In our perpetually connected world, getting a good night’s sleep is more difficult than ever. The Soundcore Sleep A10 earbuds aims to get you off to dreamland — and keep you there — faster than ever. With their tiny size and sleep-enhancing features, they’re one of the best ways to block out the noise and get some rest.
Or fall asleep watching Netflix. That too.
Specifications
- Current Price: $179.99 (Soundcore - currently $50 off with code WS24SLEEP)
- 4-Point Noise Masking System for True Quiet. NOT ANC
- Comfortable, Even for Side Sleepers
- Enjoy Unlimited Audio via Bluetooth
- Dynamic Drivers for Sleep-Inducing Sound
- Manage Your Sleep Health with Sleep Monitoring and Personal Alarm Clock
- App Support for Sleep Inducing Sounds
Soundcore Sleep A10 - What Is It?
The Soundcore Sleep A10 is the latest and, in my estimation, greatest set of sleep earbuds you can buy today. They’re designed to nestle in your ear and remain comfortable throughout the night, even if you’re a side sleeper. With both Music and Sleep modes, it can also be used to listen to music throughout the day. The real focus here is on sleep, however, and listening in bed.
At first blush, it might seem strange that earbuds exist just for sleep, but there are lots of reasons why people look into sleep-specific buds. Night shift workers find themselves sleeping during the day when their families are up and making noise in the house. Apartment buildings and dorm rooms can be obnoxiously noisy. Listeners living in cities and on busy roads may have to contend with outside noise that can keep them from getting a good night’s sleep.
The Sleep A10 is designed to block out the noise with a 4-point noise masking system. The system is based on creating a great passive seal and automatically adjusting the volume of what you’re listening to mask outside noise. The four points are (1) the twin-seal ear tips, (2) silicone sleeves and ear wings, (3) soothing sleep sounds, and (4) smart noise masking. Note that these are not active noise-cancelling earbuds. We’ll touch more on these things a bit later.
Then there’s the other reason you might want earbuds for bed: falling asleep to streaming content or music. If you share a bed with a partner, they may not appreciate hearing your content as they’re trying to rest. If you fall asleep to a screen, the Sleep A10s will make sure that you won’t wake up midway through the night with a sore ear like other, larger true wireless earbuds.
Taking them out of the box for the first time, the first thing I noticed was just how small they were. The Sleep A10 are noticeably smaller than the 1More ComfoBuds Z, which were already pretty tiny. That makes sense. If you’re a side sleeper, even a little bit of protrusion will cause that earbud to press into your ear overnight and leave you sore (believe me, I know).
In fact, they’re even smaller than they first appear due to their silicone earwing sleeve. This is the first part of the 4-point noise masking system. These small slip covers slide on over the earbud ensuring that they’re soft and comfortable in your ear. A small wing protrudes from the end to “grab” your inner ear and lock it in place. There are small, medium, and large sizes to match different ears.
The second part of the system are the twin-seal ear tips. These tips are composed of two overlapping layers of silicone to ensure a secure fit that blocks out an exceptional amount of noise. The first layer seals the ear canal. The second layer is slightly wider and doubles up on that seal, ensuring uniform sound blocking.
The Sleep A10 earbuds work hand-in-hand with the Soundcore app and can be set to either Music or Sleep modes. In Music mode, you can stream any audio from your smartphone — perfect for services like Spotify or watching a late-night movie on Netflix. On Sleep Mode, soothing sounds are uploaded directly from the app into the earbuds themselves. Touch functionality is also limited in this mode to ensure you accidentally pause your looping sounds in the middle of the night.
The different modes also offer different expectations for battery life. In Music Mode, Soundcore rates these earbuds for 6 hours. In Sleep Mode, you’re not streaming music, so battery life bumps to 10 bumps up to 10, enough for a full, restful night’s sleep. Given how tiny the earbuds are, their battery life is quite impressive. The case adds another 40 hours of listening time on top of that, but it's quite bulky and doesn’t support wireless charging either. The buds also do not support fast charging, so once they’re through, you’ll need to leave them in their case for a few hours to recharge.
The app is quite feature rich. It includes a wide selection of different sleep sounds that includes everything from rain sounds to pink noise. If you connect the app before falling asleep, it will actively monitor and graph your sleep status so you can see how often you’re in light sleep versus restful deep sleep. The app also lets you set an alarm that will ring in your ear without waking up your partner, which is a nice touch.
