1More ComfoBuds Z Review: These Changed Sleep For Me!

So this is something a little more interesting. You might be wondering how these help someone sleep. Well, they’re tiny as heck, they block out a lot of sound and they’re pretty much designed only for sleep, but they have something that the most obvious competitor doesn’t.

I’ve been using the 1More ComfoBuds Z for almost six months at this point so that I can give a proper, long term review. Sleep is important to me, I track my sleep pretty religiously, not with the Apple Watch of course, and I’m an incredibly light sleeper. Think someone opens the front door and I wake up light. But these changed everything for me.

So let’s talk design first. These are incredibly small, from the case, which only weighs 34 grams, to the earbuds, which are just 2.7 grams. They sit super flush to the ear, or even less than flush really, which is the one big thing you should be looking for in a pair of sleep earbuds. Nothing’s worse than waking up in the middle of the night because your earbuds are causing your ears to hurt, especially if you’re a side sleeper like me.

The case is super simple, you get a USB-C charging port on the rear, but there’s no wireless charging, unfortunately. There’s this, white-ish, almost like an egg-shell look to the case and earbuds, which is pretty interesting, and it’s all matte plastic, so no worries about silicon wings or whatever on the earbuds causing squeaks when you’re sleeping.

The only real feature you need to know about these earbuds is that they’re designed for sleep. And that makes them a prime comparison to the Bose Sleepbuds. We’ll compare them later down below, just on paper, because I haven’t had a chance to try the Sleepbuds II, but yeah. These are way more affordable at S$159 or US$99, let’s just put it out there.

Anyway, you’ll need to download the 1More Music app for these earbuds, although there’s really nothing much in the app. You can choose between music or soothing modes, although it literally doesn’t feel like much of a difference. The reason you want the app is so that you can customise soothing sounds. 1More offers up to 30 soothing sounds, although there is a bit of a repeat with stuff like summer rain versus storm versus downpour.

Kinda all the same, maybe just slightly different. But yeah, right now, there are 30 sounds on here, and while you only see 25 on this page, it’s because I have five selected, so they’re taken out of the list so you don’t select two of the same tracks by accident. Pretty nice attention to detail there.

You can download six tracks at a time, and I currently have five, a good mix. There’s Breeze, which is essentially the wind blowing, Drizzle, which is a soft rain noise, Medium Fire, which is odd because there’s no small or large, but it’s an incredibly soothing sound of wood crackling and popping in a fireplace, and it’s actually my favourite. There’s also Outer Space, which is my second favourite and it’s sort of like a wind wooshing by as well, but with more variance in the sound than Breeze. Lastly, there’s Thunderstorm, which I hardly ever used because the sound just sounded quite repetitive. There wasn’t a lot of thunder that I heard either, so it just sounded like a heavier version of Drizzle.

This is definitely personal preference, so yeah. But the cool thing is that while most other sleep earbuds only allow you to play their soothing sounds, these earbuds can actually stream music and podcasts from your phone. It’s a definite win for people who prefer listening to soothing music instead of these sounds. I personally have a playlist that I listen to when I’m unwinding and it gets me to sleep sometimes. I like that I have the choice of which one I want to listen to.

Anyway, moving on, there’s really no other feature to talk about. There’s no touch control here, for obvious reasons. There’s no ANC here either, but the passive noise isolation is fantastic and it really blocks out pretty much all the noise. There aren’t any mics in these earbuds either, and yeah. It’s really just meant for helping you sleep better.

There’s Bluetooth 5.0 here, which is perfectly fine, and they support SBC and AAC if you want to stream your own music.

As for battery life, the earbuds themselves last up to 3.5 hours on a single charge, and that’s more than enough. I typically set a timer for the earbuds to turn off after 60 minutes since that’s usually enough time for me to get to sleep. 30 minutes is a bit too short, and the earbuds can actually go all the way up to 150 minutes.

The sound quality is pretty decent as well. 1More has thrown a balanced armature driver in here, and clearly, you won’t be using it for critical listening, but for just falling asleep to music, it’s perfectly adequate.

Honestly, I think this is a great offering for the price. My one hope is that 1More figures out a way to include an alarm feature. I’m a light enough sleeper that my phone’s vibration can wake me up, so it’s not a problem for me. But for people who might need the ringing of an alarm to wake up, it might be a bit difficult since the earbuds do such a good job of blocking out external noise. If 1More can implement an alarm feature like how the Bose Sleepbuds do it, I think these would be the winner, hands down.

So, let’s get to the comparison. They’re both very similar. The Bose Sleepbuds II is ever so slightly larger on paper because of the stabilising wing. That wing would definitely help the earbuds stay more securely in the ear, so that’s a plus for the Sleepbuds. Battery life, the Sleepbuds win too, 10 hours versus 3.5 hours. I personally only use the ComfoBuds Z to help me fall asleep, and I don’t require white noise the entire night, so this works fine for me, but if you need constant white noise, the Sleepbuds would be the better option.

The Sleepbuds do have an alarm feature that the ComfoBuds don’t, but the ComfoBuds can play music while the Sleepbuds can not. And more importantly, price. The ComfoBuds Z is just US$99 as I mentioned, while the Sleepbuds II retails at US$249, which is more than double the price. Unless you need that 10-hour battery life or the alarm function, I’d say it’s more worth it to get the ComfoBuds Z. I’m plenty happy with it.