The Anker Soundcore Sleep A30 proves that sleep earbuds don't have to be a one-trick pony. They're exceptionally comfortable, offer surprisingly effective ANC, solid battery life, and enough sleep tracking to keep tabs on your nightly rest. At R3,500, they're an easy recommendation for light sleepers and side sleepers alike.
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Design
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Sound
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Battery
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Features
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Value
If you’re anything like us, you probably need the sultry tones of Stephen Fry to help you fall into the arms of Morpheus. If you’re not like us… you’ll just have to pretend you never saw that. Stuff recently got hold of Anker’s new Soundcore Sleep A30 — a pair of buds that want you to sleep on ’em. Stephen Fry not included.
Sure, you’ve already got a pair of buds. Maybe even a decent pair. They probably work just fine for just about everything but sleep. They’re pointy in all the wrong places, and you’ll usually only stick them in the ear that isn’t touching the pillow. Anker sorts all that, inviting you to stick both buds into the canal for the optimal experience.
Getting your beauty sleep?
So that’s exactly what we did. We might not have done so had the Sleep A30’s little buds looked just like every other plastic bud that’s ever come through Stuff. But these are different. They’re comfortable. They’re slim. A whole 7% slimmer than the Sleep A20, if Anker’s literature is correct. We’re just going to take their word for it.
The point: you’ll hardly remember these are lodged in your ears once your head hits the pillow. That’s the whole gimmick, and it lived up to our expectations and then some. We should note — fidgety sleepers may take some getting used to the silicone sensation in their ear. We’d occasionally wake up to find one or both buds bundled up in the blankets or sheets, but more often than not, we didn’t have our tunes interrupted in the middle of the night.
Pull the buds out of the case, and you’ll see what we mean. They’re uber flat, which means they won’t get in the way if you’re a side sleeper. The little silicone tips — of which the Sleep A30 has two per bud to further dampen sound — also don’t penetrate particularly deep into the ear canal, while still sporting a relatively tight fit.
The buds are pretty plain, with only Anker’s logo peering out from that flat edge of our Moonlit White pair. The silicone tips are soft and malleable, while the wingtips (customisable) meant to hold them in are a little less so. More important is how they look. We began wearing these outside the bedroom, and often found people surprised that we were even wearing a pair of buds at all.
Read More: Anker Soundcore Sleep A20 review – Perfect for sleeping
That flat edge turned out to be rather useful for accessing the touch controls, though you’re better off fidgeting with your phone in the middle of the night. Certain controls are tied to the specific L(eft) or R(ight) bud, and lifting your head to reach them feels counterintuitive. Yeah, the functions can be customised in the Soundcore app, but you’re definitely losing out on two controls whenever you’re lying down on your side.
The charging case is way more slick than the buds it protects, if a bit bulgey. It won’t fit quite as comfortably into a pocket as, say, AirPods, but it’ll fare well enough in a bag (or really big pocket). Still bearing the Moonlit White hue, the case doesn’t open how you’d expect. Instead, the lid slides back to reveal the depths beneath, just like the predecessor these are replacing. The buds are hooked up magnetically so they don’t fall out.
Oh yeah, it’s a Ballroom Blitzzz…
The Soundcore Sleep A30 is no slouch when it comes time to work. It’s loaded with ANC and 4.6mm drivers that held up surprisingly well. We thought that may have been our sleep-deprived brain being generous, but no. Those two not only make the Sleep A30 nice to wear at night, but out in public, too. They’re not going to replace Stuff’s go-to buds anytime soon, almost all of which offer better audio quality, but these make a case.
Most of the time, we played music or audiobooks through the A30 using Bluetooth mode (5.4, if you were wondering), but we did give in and try Soundcore’s local library of tunes. These range from semi-generic (“campfire feast”) all the way up to something that’ll supposedly mask the snoring of the person next to you.
We, uh, didn’t get a chance to put Soundcore’s snore-cancelling technology to work, but with ANC active, we doubt we’d have needed to. These are the highlight of the A30’s audio chops, blocking out a significant amount of sound before they’re even turned on. Those will be the double silicone tips we mentioned earlier. We managed to block out just about everything — barring a few planes that cruised through our defences.
To be fair, this reviewer lives mighty close to O.R Tambo International. If you live anywhere else, don’t let it bother you.
Despite its small stature, the Sleep A30 packs some incredible battery life. The buds contain nine hours of uptime on their own. Chuck them in the case, and you’ll get another 36 hours. Blasting Bluetooth audio directly does bring this figure down a smidge, but buds stop playback when it detects you’ve fallen asleep, and you’ll dramatically increase your battery gains.
Not just about the tunes
Oh, right. We haven’t mentioned that Soundcore’s little miracles can track your sleep, too. Not as well as we’d have liked, but well enough to give us a good idea of what went down behind closed eyelids. Specifically, the Sleep A30 reports on its wearers’ sleep stages, duration, and how often they snored.
For the most part, it does a good job. It certainly knew — roughly — when we had dozed off, and when the sun’s beams brought us back to consciousness. Sometimes, though, it mistook our bedrotting and doomscrolling sessions for actual sleep, making us appear more well-rested the next day.
Soundcore’s sleep scores aren’t meant to be taken quite so literally. If you have genuine sleep anxiety, the Sleep A30 may alert you to some preliminary patterns, but most of the time, a dedicated tracker is what you’ll need. But for the basics, we liked what Soundcore served up every morning.
Anker Soundcore Sleep A30 verdict
The Soundcore Sleep A30 aren’t just another pair of earbuds with a bedtime gimmick. They’re genuinely comfortable enough to wear all night, and pack some surprisingly capable ANC. Light sleep tracking features are just the cherry on top. And it does it all without standing in the way of what actually matters: getting some decent shut-eye. At R3,500, the Sleep A30 makes a compelling case for anyone who’s struggled to nod off with traditional earbuds or noisy neighbours. Even if you never touch the sleep-tracking features, you’ll be hard-pressed to find another pair this comfortable to wear from dusk till dawn.
