Soundcore upgrades its Sleep earbuds for World Sleep Day
March 15 is World Sleep Day, and Soundcore is marking the occasion by announcing the Sleep A20, a set of wireless earbuds aimed at helping you get to sleep, stay asleep, and track the amount and quality of your sleep. The Sleep A20 will initially be offered as a crowdfunded project on Kickstarter starting April 16, but you’ll also be able to buy them from Soundcore and major retailers in mid- to late May for $150 — $30 less than the first-gen Sleep A10.
Like the Sleep A10, the Sleep A20 use passive noise isolation instead of active noise cancellation (ANC) to block out the sounds that might prevent you from sleeping. The A20 improves on this noise blocking by up to three times, according to Soundcore, thanks to a new dual-layer eartip that comes in different sizes.
The A20 has also been designed for maximum comfort even when side sleeping. The earbuds have a low profile that won’t stick out of your ears, and the entire earbud surface has been covered in an “ultra-soft” silicone coating.
There are two modes available while using the Sleep A20: a Sleep mode, which lets you pick from a variety of preinstalled sounds, but keeps Bluetooth turned off, and a Music mode that lets you listen to any music via Bluetooth. Both modes allow for sleep tracking data to be collected, but there’s a difference in battery life: Sleep Mode runs for up to 14 hours of playtime (with an extra 80 hours in the charging case), while Music mode provides up to 10 hours of claimed playtime with an extra 55 hours in the charging case. These battery life numbers are an improvement over the A10 (10 hours/6 hours respectively).
Another improvement is the ability to set a persistent alarm time in the Soundcore app. Previously, it had to be enabled every evening before you went to sleep.
Soundcore says it has also built in an earbud finder that can make the earbuds emit a sound should they come out of your ears during the night and get lost in the sheets. However, if the earbuds run out of battery life, you may still need to do some manual hunting.
