through the night. If you are looking for sleeping earbuds that perform as described by Anker, order the A20’s.