Falling asleep with earphones in

[Mobbd]

I've been doing this for perhaps five years now, drifting off to sleep with a podcast.

I've long felt that it's a bad habit I should probably get out of, but I'm coming to accept that it's just something I do.

My current earphones have a cable attached to my iPhone so I'd like to get some bluetooth ones.

I bought some supercheap ones on eBay but they have LEDs in them that light up the room.

Does anyone have a recommendation of a good, preferably cheap set of bluetooth earphones?

Or indeed any general comments on this?

Being cable-free, do they fall out in the night and get lost?

Does falling asleep with earphones in damage your ears in any way that people have experienced/know about?

[bgmnts]

Sounds very dangerous, if you need it in my recommendation would be a bluetooth headband. I have one and it is very comfy and the sound isn't bad. You look like a stupid Karate Kid knock off but it really is useful.

[Martin Van Buren Stan]

What about those pillows with speakers in?

[Endicott]

85db is the suggested safe limit for earphones, and a rule of thumb to work out if you're at that level or not is, hold them at arms length and ask yourself if you can make out the tune. If you can, they are too loud. But then time spent listening also comes into play, so if you are going louder it's not necessarily an issue if it's only for short periods.

I'd guess that if you're listening to speech, it's not likely to be that loud anyway.

I had a pair of these amazon link which are cheap, fit securely and have a good battery life, but they sound very tinny. I had to use the graphic equaliser on my phone to listen to music on them, and eventually I replaced them with something more expensive I found in the Chinese equipment threads.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Sharpee or electrical tape over the leds on the ones you already have.

[JaDanketies]

once I fell asleep on drugs listening to a free noise album by Adult Swim and when I awoke several hours later discovered that I had been listening to the same Melt Banana track on repeat.

[H-O-W-L]

I suggest speakers tbh. Got lots of wax issues when I used to do this. If you don't have speakers, what I do is put my headphones on loud on my desk and tilt the cans outward. Me ears adjust to it and hear it but it's not loud enough to hurt or be heard outside my room. That and it becomes quiet enough when I'm asleep that it doesn't disturb me.

[Martin Van Buren Stan]

Clip on headphones like the koss ksc75 could be okay? You can sleep on your side and just have one on. They're wired though so ignore this

[Sonny_Jim]

I do this a lot as well, speaker pillow is out as it keeps the wife awake.  After wrecking a set of nice headphones, I just use whatever cheap crap wired earbuds I can buy at a service station and use one of these to convert them to bluetooth:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001621962879.html

That way when the wires break, I just buy a new set of cheapo wired ones.  I suppose it makes more sense to get the cordless ones from the get go, but I'd be worried about breaking them.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I've been doing this for perhaps five years now, drifting off to sleep with a podcast.

I've long felt that it's a bad habit I should probably get out of,

I don't see what's wrong with it. I do it all the time. I find I fall asleep quicker if I'm actually trying to concentrate on something. It's like a sod's law sort of thing, where my brain does the opposite of what I want it to (luckily, my brain is too stupid to realise that I'm using reverse psychology on it).

I have woken up several times with the headphone wire wrapped around my neck, but I expect that's more dangerous for the headphones than me.

[bgmnts]

What about those pillows with speakers in?

I have had both, and if you cannot handle anything on you during sleep (eye mask etc) then pillow is better but the sound quality is better and more immediate with a headband in my experience.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I realise this is only tenuously related to the thread at hand but I'm booked in for an appointment to get custom moulds for my earbuds and I am very excited about it. I attempted some diy ones in the past using the putty for making your own ear defenders and shoving the buds in and boring out a hole and they were very comfortable but I couldn't get the quite alignment right doing it myself and I ended up losing one of them when taking stuff out my pockets.

