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It's no secret that I struggle with sleep, at least at night.

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And ever since the birth of my firstborn back in 2012, I've resorted to using earphones to help me catch some Zs.

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But everything that I've ever used has at least one flaw.

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Wireless has been a big improvement. I used to chew through Sennheiser IE80s and cables like Tic Tacs.

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But even with those, I've still dealt with comfort issues,

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retention issues, and accidental touch control activations in the middle of the night.

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Even my current daily drivers have a fatal flaw.

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They only last about five hours before needing to be juiced

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in their charging case. Oslo, who reached out to sponsor this LTT video,

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claims that their new product addresses all of my issues.

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Bold. But I've also been using them for a couple of days,

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and while I wouldn't call them perfect, I will say that they've the best feature set

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that I've seen so far. These little guys are the appropriately named Sleep Buds.

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They don't get a feature film about a dog. But these tiny buds are packed with special features

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that might make them less ideal for daily use earphones,

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but perfect for folks that are trying to get a better night's sleep.

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Let's take a look at what's included. Obviously, you won't get quite the level of care package

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that we did. Hoodie, handwritten note.

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Is this pills? Ah, calming pillow mist. But what you will get is this.

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Well, this. The smart case, which has some cool features

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we'll get into later. The Sleep Buds themselves. Four sets of ear tips,

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including the ones that are pre-installed, a USB-C cable, and a delicious snack.

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Oh, never actually put them in my mouth before. Don't do that.

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It's the tips that address the number one issue for a lot of people, comfort and retention.

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Other earbuds do include silicone tips, but there's often still a part of them

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that comes in contact with your skin that's made of harder materials, especially if you're a side sleeper like me.

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Not the case here. And the super low profile of the earbuds themselves

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helps to reduce the pressure that you feel on your ear as well. Movie magic, big reveal time.

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I've already been using these for sleeping, but sure, let's put them in and try them on camera.

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Okay, this is really not representative. This pillow is so thick. Do we have anything that's more like a normal pillow?

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Anything would be comfortable with this convenient ear donut.

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They isolate shockingly well. I don't even have anything playing through them right now.

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And I think you said LTT something pillow. Yeah, let me say the new.

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Oh, you got the backpack back there. Here we go.

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Can confirm they are flat. Also can confirm they are extraordinarily difficult

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to get out of your ears.

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Like you gotta really wanna get them out of there.

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Reach in, grab the little silicone anchor piece

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and pull them out. But make no mistake, that's not a bad thing.

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The comfort is really solid. Like something shoved in your ear canal

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is always gonna feel like there's something in your ear canal, especially if you're not used to it.

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But this is about as good as I felt. And more importantly,

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they have not fallen out overnight yet. My daily driver AirPod Pro 2s on the other hand

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fall out at least three times a week while sleeping.

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Elijah, who wrote this video and also has sleeping issues tried using these buds.

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And his first thought was he forgot that they were in when he woke up because they didn't press against his ear

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and they stayed in all night. It's a pretty similar system to what I've seen on some workout buds,

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but way less bulky. Let's take the silicone tip off though

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and look at the device itself. There you go.

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That's it. I think I've eaten pieces of corn that are bigger than that.

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They are less than one centimeter wide in each direction.

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And my first thought after seeing these was they're probably gonna sound like hot poo poo.

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But they don't. They're not streets ahead of audio file headphones

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or anything, but the sound quality is reflective of the team

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that built them. A group of ex-Bose engineers who worked on the now discontinued Bose sleep buds,

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which might explain the very similar looks.

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Now, a small elephant in the room is the lack of active noise cancellation.

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Given that Bose is known to be a leader in the space and Oslo worked with Bose

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on licensing technology for this product, we wanted to understand why the decision

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was made to leave it out. When we jumped on a call with the engineers,

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they explained that while canceling as much noise as possible can help with focusing on work,

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sleeping with noise cancellation has been found to wake people up more in the middle of the night

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than something like a white noise machine. For my part though,

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I suspect it has more to do with maintaining the small form factor and with maximizing battery life.

