Getting a good night’s rest is important, but sleep is not a guarantee for a lot of us. We may fall asleep fine but still wake up in the middle of the night due to anxiety, or we struggle to go to sleep and toss and turn for hours. If you’ve struggled with sleep as much as I have, Kokoon Nightbuds might be the answer. They’re a set of comfortable earphones to wear while sleeping, they sense when you’re sleeping and play coloured noise to keep you sleeping, and they pair with an app that plays one of the most relaxing soundtracks I’ve ever heard.
Features on Kokoon Nightbuds
Kokoon Nightbuds are in-ear headphones packaged with a carrying case, several different ear tips, and a USB-C charging cable. They included different sizes of silicone tips to improve fit and make them comfortable to wear while sleeping.
- Sleep-sensing technology to detect when you fall asleep and automatically switch to white, pink, or brown noise to mask outside noise
- Smart auto pause, volume control on the band, and a microphone in case you want to use them to take or make calls
- Built-in sensors measure your heart rate to pick up on your stress levels
- Bluetooth 5.0 provides a solid connection to the earphones
- The Kokoon app offers different masking sounds and sleep stories to reduce anxiety, help you fall asleep, and help you go back to sleep if you wake in the night
- Sleep efficiency score to provide an overall picture of how you’re sleeping
- Battery life of up to 10 hours on a single charge
Setting up Kokoon Nightbuds sleep aid earphones
The first step in setting up your Kokoon Nightbuds is to choose the best ear tips for you. There are 5 included, and the medium pair is already on the earbuds. I tried out several before I settled back on medium. They seemed to have the best fit for me.
Kokoon Nightbuds will work just like any other earbuds so you can use them to play music or talk on the phone. To get the full benefit of them as a sleep aid you’ll need to pair them with the Kokoon app. It requires you to sign up for an account. Once you have an account logged into the app you’ll just press the pairing button on the Nightbuds and they will appear in your phone’s Bluetooth options. You tap to connect and they begin working with the app.
How to wear Kokoon Nightbuds
One thing to keep in mind when putting the Kokoon Nightbuds on for the first time is that you shouldn’t stretch the cable that connects them to the band. I don’t feel as though they are fragile but it does say right on them that you shouldn’t stretch that cable very much.
The band itself is meant to be placed under your hair at the back of your head so it doesn’t interfere with your sleep. You’ll gently pull each earphone toward your ear and place the cord over your ear while inserting the earphone. It takes a minute to get adjusted to how they fit and you may have to try different positions until they fit snugly. Once you have a good fit, you won’t even notice they are there. You can change the volume, or turn them off and on, right on the band that connects them so you never need to pick up your phone.
Using Kokoon Nightbuds
I’ve had trouble sleeping for the past few years. If I do manage to get to sleep I tend to wake up at 3 or 4 a.m. and need to read until I fall asleep again. Disrupted sleep is one of the reasons why I was really interested in Kokoon Nightbuds, and it’s one of four sleep help options in the menu when you load the app.
Sleep and relaxation options in Kokoon app
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In the Library of the Kokoon app there are ‘Brighter mornings,’ ‘Disrupted sleep,’ ‘Feeling anxious,’ and ‘Going to sleep.’ Each selection sends you to the menu with different options for that specific issue. For example, under ‘Disrupted sleep’ you can choose All, Coaching, Meditations, Music, and Storyscape. It’s easiest to tap ‘All’ so you can see all of your options.
Under Disrupted sleep, you’ll find short and long audio clips including Untangling Thoughts, Purring Cat, or Celestial – Binaural Beats. Anxiety offers different soundtracks to relax you including Body Scan and several episodes of The Dream Stream. Some tracks are just music while others have someone talking and sound a lot like a hypnosis session.
Storyscapes help you relax
My favourite tracks on the Kokoon app are the Storyscapes. I cannot explain how much I love listening to the Shipping Reports. It’s a male low-tone British voice that recites the weather for different ships at sea, and it’s just so relaxing. The voice gets slower and slower as you near the end of the track. There are two episodes and I’ve played them over and over.
I also really enjoyed Sleigh Ride. It’s descriptive enough to make you feel as though you’re all cozy on a nighttime sleigh ride, and there are a few hints dropped that it just might be Santa in the driver’s seat.
You can even have two audio tracks playing at once. One track can be noise-blocking or just ambient audio. That track will appear on the right side of the app. Your Storyscape/meditation will appear on the left. Both tracks have their own volume control so you can turn the left side up or down while the Storyscape plays or you can turn it all the way down if you don’t think you need it. I liked letting Cabin run in the background of the Shipping Report because it made the audio more immersive.
Noise blocking and coloured noise
Kokoon Nightbuds aren’t noise cancelling, but they are noise-blocking in two ways. They are earphones that fit inside your ear so they block noise by design, but the Nightbuds have an extra layer of noise blocking thanks to the second audio track that plays in tandem with your Storyscape or other sleep track. The app has options for coloured noise under the Audio Fade Out setting.
Coloured noise choices include pink, white, or brown noise. You’ll choose which noise-blocking audio you like the best and what volume you’d like it to be. When Nighbuds detect you are sleeping they will phase out the audio you were listening to and phase in the coloured noise.
I turned on Audio Fadeout and had pink noise running quietly. It definitely works to block noise. I have a cat who likes to wake me up early every morning. He was meowing loudly in my face at 5 a.m. and I was surprised I had to take the earphone out of my ear to even notice him. Normally I hear him when he walks in the room, so it’s nice the Nightbuds block out sound that way.
Sleep sensing with Kokoon Nightbuds
Kokoon uses sleep-sensing technology to detect when you fall asleep. Once the earphones detect you’ve nodded off, the app will track your sleep including REM and wake-ups. You can set your usual bedtime and wake up time in the app and the earphones will adjust audio to your schedule. When they detect you’ve fallen asleep it will reduce the volume of your Storyscape or meditation and increase the audio meant to block background noise. The app will track your sleep session and your data will appear in the app.
I’ve found the most important thing for accurate sleep tracking is to make sure your earphones are positioned properly. I slept with them several times and I didn’t notice the app wasn’t capturing my data until I woke up. I did see a pop-up that said the Nightbuds adjusted the volume when they detected I fell asleep, but the data didn’t appear in my sleep data window. I’m confident I have them placed properly now, so I’ll update this post as soon as I have more data.
Kokoon Nightbuds battery life
I like that Kokoon Nightbuds charge via USB-C. It makes it easy to pop them on my phone charger or use the included charger. Once fully charged they will last up to 10 hours, and there is a setting you can tap that will auto-power them off to save on battery if they aren’t in use.
Should you choose Kokoon Nightbuds?
I would choose Kokoon Nightbuds just for the different sleep tracks. I can’t explain how they helped me when I couldn’t get back to sleep in the middle of the night. Just listening to the Shipping Reports or other sleep stories really helps with middle-of-the-night anxiety.
It’s nice to be lulled back to sleep instead of reading my phone for hours, and I think with repeat use of Kokoon Nightbuds, I may be able to improve my sleep overall. The design of the earphone and coloured noise blocks outside noise very efficiently. I haven’t logged enough data to really see any sleep trends yet, but they have definitely reduced the number of times a night I wake up.
Overall I think Kokoon Nightbuds are comfortable to wear at night, even if you’ve been challenged by wearing earphones to bed. I never felt the cord of the band once I had them on, and I adjusted to having the earphone in my ear after a few minutes. The battery lasts the entire night so you don’t have to worry about it draining before you wake up either.
If you’d like to get a better rest, I think Kokoon Nightbuds are definitely worth using. You can find them right now at Best Buy.