[JaDanketies]

I realise this is only tenuously related to the thread at hand but I'm booked in for an appointment to get custom moulds for my earbuds

fancy! I might put this on the 'luxurious treat for myself' pile and maybe do it in the future. I definitely like the sound of it.  I've always been aware that I am wearing earbuds and I'm always taking them out and putting them in again. It'd be good to have 'the perfect pair' so I know I'm definitely wearing them wrong. 

[Dex Sawash]

Being cable-free, do they fall out in the night and get lost?

"I was sleeping with bluetooth earbuds in and that's how they got up my rectum, Dr."

[Sebastian Cobb]

fancy! I might put this on the 'luxurious treat for myself' pile and maybe do it in the future. I definitely like the sound of it.  I've always been aware that I am wearing earbuds and I'm always taking them out and putting them in again. It'd be good to have 'the perfect pair' so I know I'm definitely wearing them wrong. 

Yeah I think I must be in-between sizes or something as I end up constantly fiddling and either have small ones that go too far in and cause a load of wax build up or too big and constantly push themselves back out my lughole. The DIY ones were quite stiff but fit my ear like a jigsaw piece, could barely tell they were in, but sat perfectly.

[Bence Fekete]

Had this exact earphone dilemma for ages and eventually my lugs got so blocked the GP got physically angry and demanded I sort it oot.

'Whaaat?!', I bellowed, although he didn't get or care for the joke. It's the heat generation combined with lack of airflow that melts and resettles the wax, apparently. AFAIK there is no way to avoid this with any current earphone design.

I also wanted something that blocks out at least some noise as well (night/work owl/occasional insomniac, mainly sleep in the day) so spent weeks going through the options. For me lack of sleep also exacerbates illness so I was prepared to save and spend £££ if needed. I tried some Sony WH-1000XM4s that had way too much head grip and eventually gambled on these ~£200 Kokoon 'sleep-phones'.




They look comfy and, frankly, they are incredibly comfy. They got that bit 100%. You can (and I do) sleep in them, even though I'm a side sleeper some judicious arrangement of pillows is enough to make it passable. They're not amazing at blocking out noise but better than nought and other over-ears I've tried, and it's often enough just to know that they're there to dampen whatever crap is going on outside - if required. They do have some meh noise cancellation although I never use it.  The best part is they're made of permeable fabric so although quite warming your ears aren't ever getting clogged/pulverised with overuse.

Full disclaimer: everything else about them is garbage. Crap electronics, mediocre sound, crap app, doesn't do any of the 'sleep monitoring' as advertised, crap support. I was on the brink of sending them back but in the end I just couldn't part with them. There is no other solution that I could find that helps block background noise and be comfy enough to zzz, and they are close to ideal for that exact combination of things.

They routinely go on offer but there is no way they are worth even £200....  I can't recommend them at all. But they are insanely fucking comfy and probably one of my favourite ever things. Sleep patterns restored - tick.

[JarrowMonkey]

Billy Joel considers re-write

https://youtu.be/vjN_3Atjw2g

[touchingcloth]

85db is the suggested safe limit for earphones, and a rule of thumb to work out if you're at that level or not is, hold them at arms length and ask yourself if you can make out the tune. If you can, they are too loud.

To help with this, I work on a building site to ensure I can't hear my headphones even inches from my ears.

[Midas]

wish i could stop myself blasting tunes into my ears

i spend a significant amount of each day with the volume cranked UP to ear-deafening levels.

listening to music like this probably doesn't help matters...

[Midas]

tried this quick online hearing test. got 'good hearing' overall but my results for the last tone seemed to indicate possible 'mild issues'. i am going to kick! this! habit!

[Glebe]

[itsfredtitmus]

Superglue yourself to them so it's impossible to fall asleep with them "out" you!

[Sebastian Cobb]

we've all watched eurotrash mate

[Memorex MP3]

I used to just turn them up really loud and treat them as a quiet speaker beside me. Figured that can't be good for the headphones so I rewired a speaker from an old tablet to and audio jack to serve the same purpose (except slightly louder).




