If you’ve ever wished you could wear your earbuds to bed without worrying about them being uncomfortable or falling off in case you fell asleep while wearing them, you are not alone. This is exactly the reason why many companies have been launching sleep earbuds, specifically designed so that they sit flush with your ear and allow you to sleep comfortably while enjoying music or other content while you’re falling asleep. The Bluripp Sleepals Micro are among the smallest on the market and offer great comfort, good passive isolation and decent sound at a very affordable price.
Disclaimer: I received a free unit from Bluripp in order to write this review. The company sponsored this review, but received no editorial control over it. The MSRP for the Sleepals Micro is $49.99. Additional information on the official product page.
TL;DR: recap
| Pros |
Cons |
| + Incredibly light and comfortable
+ Great passive isolation + Decent sound quality + Long battery life + Great value |
– Case lid looks a bit fragile
– Audio quality is lower than traditional earbuds |
Rating: 7/10
Packaging & Accessories
The Sleepals come in a simple cardboard box which contains a second, smaller pair of eartips, a USB to USB-C cable and a manual.
Design & Comfort
The Bluripp Sleepals Micro are so small it is hard to believe that they house a driver, a battery and all the electronics necessary to work. They’re a genuine technological and engineering marvel. They’re so small you’d be excused if you thought that they are simply fancy earplugs – I surely did when I received them, and only after I heard a voice saying “pairing” I realised they were actually earphones!
The actual earpieces are even tinier than what they appear, as they are encased in silicone eartips that go all around the shell. It’s the eartips that also provide a flange that secures the earphones inside your ears. Bluripp provides a second pair in the box, which makes the flange significantly smaller. Both the earphones and the case come in three possible colours: black, beige and orange.
Build quality is decent, as the earpieces themselves are simply made of two pieces of plastic adjoined together, and the seam between them is hidden by the eartips.
Normally comfort is important when talking about earphones, as there is little point in having a model that sounds great if you can only wear it for a few minutes. In the case of the Sleepals Micro, comfort is everything and it’s literally the reason why these exist. I’m happy to report that the Sleepals Micro are very comfortable, to the point I often forget I’m wearing them. This is due to both their size (they’re just 9 mm thick) as well as their weight (just 2.5 g!). I normally sleep on my belly (bear with me for a second here, I’m not trying to tell you my life story like in recipe blogs here) and this means that I sleep with my head lying on one side; this is the exact situation that these earphones were designed for and they prove very comfortable provided that you use a soft pillow.
I found that, using a pillow with little stuffing, I slept without even realising I was wearing the earbuds, and even more comfortably than when wearing foam earplugs. A memory foam pillow, which kind of pushes you up and provides a lot of support to your head, paradoxically works less well than using a pillow with little stuffing, as the memory foam tends to push against the earphones and make them slightly uncomfortable over a whole night of sleep. The super-thin design of the Sleepals Micro works well in making them flush with my ears, and it should work with most people’s ears given the very small size of the earpieces. When sleeping on my back I have no issues at all, as the earbuds never touch the pillow.
I’ve also found that, thanks to the flange, I never lost them during the night. They always stayed in without moving, so that I wouldn’t have to play “where’s the earbud?” in the morning. The fit is very secure, to the point I feel like you could use these earbuds while doing exercise as well.
The Sleepals Micro offer surprisingly good passive isolation which removes most ambient sounds. While they are not as effective as foam earplugs, they get quite close as they are able to completely mask lower-intensity sounds and to significantly reduce other noises. The key, however, is to get the right fit; in my case, that means pushing the earphones in and then pulling them back slightly until I feel like they have achieved a good seal. It always takes a bit of fiddling, but it is easy to get there.
The case is circular and small enough to fit in the palm of my hand with abundant space to spare. It is, in fact, tiny, at about 6 cm in diameter. This makes it ideal for travel as well, as it easily fits in a bag or even in a wash bag (or toiletry bag). It is made of plastic with a soft-touch finish. The front is indicated by the presence of three LEDs: a main one which indicates the charge of the case, plus two smaller ones at each side that indicate whether the earpieces are charging. The lid on top slides away to reveal the charging cradle; inside it is a button which is the only way to interact with the earphones, given their lack of on-board controls. The case is the only element whose building quality could see some improvement, as the lid’s sliding mechanism is flimsy and unsteady. While this does not prove an issue during daily use, it could become one in the longer term, especially under heavy use.