Finally, we have the actual drivers inside the earbuds. Instead of using balanced armatures like the ComfoBuds Z, Soundcore has used dynamic drivers for their improved bass response. According to the product page, this enhances the effectiveness of white noise for sleeping. I’m not sure about that, but it definitely improves these buds usefulness for listening to normal music. The sound is full with good low-end extension and no sharpness whatsoever to the sound.
Soundcore Sleep A10 - Impressions from Daily Use
I’ll make no bones about it: I don’t need sleep earbuds for quiet. I fall into the second camp of user where I like to catch up with my favorite shows lying in bed. For years, that meant waking up in the middle of the night to pry a normal-sized earbud out of my ear or untangle myself from the wire tethering me to my device.
Before the Sleep A10, I had been using its biggest competitor, the ComfoBuds Z. But while those buds start off great — affordable, small, comfortable — they fall apart with long-term reliability and battery life. I’ve gone through two pairs now, each failing with the right earbud. The last pair failed after only two weeks and now won’t pair at all. The original pair, which is less than a year old, has dramatically decreased volume in the right ear, won’t charge consistently, and when it does will only charge to 40% capacity (about two hours of use). They were good enough to show me just how much better a dedicated pair of sleep earbuds are than sleeping in a normal TWS set and bad enough to convince me to never want another pair.
The Sleep A10, on the other hand, delivers everything good about a pair of sleep earbuds and then one-ups 1More in virtually every way. Considering these are the two key pairs of sleep earbuds on the market (excepting Bose), that’s a big deal. Simply put, if you can afford the higher price of the Soundcore Sleep A10, don’t think twice: buy them. They’re great.
I’ve been sleeping with the buds for quite a while now and am happy to report that they work exactly as intended, for comfort, features, and sound quality. Their small size and silicone ear wing sleeves allowed them to nestle right in my ear so I could comfortably sleep on my side. They also stayed locked in my ear, so I woke up with exactly the same fit and seal I went to bed with. That’s especially important for the Alarm Clock feature: if you can’t hear it, you can’t wake up to it. That isn’t an issue here when properly fit.
So, they do the job of being comfortable to wear all night long, but how about that noise masking system? I’m happy to share that it works very well. I found that I did have to press and twist to lock the earbuds in place to get a good seal, but this is by design and part of the earbuds being so small. You need that earhook to latch onto your ear, so take the time to find the right size tip and sleeve. With the proper fit, you really don’t need active noise cancellation. The passive isolation is very good.
The active sound masking system works but I found that I didn’t like how it would automatically play with volume levels. If you’re sleeping, this could work well but in a case like mine where I’m watching content before sleeping, it was a bit distracting.
The app really is quite wonderful. There are 34 soothing sounds to choose from. You can listen to these in either Music or Sleep modes, and I found them useful for writing as well as trying to rest after my nightly Netflix binge. Rain sounds are particularly nice for focus and there are multiple varieties to choose from. I like how Soundcore has these broken up into categories to make it easy to see what the options are. I also like that in Sleep Mode, your sound of choice is uploaded directly to the earbuds so you don’t need to waste battery life on streaming audio.
Though they’re not really intended to replace daytime music earbuds, I was also impressed by the sound quality the Sleep A10s are able to deliver. The dynamic drivers are tuned for enhanced bass, which is great for music, movies, and games. They’re not rich in microdetails or any of that other audiophile gobbledygook I might usually talk about in an earbud review, but they don’t need to be. For casual listening and TV/movies, they’re very good.
I also found the battery life to be refreshing. The ComfoBuds Z were always dead by morning. Here, that’s rarely the case. In Music Mode, they may be close (assuming whatever I’m listening to plays throughout the night). In Sleep Mode, they usually have several hours of battery left.
Now, it’s not all perfect. The price is exceptionally high, especially when you consider that the buds aren’t a great choice to use in other parts of the day. They don’t have a microphone and touch controls are single-function only, so they won’t be replacing your Liberty 4s anytime soon. The case is also quite big, and, while still pocketable, isn’t something I really want to carry in my pants pocket.
But even with those shortcomings, these are a truly excellent pair of earbuds for what they’re designed for: listening and sleeping in bed.
Final Thoughts
The Soundcore Sleep A10 is a bit pricey but they’re excellent buds for sleeping through the night. They’re easy to side-sleep in and do a great job of masking outside noise. Battery life, comfort, and sound quality are all top-notch. If you’re looking for a pair of bedtime buds, look no further. The Sleep A10s are an excellent choice.
The product described in this article was provided by the manufacturer for evaluation purposes.
