****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
I have suffered from Misophonia, which is an extreme sensitivity to specific sounds, for the past 28 years. I have always needed earplugs to sleep, but in the last few years I have needed something more. I have experimented with various brands of sleep headphones over the last few years, but none were adequate at blocking breathing or snoring sounds, even when used with the best earplugs. After significant research, I finally decided to give bone conduction headphones a try. I am so glad that I did!Upon opening the shipping box, I was amazed to find what I can only describe as the best packaging that I have ever seen on a product. I know it has nothing to do with the product, but it does instill some confidence when the box is rivaled only by the latest flagship phones, complete with a magnetic latch to hold it closed. Needless to say, it went on the shelf.Ok, on to the actual product.Material (8/10): The headphones have what I would describe as velvety feel to them, not really plastic and not rubber, just firm with a soft warm texture. The headphone band is a bit hard and does not flex very much. This is not really a con, but takes some getting used to when sleeping with the headphones.Charging (10/10): The proprietary charging system is one of the nicest features of these headphones. The cable terminals are surrounded by strong polarized magnets. There is no connector to insert or break, just get the cable within 1/2" of the charging port, and it snaps in place and holds on tight in the correct orientation. There is no concern of inadvertently connecting the charging cable backward, or damaging the connector.Sound Quality (7/10, but please read): This was not a big driver for me, since I usually use them with white noise or something that doesn't require high quality. Due to the method that the sound is transferred from the transducer into the bone, I feel that the sound quality is excellent for how they work. If you are planning to compare them to the latest $300 active noise cancelling headphones, you might be slightly disappointed. Music sounds good, but you may miss some minute details, if you are into that.Microphone (10/10): I have currently only used this feature once, to speak with a service technician while I was on a bike ride in heavy traffic. I don't know how I sounded to him, but he had no problems hearing me clearly through the 25mph wind vehicle noise.Battery life (10/10): Other dedicated sleep headphones that I have tried didn't even make it 6 hours overnight. I have yet to drain the battery on the AfterShokz Aeropex. The battery is stated to last 8 hours, but I was skeptical, expecting that this would be based on a low volume. I wear earplugs with them and have them turned up rather high. They have made it through every 8-hour night that I have used them. Once I forgot to charge them before the next night, and topped them up for about 20 minutes before bed and they made it through another full night. I hit the volume button the next morning and they still had medium battery left!Sleep comfort (5/10): These are not made specifically for sleeping and take some experimentation to make work. The band that connects the two sides sticks out quite a bit behind your head, and I thought it would make back sleeping difficult. Fortunately, if you rotate the band up against your head before laying down, it works quite well, and doesn't move the sound pads off of the cheek bone too much. If you use a firm pillow, side or stomach sleeping can be uncomfortable due to the thickness of the sound pads. I was able to make both work by using a softer pillow that can accommodate the pads without much discomfort.Noise Masking (10/10): When worn in conjunction with good earplugs, these things are amazing. First, the earplugs block out most noise. The AfterShokz introduce sound into your cheek bones, which reverberates behind the earplugs, pretty much masking every sound in existence. I would not recommend this if you live alone, as you may not hear a smoke alarm, gun shot, or truck running through your house. In all seriousness, I have not woken up once from snoring or talking in the last few weeks since I purchased these. With earplugs and the best external sleep headphones or noise canceling headphones, I would routinely wake up several times each night.I was not finding any reviews that discussed the important points that I was looking for regarding good sleep headphones, so hopefully this review helps anyone who is looking for the same thing. I may end up purchasing a second pair as a backup to use on my bicycle commute just so I never have to go another night without these.