Extra Features & Battery Life
One of the reasons why the Sleepals Micro are so affordable, while many competitors are around $200, is that they’re very simple: they come with no sensors, no companion app and no data. They’re not a substitute to a fitness tracker that monitors your sleep, they’re a simple device meant to help you relax and fall asleep better. They don’t even have active noise cancelling, instead relying on passive isolation to remove sounds from around you.
The Sleepals Micro come equipped with Bluetooth 5.3, but Bluripp does not disclose what codecs are available (they’re SBC and AAC, by the way). The range is very good and the signal is stable; when walking around my (small) flat I only start seeing interruptions and stuttering when I’m on the opposite side of the flat compared to the phone.
The microphone is very basic and is more of an added convenience than anything else, as people told me that I sounded very far away when using the earphones to take calls.
Volume is quite high even at its lowest level, although this depends heavily on the track being played; some are quite loud, while others manage a normal level. In my experience this is related to the frequencies involved, as tracks with a strong upper midrange component sound much louder than those with a lot of bass, as an example. Paradoxically, as a result some relaxing ambient music I’ve listened to was louder than death metal!
The company says that you can enjoy up to 4.5 hours of playback on a single charge, but in my experience they are severely underselling the true capabilities of the earphones: after two hours of playback, battery on my units was still at 80%, and by using them to fall asleep and setting a one-hour timer, the following morning they were still at 90% charge after being outside the cradle for about 8 hours. Bluripp claims that the case offers an additional 28 hours of playback, which is about 3 additional charges with the battery life I experienced – which tracks.
Sound & Specs
I tested the Sleepals Micro with my Google Pixel 7 Pro smartphone.
Bluripp Sleepals Micro |
| Frequency response | N/A |
| Impedance | N/A |
| Sensitivity | N/A |
| Bluetooth version | 5.3 |
| Codecs | SBC, AAC |
The spatial presentation is quite interesting, as the soundstage is wider than I’d expect it to be on such small earphones. In fact, it offers good lateral extension, although there is no depth. Imaging is surprisingly good, with instruments being placed across the whole left-right spectrum and good accuracy in their placement, although it is overall limited. Instrument separation is more than decent, as instruments always maintain their individuality, but more complex tracks show the limits of the driver.
The Sleepals Micro are heavily mid-centric earphones that privilege middle-upper midrange while offering reserved bass and treble. They’re ideal earbuds to listen to podcasts, as voices come out clearly and cleanly, or to music with simple lines. Complex, layered tracks are not the best choice – also because they don’t help you fall asleep. The Sleepals Micro are just perfect to listen to ambient music with a few instruments, or podcasts, or sound effects to help you sleep, as the frequency response is centred on midrange and works ideally for those. There is some bass that keeps things balanced, but it’s quite reserved; likewise, treble is almost hinted at, which works well for people who are sensitive to it. I’ve tried multiple tracks, like CELL’s album Onward System, Aurastore’s Untapped Horizons and Carbon Based Lifeforms’ Seeker, all with good results; it has to be said that these are not a replacement for “normal” earphones as they do not compare in terms of sound quality. This is a necessary compromise to reduce their size, and it is not one I feel like criticising given that the results are still quite good.
Overall, I find that the Sleepals Micro work very well for the task they are meant to perform. They offer good enough sound quality that you can play some soothing sounds or podcasts while you fall asleep, which is really what you would want from a product like this.
Final Thoughts
The Bluripp Sleepals Micro fill a very specific niche: reproducing sounds to help you fall asleep while being unobtrusive, both physically and in terms of not disturbing your partner with sounds they might not want to hear. They work amazingly well, as they offer absolutely fantastic comfort, to the point you don’t even realise that you are wearing them. They also offer good enough sound quality for podcasts and relaxing music to help you fall asleep quicker and better.
While they don’t offer all the fancy features that some competitors do, the Sleepals Micro get the basics very right and that’s what matters. One important point to consider is the price: at less than $50, the Sleepals Micro are super affordable. Given the experience they offer, I think that they are a great investment, especially if you’ve had trouble falling asleep and you’ve found that music or relaxing sounds help you in that regard.