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And after using them, I actually don't mind the trade-off.

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The sleep buds create a very good seal in the ear canal,

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which combined with their selection of ambient noises helps to very effectively muffle outside sound.

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It's so effective that I can't put them in until pillow talk is 100% over

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because I will definitely miss that one last. Good night, I love you.

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Which is gonna earn me a shove in the backside. I love you too, Han. It was the sleep buds.

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Anyway, your selected ambient noise gets loaded onto the sleep buds themselves.

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As a Vancouver boy, I'm partial to misty rain,

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but there's also fire crackling and a variety of other brown noises,

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which yes, is what they're called. The exact noises are not the important part right now though,

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since they're working on adding more. The big deal is the part about the sound being stored locally

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after you pair the sleep buds to your phone. This functionality allows the sleep buds

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to be used in two ways, stand alone with no connection to your phone,

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or the same way that I use my regular Bluetooth earphones,

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which is typically to listen to reruns of adventure time until I fall asleep.

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After that, things get super cool. The sleep buds will detect

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if your media playback stops for some reason, blacks, or it'll use its onboard sensors

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to determine if you fall in asleep and it will switch over to your selected ambient audio track.

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And so far, it's been working a treat for me.

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Yeah, well, the first night I actually got woken up

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by my ambient sound, but I have since determined that that was a skill issue.

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I didn't dial in the volume before going to bed, so the sudden loud firecrackling sound,

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which I also didn't configure on the first night, a little alarming.

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The other major stumbling block I hit was Bluetooth connectivity issues,

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but once again, it was down to not fully understanding the product.

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In order to achieve their impressive and personally validated 10 hour battery life,

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Oslo is using Bluetooth LE or low energy.

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The problem is that while many modern chipsets do support Bluetooth LE,

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some phone makers, notably Apple, have not yet chosen to enable it in their firmware.

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So Oslo is using kind of a hacky workaround.

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The sleep buds connect to your case using Bluetooth LE,

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and then the case connects to your phone using whatever your phone supports.

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So I had some range issues when I was close to my phone,

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but not close to the case. And also when I put my ARM over my face like this,

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but there's no fix for that issue

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because water is not good, your body's full of water.

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Since we're on the subject of the case, the sleep buds magnetically snap in for charging,

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taking about two and a half hours to reach a full charge. And the case features light, noise,

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and temperature sensors that for now will only detect when you're sleeping

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to do that audio switchover thing, but for the future,

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Oslo plans to expand the information they look for, so it'll be able to tell you

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if an ambulance drove by your window at two in the morning, which caused you to wake up

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and it wasn't your stupid brain's fault. That's not here yet,

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but they're hoping to roll it out soon, and they have committed that there will be

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no subscription fee for the functionality. Absolute bro move.

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Now, there have been so many products pitched to us in the past that claim, better health monitoring,

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or better lifestyle that we've turned down, or we've discontinued our partnership with

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because they have an outrageous or deceptive subscription model. So it was pretty refreshing to hear the CEO say that,

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quote, they are pretty committed that the hardware, the noise masking library, and the sleep tracking

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are all part of the purchase price. That doesn't mean there will never be a subscription,

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but it does seem to at least indicate that you get to keep the functionality you paid for

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without getting rug pulled. I hate that that's the W these days,

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but it kind of is. I also appreciate the W of being able to highlight

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both what's good and what's imperfect about these.

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In spite of the sponsored nature of this video. Oslo's not hiding that these are not a replacement

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for your fruit flavored ear beans. The lack of on-device volume control in particular

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is a bit of a downer for me. And they don't expect me to say that I magically

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got an uninterrupted eight hours with sleep buds.

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What I will say though, is that for the type of sleep aid that I need,

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which is comfortable, all night, noise blocking,

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these are solid. And I can see why so many people were jazzed

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to see the sleep buds return. If you guys enjoyed this video,

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maybe check out the time that Alex and I tried to build

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a temperature controlled mattress topper.