In Ozlo Sleepbuds vs. Soundcore Sleep A20 Sleep Bud Showdown, A Clear Winner Emerges, And It’s Not the Expensive One

In Ozlo Sleepbuds vs. Soundcore Sleep A20 Sleep Bud Showdown, A Clear Winner Emerges, And It’s Not the Expensive One

Sleep buds are one of those “where have you been all my life” technologies that yield real lifestyle benefits since most of us spend between a quarter to a third of our lives asleep. Generically, sleep buds are earbuds engineered to maximize comfort and battery life so you can wear them all night long. They pump a variety of pleasing sounds directly into your ears to screen out everything from street noise to the snores of a bedmate, and some can even monitor the ality and duration of your sleep. In a pinch, you can use them to listen to music, podcasts or video, the same as you would with any headphones, but they are not audiophile quality and do not get very loud by design. 

Bose pioneered the category a few years ago but apparently did not sell enough to justify continuing the project. A few of the engineers on the development team bought the IP from Bose and crowdfunded their spin on the technology under the brand Ozlo. I enthusiastically backed the IndieGoGo campaign and plan to review the product once it is stable. 

This review was originally intended as a standalone for Ozlo Sleepbuds, but for reasons that will become clear shortly, it is now a head-to-head comparison with the Soundcore Sleep A20 sleep buds from Chinese company Anker. 

Ozlo Sleepbuds  

Ozlo launched their crowdfunding campaign in late 2023 on Kickstarter and later IndieGoGo, with single orders at $250 or $425 for two pairs. It was so successful that it took nearly three months to fulfill all the backorders. 

What Ozlo ended up shipping was essentially a final beta product. The hardware was complete, but the firmware and app are still a work in progress, with some of the final functionality around sleep monitoring not yet being implemented. Through the summer, early customers have received periodic firmware updates and white-glove customer support to assist with various issues. They are now for sale to the general public for $299. 

Unboxing. My wife and I each ordered a pair in February, which ended up being delivered in June. Credit Ozlo with frequent and detailed updates on order status as the buds made their way from manufacturing through the supply chain to our front door, building a sense of anticipation. 

Each set of buds comes in a round brushed aluminum charging case about 4 inches in diameter, which slides open at the top. The buds connect magnetically to the charger but have to be seated properly to get a charge. There are a couple of LEDs inside the case and a standard USB-C charging port with the included cable. There is also a tiny reset button recessed in a pinhole opening near the charging port. 

The package includes various silicone tips for the earbuds in various sizes, as well as a sheet of instructions.  The buds are designed to fit into the ear canal flush with the outside of your ear so they don’t cause discomfort while sleeping or get caught on the pillow. By rotating the buds slightly in your ears, you can form a seal that prevents audio leakage. Ozlo has opted not to enable any tapping functions on the buds. All the audio is controlled using the iOS or Android app. 

Fully charged buds run for as much as 12 hours in “sleep” (remote white-noise mode) or 8-9 hours connected via Bluetooth. The app allows you to select from a dozen pre-set sounds ranging from smooth static to gentle raindrops or waves lapping at the shore. 

User experience. Once we had the buds charged and the app loaded, our initial experience was very smooth. We each took a night or two to identify the best size for the tips and our preferred noise patterns. We used the app to adjust the volume; even the lower settings were soothing enough to glide us into sleep and keep us there through various disturbances. My wife is especially fond of the function that switches from Bluetooth audio streaming to sleep mode after a set interval, so she can fall asleep listening to a podcast or video and then enjoy the benefits of the white noise and longer battery life during the night. Currently, this feature uses a timer, but the company says it will eventually be able to happen automatically when the buds detect you are asleep. We also both appreciated the in-ear alarm function that gently rouses you from sleep at a set time without waking the other partner. 

Importantly, the white noise drowned out street noise from the neighborhood and (ahem) someone’s loud, intermittent snoring. We both got consistently excellent nights’ sleep and had 10-15% charge in each bud at the end of the night. 

Drawbacks and caveats. One big issue with the Ozlo Sleepbuds was charging and power usage. It is easy to put the buds back in the case if they are slightly out of alignment. If this happens, not only doesn’t the bud charge properly, it discharges fully and drains the case power. If the power is below 5%, the app doesn’t recognize the buds as connected, leading to a lot of frustration. At least once a week, one of us would open our case at bedtime to put our sleep buds in, only to discover that one of the buds had not charged at all. As it took almost two hours to charge the buds fully, this rendered them useless for that night. And since there are no LEDs on the outside of the case, there was no early warning that anything was amiss until it was too late. 

