To me, there’s nowhere more affected by the loss of the 3.5mm headphone jack than the bedroom. Plugging in my phone and falling asleep to a podcast got me through plenty of otherwise restless nights in college. But when Bluetooth earbuds took over the industry nearly a decade ago, I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Do I get a good night’s rest only to wake up to an uncharged phone the next morning, or do I plug my phone in and try my best to doze off on my own?
Bluetooth earbuds designed specifically for sleeping have been around for a few years now, but they’ve always had a pretty sizable amount of compromises. With the Soundcore Sleep A20 earbuds, though, Anker is hoping it’s cracked the code on how to make the perfect audio solution for sleeping. But with the competition growing stiffer than ever, can Anker’s second-gen sleep earbuds stand out among a crowd, or will these end up sleeping with the fishes?
Anker Soundcore Sleep A20
Anker’s sleep-focused earbuds are some of the best you’ll find on the market, with a light feel, lots of sizing options, and long battery life. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement in future versions.
- Lots of tip and wing options
- Long battery life
- Bluetooth and on-device options for sounds
- Not as comfortable as you might hope for
- No ANC support
- Touch controls are finnicky and unresponsive
Price, availability, and specs
Anker’s Soundcore Sleep A20 earbuds are available from Amazon, Best Buy, and Anker’s own Soundcore website for $150. They’re available in a single “Slumber Beige” colorway.
What’s good about the Anker Soundcore Sleep A20 earbuds?
Customized comfort
Unboxing Anker’s latest sleepbuds can feel a little overwhelming, especially compared to traditional earbuds. That might sound like a problem, but it’s actually a good thing when it comes to something you’ll likely be looking to wear throughout the night. Unlike other earbuds, these come with seven different pairs of tips and three different ear wing sizes. Those ear tips come in both sealed and breathable varieties, with the latter delivering more comfort at the cost of passive noise cancelation.
Once you’ve determined which size tips and wings fit your ear most comfortably — an experience Anker warns may take some time — you’re left with some pretty unique Bluetooth buds. The overall look and feel of the Sleep A20 is, well, fleshy. Everything is wrapped in this soft-touch, beige, rubbery material that I don’t love, though I understand why Anker chose this finish for sleep-specific earbuds. It feels more comfortable than harder plastics, specifically when you’re laying down and putting pressure on your ear canal.
In general, these earbuds fit pretty fine in my ears. For all the choices included in the box, I’ve struggled to find my preferred personal size — more on that later — but they can’t shake out of my head, and that’s good enough for me. Aside from the lack of ANC, they’re especially good for planes, where you might want to rest your head without feeling the discomfort of, say, Sony’s larger, more rigid XM5s.
Although you could probably get by without it, Anker’s Soundcore app is all but a necessity for these earbuds, though I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. It’s not my favorite partner app, but it’s easy enough to understand and absolutely chock-filled with features. You’re going to want to customize certain elements of the Sleep A20 buds before you hit the hay, and thankfully, it’s not a terrible experience.
This is a review, not a guide, so I don’t want to go too in-depth into what the app allows you to do. But outside of viewing your sleeping data (because, yes, these act as fitness trackers as much as headphones), you can swap between Bluetooth and on-device sleep modes, set alarms, and enable a one-hour sleep timer. You can also download sleep sounds like rain, forests, and pink noise directly to the earbuds.
Although it might feel a little overwhelming at first, everything is pretty easy to figure out just by poking around the menu. There’s even a “Find Device” option for playing a loud beeping noise, a lifesaver if you lose track of one of the buds.
I hate to talk about battery life in vague notions, but thanks to the nature of sleep buds — and how I wear them, which I’ll discuss more in the next section — it’s hard to put exact numbers on the Sleep A20. I do know that, during times when I’m wearing these to bed most nights in a week, I still only need to charge the case around once a week at most. These are rated at 14 hours on a single charge (or 10 in Bluetooth mode) with an additional 80 hours in the case, and those numbers feel accurate to me. I would always think about how it’s been a while since I’ve charged the earbuds before I ever ran out of juice.
I’ve saved sound quality for last, and with good reason. It’s not that Anker’s earbuds sound bad — I think it’s obvious that sound quality isn’t the point. While I’m sure some users do fall asleep to music, I would guess that these are primarily used for spoken word audio — podcasts, audiobooks — or white noise, whether genuine or emulated through rain or ocean effects. You don’t need impressive drivers for those cases, and Anker’s decision on what hardware to use was, to my ears, the correct one.
It’s not like listening to music or watching a movie on a plane is a downright awful experience. These sound perfectly fine to my non-audiophile ears, with just enough bass to prevent them from feeling too hollow. The cymbals in Weezer’s remastered Blue Album sound a little harsh compared to other, higher-quality earbuds, but again, these are not designed to be your primary listening experience. For what they’re built for, these are more than good enough.
