The Soundcore Sleep A30 aim to help you sleep and focus, and they do a good job with powerful noise cancellation, a low-profile design, and plenty of app features to create soothing soundscapes.
There are plenty of products out there to try to help you sleep. Anker has already taken a stab at this with the Soundcore Sleep A20, and now it’s trying again with the improved Sleep A30 ($199.99). These buds are designed to sit flush inside your ear, block out noise actively and passively, and lull you to sleep with white noise or lullabies. You can definitely get better-sounding earbuds with more features and more effective noise cancellation for this kind of money. But the ultra-compact size, the ability to program alarms, and active monitoring for and counteracting a nearby snorer aren’t features most other buds offer. If your sleep is easily disturbed, and regular earbuds would just be one more disturbance, the Sleep A30 might be worth dreaming about. Design: Tiny Buds Built for Comfy Sleeping
At first, the Soundcore Sleep A30 may seem like typical earbuds. They come in a sizable carrying case with three indicator lights on the front and an easy-sliding lid that helps keep them from flying out a little more than the typical hinged cases. But once you pop the buds out of the case, it’s clear they’re a different breed. The Sleep A30 are incredibly compact, with each bud’s main body roughly the size of an M&M. They’re available in Moonlit White or Mist Green; a new Special version adds Mist Lilac and Lunar White options.
The silicone eartip and wingtip just about double the bulk of the bud, and even then, it’s still tiny. This is so that it can sit all the way in your ear opening without protruding. That way, if you sleep on your side, the bud won’t be jostled free or jammed into your ear canal. Even pressing my hand firmly against the side of my ear, the buds stayed put without adding pressure. Sleeping with the buds, I was surprised by just how little I felt they were there. I was able to move around, switching from back to side sleeping without issue.
The Sleep A30 buds also do their silicone sleeving a bit differently than normal. There’s a silicone casing around much of the bud where it touches the ear, and this extends out into the wingtip that helps hold the bud in place. That sleeve has a small round flap that aims to provide some passive noise isolation in combination with the eartips, which Anker provides in an assortment of different sizes. The eartips also come in foam for improved noise isolation.
Since these buds are largely meant for sleep, they don’t have a lot of the typical features you might expect from expensive earbuds. Bluetooth Multipoint isn’t supported. Bluetooth audio codec support tops out at AAC. The waterproofing provides just a modest IPX4 rating for the buds. There’s also just a single mic for making calls. The case lacks support for wireless charging, which would have been a sensible inclusion for something that will likely be set down on a bedside table often.