The only way to control the functions of the buds, including mode and volume, is with the app. You can’t use the volume controls on your device, and the volume slider in the app, which has since been improved, was initially quite glitchy and unresponsive. The app only connects to the buds when they are in the case and the case is open, so if you want to make changes while you are half-asleep, you need to put the buds back in the case, connect with your device, and then use the app. 

Over the summer, Ozlo released a firmware and app update that primarily addressed some of the power consumption issues and promised additional updates to fully implement sleep monitoring and add more sounds to the library. 

Customer service failure. I encountered the biggest problem with the Ozlo Sleepbuds in early August, shortly after the firmware update, after about six weeks of constant use. I began noticing the volume in one of the earbuds was slightly lower than the other. I wrote to the customer service account, which until that time had been extremely prompt and helpful in addressing any issues, suggesting they add a “balance” feature to the software so users could compensate for any variances. I got a vague reply. 

For the next several weeks, the volume on the left bud continued fading until it was at about 20% of the right bud at full volume and practically inaudible at the recommended sleep setting. I reported this back to the company and received some troubleshooting advice, which did not fix the problem. Knowing  I had a two-week vacation coming up where we would be sharing an apartment with another couple in a loud neighborhood in Italy, I requested a replacement for the defective bud. 

Ozlo customer support refused to replace the defective buds promptly; they eventually did so after about 12 weeks and many requests. But because I didn’t want to be without the sleep-enhancing functionality on a long overseas vacation, I ordered what I thought would be a stopgap solution – a pair of Soundcore A20 sleep buds, bargain-priced at $119 on Amazon. I did not expect as much from them, so what I found was a revelation. 

Soundcore Sleep A20 Sleep buds 

The Soundcore buds come in a smaller, lighter case made of white plastic. While the case lacks the luxury finish of the Ozlo aluminum, it is slightly more portable and has useful LEDs on the outside to let you know at a glance that the buds inside are charging. It is also nearly impossible to put the buds back into the case improperly. In fifteen days of the Soundcores being tossed around in my luggage, I have never found them discharged when I wanted to use them. 

Like the Ozlo buds, the Soundcores come with an assortment of tips and silicone sleeves to fit different sizes and shapes of ears. I found them slightly more comfortable than the  Ozlos and more consistently able to form a seal without too much fidgeting. 

The Soundcore buds also have both a sleep and Bluetooth mode, offering close to 15 hours of white noise on a full charge and about 10 with a constant Bluetooth connection to a device. They appeared to charge more quickly than the Ozlos, but I did not measure this precisely. Most nights, they have a 40% charge remaining when putting them back in the case. 

The Soundcore buds let you switch modes with a firm double-tap on the left bud, and you can adjust the volume up or down with a triple tap. Other gesture-based functions can be configured in the app. This is much more convenient than having to open the app to control the buds, as you have to do with the Ozlo, and I never encountered a problem with the buds going on or off by accident during ordinary tossing and turning. 

The Soundcore app is much more polished, offering richer functionality, including a  “noise design studio” that lets users customize white noise patterns from various presets. There is a limit of four sounds that you can preload into the sleep buds to run in the power-saving Sleep mode. 

The sleep monitoring functionality promised by Ozlo for the future is fully implemented on the Soundcore buds. It includes a fascinating feature that measures the amount of time you spend awake, in light sleep and deep sleep through each night. If you are into monitoring your biometrics, this is for you. It also allows the buds to automatically switch over from Bluetooth to Sleep mode as soon as it detects you sleeping, as well as by a preset timer. The alarm and streaming functions work similarly to the Ozlos. 

After 8 weeks of use, I have encountered no issues requiring support or replacement. 

Head-to-Head Scorecard: Ozlo vs. Soundcore

	OZLO	SOUNDCORE
Build quality	B-	A
Comfort	A-	A
Charging/ Power Management	C	A
App Ease and Functionality	C	A
Ability to enhance sleep	B+	A
Customer Support	D	N/A (no issues to report)
Price	$299	$119

Ozlo Sleepbuds vs. Soundcore Sleep A20: The bottom line

I ordered the Ozlo Sleepbuds with the highest hopes and was encouraged to stick with the company. At the same time, it worked out its issues because of the reputation of the design team and the transparency and responsiveness I received as they iterated their prerelease version to the final consumer product. Unfortunately, their unwillingness to promptly solve a critical product quality issue drove me into the arms of their competitor.  

Soundcore appears to have a mature, market-ready product that delivers everything you would want from a good set of sleep buds right out of the box. The app is fully functional and better designed. How the  Soundcore buds differ from Ozlo (touch-to-play, LEDs on the outside of the charging case, lighter case) reflect better engineering choices. The Soundcore sleep buds are a comprehensively better product at less than half the price. 

The Oslo and Soundcore in this review were purchased by the reviewer. Images courtesy of Oslo and Soundcore unless otherwise noted.

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