If you’re having a hard time falling asleep, Philips says the new earbuds can help. The strange-looking Philip Sleep Headphones with Kokoon claim to be the thinnest earbuds in the world. They can also mask outside noises while monitoring your sleep patterns, which many of the best earbuds can’t do.
The idea is to remove any distractions that might keep you from getting to sleep or staying asleep, although as far as I know there’s no feature that can prevent a 70lb greyhound from hitting you at 4am’ trying to push out of bed in the morning. like mine did earlier today.
If you get a bit of a deja vu when you hear about this, it’s because Philips had already announced these earbuds earlier this year, in February. But the design has since been modified to make it more comfortable and reduce pressure in your ear canal. The earbud is also twisted to prevent the cable from coming into contact with sensitive parts of your ear. And the number of earplugs has been increased to five.
Philips Sleep headphones: what you need to know
The headphones have a number of functions that help you dream away. Designed to passively block external noise, they also have a noise masking feature that works much like the best noise canceling headphones, but replaces external audio with white noise instead of silence to smooth out external noise spikes.
These earbuds are designed so that you can lie on your side without feeling like you’re pushing a huge earbud against the side of your head. You can provide your own audio or use the included sounds, which range from natural sounds to binaural beats, so you can relax and drift off. The earbuds automatically fade out the sound when you start dreaming.
Once you get up the wooden hill, the Kokoon app will start watching you. The earbuds contain accelerometers and a small optical heart rate monitor that track your movements and heart rate throughout the night (or during the day if you’re a day sleeper).
While the sleep features are the main draw here, the earbuds have a 10-hour battery life and can be used for music, podcasts and phone calls just like any other earbud.
At £249/$249 these aren’t exactly cheap, and if you want all the app’s features there’s a monthly fee. Philips says there will be a free tier that will include core features, but hasn’t said what the subscription price will be. The Kokoon app currently available on the App Store and Google Play is a free app with no in-app purchases and will presumably be updated before the headphones ship in October 2023.