Brown noise.

It’s essential to helping me sleep. Even though iOS has this built in now I still prefer Dark Noise and just turn on the Brown Noise option at medium to high volume. 

Also, it’s better than white noise, or pink noise. 

It started as a kid, where my mom turned on a fan in our room to create white noise. I love it and I still fall asleep to some sort of noise every night. 

My ideal is an iPad with Dark Noise turned on; reseting a few feet away from my pillow. An iPhone has a tinnier, sharper sound; whereas the larger speakers of an iPad (especially the Pro) create a bit of Bass and don’t feel as pitchy. An iPhone is fine in a pinch, but I love having an iPad. 

When I’m traveling, though; or sleeping in an area with new noises, I’ve often resorted to AirPods for a noise maker. It’s not super ideal since I sleep on my back and side; but I’ve found that cupping a hand around my ear helps me sleep and removes the pressure my ear would feel from the AirPod pressing into the pillow. 

It’s a workable arrangement, and using Apple’s accessibility settitngs to limit the volume potential (trying to avoid ear damage), I turn up the brown noise until the world drowns out and sweet sleep arrives. And now, with active noise canceling (ANC), it’s pretty amazing. 

The problem, though, comes in the battery life. Every AirPods model I’ve tried lasts no more than 4-6 hours, especially if ANC is turned on. And then, there’s the low battery notification. It’s a scourge to humanity; at times when I’ve finally managed to fall asleep I’ll wake up to the blasting alarm, letting me know the earbuds are ready to be recharged. It’s so infuriating. It seems this can be turned off (I’m so thankful!) but I haven’t been able to prove it yet. 

I can kind of make it work by putting in one AirPod for the ear facing up from the pillow, and putting a loop earplug in the other ear. But it’s not perfect, best case I sleep a solid 4 hours before having to switch things out. 

I tried Beats Studio Buds +, but with ANC the battery just doesn’t last a full night’s sleep. 

I’m happy to report that The Beats Solo Buds are fantastic for my purposes. They’ve got an 18 hour battery life built into the headphones. That means the case has no battery at all, but it’s the only Apple W1 Bluetooth chip compatible headphones I’ve found with enough battery to easily last eight hours. 

I’ve now tested them for a few nights and am happy to report my results. 

First, they do what I need. They push noise into my ears and I don’t have a subconscious fear of the battery running low. 

However, because they have so much battery built in, they have a much larger profile than AirPods. By cupping my hand just right I can make it work; and I can turn on my back and know I don’t have to do the switcheroo for extra battery. If I had to choose I’d take AirPods anyday over them, but they work well enough; and they’re the cheapest earbuds with W1 chips I can buy; so I’m thankful. 

Maybe Apple will release AirPods with a longer battery; one can hope.