It wasn’t the traffic noise that broke me. It was the sparrows.
London, where I live, has been sweltering under a string of heat waves. The days are painful enough, but eighty-degree nights in a country without much air conditioning are miserable. If I fling open every window, my bedroom will eventually cool down, but that fragile peace ends around 4:30 a.m. when my winged neighbors begin to greet the day. Chirp. Chirp. Chriiiiiiirp.
Foam earplugs? Useless. A white noise machine? No match for this agent of chaos that probably weighs less than a croissant. Desperate for a solid six hours, I tried my trusty Bose headphones, but since I toss and turn, they crunched my ears like sleeping in curlers.
I pinned all my hopes on the Ozlo Sleepbuds, Cheerio-sized devices that come in a rechargeable case and connect to a smartphone by Bluetooth. They stream anything that helps you fall asleep—Plato, Paganini, or the pitter-patter of rainfall (one of the eight soothing sounds on the Ozlo app)—at an adjustable volume. Sensors in the Sleepbuds detect when you doze off, pausing Moby Dick and triggering a noise-masking hum that promotes more restful sleep. They can hold a charge for 10 hours, and an alarm will gently ding you into daytime. (Spoiler alert: you’ll need it.)
Designed by former Bose engineers with side-sleepers in mind, the Sleepbuds come with four sizes of silicone tips to achieve a precise fit. They nestle snugly into the ears’ little grooves, so the buds stay exactly where they belong no matter how fitfully one sleeps. The low-profile design minimizes the ear crunch, but it doesn’t banish it entirely, so skip the memory-foam pillows and use something softer to offset potential discomfort.
The only problem with the Ozlo Sleepbuds is they work almost too well. My husband’s snoring, the damned sparrows, even as my plane landed at JFK (they’re especially effective on a flight)—nothing could disrupt that gentle rainfall. And the sleep scores on my Oura ring—uniformly excellent, for a change!—proved it.
If you have babies or young children, using the Sleepbuds is borderline irresponsible. My tweens, however, love them, because they guarantee at least three uninterrupted episodes of Friends before I finally wander downstairs on Saturday mornings at 8 a.m., buoyed by REM and full of vigor. The snoring, the sparrows—it’s all beautiful music to me now.
Ashley Baker is the Executive Editor at Air Mail Look
