Finding the right earbuds that comfortably fit and work efficiently can be difficult—let alone finding ones you can tolerate sleeping with all night. Ozlo, a company that takes a scientific approach to “quiet the noise,” recently launched its first product to help meet this need: the Ozlo Sleepbuds. The intent is to give sleepers an innovative, comfortable, biometric sensing and noise-blocking option with features like the ability to stream sleep sounds (or whatever sounds you’d like) and wake up with a gentle, personalized alarm in your ear.
The Ozlo Sleepbuds are designed to be comfortable for all ear sizes and sleeping positions.
Three former Bose engineers founded the Ozlo Sleepbuds and designed the silicone tips in four different sizes to fit snugly for all ear shapes and sleeping positions. Forbes Vetted’s audience development director Spencer Dukoff tested these new earbuds for more than two weeks and shares his findings on everything from ease of set-up to how they perform throughout the night.
Ozlo Sleepbuds Features
Easy To Set Up With An Intuitive Design
Dukoff says setting up the Sleepbuds was “super simple and quick.” The Sleepbuds connect to an app you download on your smartphone, and then you can choose the sounds you want to listen to, set your alarms and view the Sleepbuds’ battery life. You can also connect the Sleepbuds to other apps on your phone like Audible or Spotify to listen to podcasts or music at bedtime. You can use them without your phone once they’re set up, as well.
It’s a multi-functional sleep device; the Sleepbuds’ biometric sensors can detect when you fall asleep and switch streaming audio to noise-masking sounds. That way, when you wake up, you can pick right back up where you snoozed off and return to your riveting audiobook or podcast. Additional features launching in early 2025 will also allow the device to monitor the noise, light and temperature of your room while it’s charging, providing a personalized sleep report in the app the next day.
A Battery Life That Lasts Through The Night
Similar to Apple AirPods, the Sleepbuds charge within the case, and the case itself is charged with a USB-C cable. The brand says a full charge can last up to 10 hours.
“One thing I've noticed while testing for the past several weeks is that sometimes the bud does not properly lock into place when you put it away, and only when I've gone to open the case right before I was planning to go to sleep did I recognize it was off by a millimeter or two,” says Dukoff. “This has only happened once or twice, but I've started checking the app a little before bed to make sure both buds are fully charged as a precaution.”
He says he charges them during the day and they’re at 100% when he goes to bed. After seven to eight hours of sleep, the battery life is typically down to 15 or 20%.
Solid Sound Quality And Noise Cancellation
Along with playing soothing science-backed sleep sounds, including white noise, ocean waves and a babbling brook, the Ozlo Sleepbuds are made to cut out any outside noise when needed. Dukoff says the noise cancellation is impressive, adding, “I've found that I need to remove these from my ears to hear what my wife is saying next to me before we go to sleep, even without any sounds playing in the buds.”
He says the volume control is great, but you need to adjust it via your phone or in the app, so it isn’t quite what he prefers for everyday use (or in other words, when he’s awake): “I would not replace my Bose earbuds or any other headphones I own with this pair, but given that their purpose is for sleep, it does the job at providing white or brown noise to help you get to sleep and stay asleep.”
A Comfortable Fit For All Sleeping Positions
Earbuds sound like a great aid for sleep until it comes to wearing them all night, and Dukoff says that’s what he was most wary of when he agreed to test the Ozlo Sleepbuds. However, he says they’re extremely comfortable and stay put throughout most nights, even as he switches from his side to his stomach while sleeping. “A few mornings I woke up with one of the buds lost somewhere in the sheets or behind my pillow, but that was rare compared to the mornings where I woke up to my Ozlo alarm playing, both buds still intact,” says Dukoff.
Comfortable And Helpful, But Are Sleep Earbuds Safe?
A question many have—including Dukoff—is whether it’s safe to wear earbuds all night. Ozlo says its Sleepbuds are designed with soft, squishy silicone to be safe for all-night use, and they have anchor-in-place wings for extra precaution even if sleeping on your side. Experts tell Forbes Vetted it’s generally safe to sleep with earbuds as long as you keep them clean, avoid high volumes and find the right gentle fit with breathable materials.
Ozlo explains it uses allergy-friendly materials for most people, but “a fraction of customers may react to silicone tips and/or [the] gold contacts” on the Sleepbuds. (You can find all cleaning instructions here, as well.) And if you’re still not sure about the Sleepbuds, they come with a 30-day return window where you can try them out to see if they’re a good fit.
