These earbuds help me get some sleep in a noisy area — and they’re $75 off

ZDNET Highlights

• The OzLo Sleepbuds, created by three Bose engineers, launched last fall, and they’re the most useful sleep earbuds I’ve tested so far.
• The sound is perfect for masking environmental irritants that keep you awake, and the fit is comfortable and secure.
• The sleep tracking feature doesn’t come to the earbuds yet, and setup took a few tries and a lot of fiddling, but once these work in your ears, they get you off to bed in an instant.

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April/2025

I take my sleep as seriously as some athletes take their workouts or diet. While I can control everything from the steps I take before bed to the pajamas I wear or the sleep mask I put over my eyes to block out light, one uncontrolled factor often keeps me awake: the sounds outside my Brooklyn apartment.

My bedroom overlooks a busy – and often noisy – street. As I write this, motorcycle engines are revving and fire truck sirens are blaring in the background. I wake up to police sirens, cars honking, noisy pedestrians, and my neighbors singing and celebrating loudly at night. It’s a lively area but terrible for catching easy Z’s.

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During the recent holiday season, the loud sounds of singing kept me awake until 1 a.m. and made it difficult to get into bed. But this year, I took the noisy opportunity to test it Ozlo SleepbudsAnd, boy, am I glad I did. They helped me fall asleep within minutes.

The Ozlo Sleep Earbuds are some of the most comfortable and effective sleep earbuds I’ve ever tested, and I can’t recommend them enough for anyone who needs to quieten their bedtime environment enough to catch a few more Z’s, that is, if they’re willing to pay the $300 price tag. Keep reading to know the reason.

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If you’ve heard anything about the Ozello, it’s probably because you were interested in the discontinued Bose Sleepbuds, which the audio brand discontinued in 2020. A Bose spokesperson said the “Buds” did not reach the level of adoption that Bose had hoped for, despite their massive following. Joan Berthiaume tells The VergeThe Ozlo Sleepbuds are a rebirth of the Sleepbuds, incorporating some of Bose’s proprietary technology, such as the StayHear Plus Tips, into a new product,

The earbuds come in a heavy but sleek case, and you can customize their ear tips and ear wings to get the fit you want. Setup was where I encountered the most problems, and the connection failed twice before I could link with the app. Once I connected, the app’s introductory pages became a mess, and I found myself having to close the app and relaunch it several times. Once my settings were confirmed in the app and the connection established, I had no trouble using these buds.

Thankfully, you don’t need an app to tune out the white noise from the earbuds, and the first night I tested them, I used them easily without the app. But if you want customization, the Ozlo app offers ten different sleep sounds (or hidden sounds) that you can sort through.

There’s an earbud alarm you can use (though I’ve had bad luck with in-ear alarms, seeing as how I wake up with my earbuds scattered across my bed), a sleep timer that turns off the buds after a customizable time to save battery, and an auto-play sleep sound feature that detects after you’ve fallen asleep and switches to a masking sound you choose from the podcast or music you’re playing.

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The Ozlo Sleepbuds came to market with two key features that are unfortunately missing: sleep-tracking and environment-sensing capabilities. Ultimately, Ozlo will release an over-the-air update to add these features. Once they become available I’ll test them out and update my review with my thoughts, although it’s disappointing that these key selling points aren’t available at launch.

These buds are designed to stay in your ears during your night’s sleep. Given that I move around regularly in my sleep, a pair of earbuds rarely last in my ears overnight. When I wear sleep earbuds, it helps me fall asleep amidst the noisy background outside my window. Once I fall asleep, I can stay asleep and not wake up much. I just need them to be in and fit well at the start of the night; I don’t need them for the whole night – although I don’t mind when they are.

The ear wings on the SleepBuds keep the fit stable over long periods of time, and when I wake up, typically, one earbud is still in my ear (there was one night in the last week of testing where both stayed on all night). Battery life lasted about a night and a half before needing to be recharged.

Every night I wore these buds, I slept like a baby and fell asleep within minutes. It was when my neighbors celebrated on the street outside my apartment that I first found myself attracted to them. However, I eventually ended up putting them in my ears, even when external interference was negligible. They are just as comfortable and effective. They succeed in masking the noise around me and isolating me from the dangerous engines and sirens outside.

One area I couldn’t test was whether they mask snoring. From my experience using them to reduce external sounds alone in my bedroom, I would say that they do a good job of blocking out ambient distractions, but I can’t confirm how effective they would be at reducing snoring right next to you.

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If you don’t lie in bed overnight, these will stick to your ears – and they’re quite comfortable for side sleepers. Over time I didn’t feel any pressure, and in the morning, I didn’t feel any pain or sensitivity.

One of my favorite aspects of these buds is the sleep sound paired with the audio power of the Sleepbuds, which is loud enough to completely mask outside sounds outside my bedroom window while remaining quiet and neutral enough to lull me to sleep. This is a difficult feat and one I had trouble finding when testing competing sleep earbuds.

ZDNET’s shopping advice

So, who are these for? Those who prioritize comfort in sleep earbuds and are willing to pay top dollar for it. These earbuds settled into my ears during sleep, and as I turned from side to side, I found them to be in my ears and I was completely satisfied. Ozlo Sleepbuds Properly and efficiently reduced noise in my neighborhood, reducing outside noise during one of the busiest weeks of the year.

So, yes, they work as noise maskers (they’re not technically noise cancellers). Setup and connection can be a little tricky, but brand-new product launches inevitably come with bugs. Once connected the product itself is great. I look forward to sleeping with these earbuds the next time my neighborhood is singing and partying all night long.

Normally, these earbuds cost $349, but during Cyber ​​Monday, they’re on sale for $274 with a 21% discount.