One more thing worth mentioning: These earbuds can get very, very quiet. I think this is a great thing for something designed to help you fall asleep. The last thing I want when I lay down at night is to find myself too distracted by a podcast or YouTube video, and not every audio product is as good as getting ultra quiet as these.
Read our review
What’s bad about the Anker Soundcore Sleep A20 earbuds?
Dude, where are my buds?
Some of my pet peeves with Anker’s latest sleepbuds come down to personal preference, so bear with me. First, let’s talk fit. As I said, I have yet to find the Sleep A20 capable of slipping out of my ear — when I’m sitting up, that is. In bed, comfort and fit is, as Anker predicted, more difficult. Most nights with these earbuds end with at least one of the buds (usually the left side) no longer in my ear, lost among whatever sheets and blankets are piled up on my bed. I have tried every combination of wing and tip that fit me, and none have stopped this from occurring.
Not that I really want it to stop, though. I simply cannot find a perfectly comfortable fit with these earbuds. This might come down to the shape of my ears, or it could be a baked-in problem, where sleeping with anything putting pressure on your head is simply going to be uncomfortable. Either way, I got used to leaving the case open on my nightstand in the middle of the night, all to make it just a little easier for my half-asleep self to take them off. More times than not, I’d wake up with the buds lying within their individual spaces (or, you know, near them), with no memory of having removed them.
That discomfort and inability to get through a full night wearing these earbuds means I’ve had very little luck with the built-in sleep tracking offered by Anker. I’m not a particularly big fan of sleep tracking from any smart device — I know when I have or haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep purely based on how I feel in the morning — and I’m not sure these earbuds would change that for me. The little data I have gathered doesn’t seem particularly accurate, but your mileage may vary. You need both earbuds for any of these features to work.
This also comes down to my personal preferences for earbuds. There are plenty of nights where I’m exhausted to the point of not needing audio to fall asleep, while other nights, listening to a podcast while I’m drifting off to sleep is borderline necessary. Unlike a smartwatch or smart ring, which can be worn with very little disruption, using earbuds feels like a very specific action. And if you happen to sleep with a partner, closing them off from conversation completely as you head to bed can, frankly, feel a little rude to do every single night, as good sleep tracking would require.
These concerns go double for the Sleep A20’s built-in alarm. While I think it’s a pretty ingenious idea to help prevent an early alarm from waking up those around you, every time I tried to wake up solely with Anker’s headphones, I had to rely on a backup alarm to save me. If these fall out of your ears while you’re sleeping, you’re probably going to be late for work.
I simply cannot find a perfectly comfortable fit with these earbuds.
One of the most frustrating elements of the Sleep A20 has to be their playback controls. These are customizable within the app settings, allowing you to change what a double or triple tap on each respective earbud does. You’ll hear a little chime whenever an action is successfully pulled off, and unfortunately, that’s not all too often. I’ve had decent luck with double taps, which is why my current setting has volume controls linked to those quick presses.
Triple taps, though, failed just as often as they succeeded, a problem that, for whatever reason, only got worse while lying in bed. I would’ve liked Anker to add some kind of small, physical button to at least one of these earbuds. While that might require more pressure than simply tapping multiple times, it would also reduce failure points, the last thing you want when you’re just trying to fall asleep at night.
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Should you buy the Anker Soundcore Sleep A20?
Although I have plenty of problems with Anker’s Soundcore Sleep A20 earbuds, at the end of the day, they’ve earned their spot on my nightstand. These aren’t the airy, comfortable buds of my dreams, but they’re good enough to fall asleep with most nights, and that’s what matters. The core features are all here: Bluetooth listening, long battery life, on-device soundscapes, and sound quality just good enough to not feel like you’re making a sacrifice.
That said, I’m hoping whatever’s next for Anker’s sleep-focused earbuds can make a couple of changes along the way. Comfort continues to be a problem — I don’t think you could put too many ear tip sizes in the box — and those playback controls are far too unreliable. I’d love to see ANC in the next version rather than relying on passive sound blocking, and the ability to ditch the wing tips altogether if you’re looking for less pressure in your ear.
At $150, I think they’re just a little too expensive to recommend at full price; you can buy really good, everyday-wear earbuds for the same amount. But if, like me, you like having the option to fall asleep to podcasts or white noise every night without disturbing your partner, these are undoubtedly worth looking at if you find them at a discount. I can’t wait for the next iteration of this concept. The fundamentals are there — now all Anker needs to do is nail down all-night comfort and ANC, and it’ll undoubtedly be the sleep brand to beat.
Anker Soundcore Sleep A20
Anker’s upgraded sleep-focused Bluetooth earbuds focus on comfort and compatibility over all else. With a soft, rubber finish, long battery life, and breathable ear tips, these are designed to help you fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer.