Not amazing headphones, but you can get Sony WH-CH710N's for 40 pound sealed on ebay. 35 hour battery, decent bluetooth range, audio jack that works without power, (some) noise cancellation... fairly versatile range of functionality for that price point without the weird concessions you'll often get.

As far as bluetooth earphones go, I had a pair of TCL MTRO100BT that I got for like 3 pound a while back. 18 hour battery that seemed to fully charge in about an hour. Sound was absolutely shite and there was occasional weirdness with chargers (didn't seem to like shitty aliexpress chargers/cables very much), but the range was decent and the recharge rate was exceptional for the price.

As a sorta cables/sorta wired option, the Sony SBH24 bluetooth adapter is decent enough and the pair of earphones that come with it are a bit of a cult classic. Can be gotten for under 20 pound.

[Mobbd]

Thanks for the tips, everyone.

Not sure what to do yet. Hmm.

Speakers, pillowed or otherwise, are no good because there's another person in the room. Has to be earphones.

I'm kinda curious about the sleeping band solution but I just can't imagine sleeping comfortably in something like that. I never get along with sleeping masks. Not sure.

I suppose I'll have to either quit the habit somehow (though whenever I try, I end up lying awake til about 4am, thoughts racing) or carry on with wired earbuds.

I always keep the volume low and, when I wake up, they've always fallen from my ears (which is why I'm concerned about Bluetooth ones falling out and getting lost). The wired connection rarely pulls my phone off the bedside table so there's no inherent problem with this above other options really.

The main reason I'm interested in Bluetooth tbh is that wired earbuds aren't supported by iPhones anymore. I currently have an adapter cable to use wired earbuds in an iPhone 7 but this causes problems sometimes (it won't always connect immediately, which is frustrating, and it seems to lead to the charging socket getting gubbed up more than it used to).

You know, I think I'm going to downgrade to either an iPhone 6 or an Android phone that still allows for wired. Fuck it.

[QDRPHNC]

I used to do this with Alan Watts, until one time I was startled awake with him screaming ALLAH ALLAH ALLAH ALLAH ALLAH into my fragile ear holes.

[Mobbd]

I used to do this with Alan Watts, until one time I was startled awake with him screaming ALLAH ALLAH ALLAH ALLAH ALLAH into my fragile ear holes.

Haha, yes that sort of thing does occasionally happen.

I once fell asleep to Buckles talking to Charlotte Gainsbourg and I came around in the middle of the night to hear "her" talking about her successes in writing comedy because I'd forgotten to set the "sleep after this episode" thing and it had moved on to something else. Not a loud noise in this case, just disorientating. "I didn't know Serge Gainsbourg's kid wrote sitcoms" is a weird waking thought to have.

I quite often listen to old Gervais/Merchant/Pilkinton pods (yeah, I know), and for some reason it puts me right to sleep. Somehow the shouting/laughing doesn't wake me up at all. Really odd.

I've noticed that someone has been uploading Gerv/Pilki pods to YouTube with flattened/equalized sound specifically for people to fall asleep to. It's listened to by hundreds of thousands of people.

Anything live (like RHLSTP) is bad because there's too much sonic variance and audience energy. I think it's the quiet intimacy of mouth to mic to ear that puts people to sleep, plus familiarity with the voice or the material probably.

I should probably get off this shit and into Headspace or ASMR or something really.

[thenoise]

speaker pillow is out as it keeps the wife awake.

> leave wife

[Sebastian Cobb]

I once fucked my youtube recommendations into a cocked hat by falling asleep to chapo and when I woke up the algorithm had ended up on a 2 hour trump speech. God knows where else it went along the way, I was too perturbed to look at the history.

[H-O-W-L]

I once fucked my youtube recommendations into a cocked hat by falling asleep to chapo and when I woke up the algorithm had ended up on a 2 hour trump speech. God knows where else it went along the way, I was too perturbed to look at the history.

I presume said cocked hat was red.