Soundcore Sleep A20 by Anker Sleep Earbuds 30dB High-Frequency Noise Reduction Small Earplugs for Side Sleepers 80H Playtime

Let me start by being honest; Amazon's not letting me review the new A30's here but here's my review of both A20's and the new A30's. This is posted on SoundCore's site as well: First a couple of back story statements: Amazon is now not taking reviews of the A30's unless the buds are purchased through them and since I was part of the Early Bird KickStarter and got them directly from SoundCore I couldn't do a review there (where most of the reviews are posted and viewed). It seemed that the majority of reviews on Amazon were from first time SoundCore users. I've had six months of A20 use and the same amount of time communicating with SoundCore's Support Team and Tech Team so I have some viewpoints on that. As a note I was a Bose SleepBud user for three years and experienced all the down sides of their difficulties with battery, range and software glitches that eventually drove them to decide to discontinue the product. Here's my take going from the plus side to the somewhat negative side: For those of us who had good experiences with the A20's the shift to the A30's is far easier than it would be for a first time user. The app layout is similar with some changes that take into account the ANC tech and the ability to store more than one "Land" sleep sound whether white noise or snore blocking. While this seems a little clunky unless you want to continually change sleep sounds night by night I don't see any issue with this. The setup is quite easy as were the A20's and pairing whether using the app or the Bluetooth setting is simple. The app's navigation is similar to the A20's with some needed additions to the Sound Scape variety for pre-sleep. As with the A20's the range of the buds from a phone is excellent so if you have to head to a distant bathroom or elsewhere the long range really helps. The whole reason for switching from the A20's to the A30's was the addition of ANC to the product. The A30 bud is slightly larger than the A20 but certainly still low profile and comfortable and permits side sleeping without issues. The reviews mentioning the lack of sensitivity with the touch adjustments for sound level and switching from Bluetooth to Sleep mode may be due to the need to contact the bud DIRECTLY on the flat face rather than even slightly off center. A big complaint from reviewers on both A20's and A30's is the sudden transition from Bluetooth mode to Sleep mode that's jarring and tends to wake you up with the software detects sleep. I think this is being addressed but is a definite downside for both devices. Again, similar to the A20's. I've communicated some of my concerns about the transition from A20's to A30's directly to SoundCore's teams but my chief complaint is the difficulty in SoundCore's verbiage on the directions for the products. Simple is good and my experience with both the ear buds as well as other SoundCore speakers is that their directions use quite confusing wording and in general need to be far more clear and use simple statements that don't require trying to figure out what the terminology means and what they're intended to do. Finally, I've read reviews that are critical of the ANC function in terms of how much noise the A30's is blocked out. My experience is that the ANC is not nearly as effective as either over the ear cans or competitors' like Bose's noise cancelling but in such a small package that's very comfortable for sleep positions you're not going to fit total ANC in the bud. It does reduce background noise but is certainly not capable of true ANC as of right now. Now for the positive; In the six months I've dealt directly with SoundCore their Support and Tech teams are excellent. In a business that normally does not have the ability to directly contact the manufacturer by phone the Tech team is accessible and very helpful. SoundCore Support is email only but VERY responsive in a short time frame and is very patient and helpful. I know this may seem a side issue but for anyone that's experienced product and setup direction issues being able to get quick responses and tech guidance is a game changer. SoundCore is pushing hard on brands like Bose's product placement and is now in both Verizon stores as well As Costco. With the added customers i'm hoping that the customer service gets expanded and can keep up. I know that SoundCore is working on software updates and some technical tweaks and that should help but right now not sure that switching from the A20's to the much pricier A30's is necessary. For first time SoundCore customers the A30's function well and have some features that make it worth the bucks with the proviso that SoundCore will continue the software and direction improvement. Read more

I have been an Anker Soundcore Sleep Earbuds customer since the beginning. I purchased the original A10, then backed the A20 in the Kickstarter and purchased a second pair (for my wife) from Amazon. I also backed and received the A30 on Kickstarter and are using those presently. So, I don't give a review like this one lightly. I got my original A20 earbuds back in May 2024 and the 2nd pair in Jan 2025. Honestly, they are awesome. Sound quality is great, periodic cleaning kept them working well, they mask noise well and the battery life was perfectly fine until.... A month or so ago, my A20's got the 1.57 firmware update from Soundcore. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but the right earbud just started refusing to charge above 30%. It would charge from 0% to 30% just fine, indicating it had good contact with the pogo pins. But it simply would not charge over 30%, ever. The left earbud charged perfectly fine to 100% every time. I did some research and it turns out many others are experiencing the same issue, specific to the 1.57 firmware update. Apparently, that firmware has a known issue where it messes up the battery calibration of the right earbud and causes this exact problem. So, in short, Soundcore pushed a firmware update to my A20 earbuds and in the process made them unusable. You might think "Well, they're in the 18 month warranty, just get them replaced". I did reach out to support, and they agreed to replace the earbuds, but what happens when Soundcore pushes out a firmware update that breaks the earbuds when they are just out of warranty? If the warranty is 18 months, and Soundcore can break your device outside of the warranty at any time, this means that the device has an 18 month lifespan. So, if you are going to purchase these be aware that they should be considered disposable and you probably won't get more than 18 months of usage out of them given the above. UPDATE: 2025-12-20 Soundcore sent me replacement A20's for the ones that they damaged with their 1.57 firmware update. These new A20 sleep buds came with a much higher revision of the firmware 03.22. So, it looks like the firmware now skips from 1.50 to 03.22, as Soundcore definitely has pulled 1.57 off their servers (since it broke so many customers' A20s). But... the replacement pair Soundcore sent me were defective. The right earbud consistently discharges at more than 2x the left earbud. So for example, after 7 hours of Sleep Mode white noise playback, the left ear bud would be at 70% while the right ear bud was at 30%. I am continuing to see if I can get Soundcore to actually send me a functioning replacement for the sleep buds they broke. We'll see what happens... UPDATE: 2025-12-29 Soundcore sent me a second replacement for the defective A20's that they sent as the first replacement for the A20's they bricked with the 1.57 firmware update. So, this is now the third pair of A20s... This pair appears to work correctly, and the right and left earbud discharge battery at the same rate and look like they will achieve 12-14 hours of playback at 50% volume in Sleep Mode. So... after several weeks of back and forth, and multiple pairs of bricked or defective earbuds, it looks like I have a properly working pair again. Support was very helpful about all of this, and I found them receptive to all of the issues I was experiencing, so I don't want to be disparaging of Soundcore support at all here. In general, I've found them good to work with. But... I think the quality control of the Soundcore products is not great. I had battery discharge issues with my original A10 earbuds, and went through a similar replacement dance with those as well. It seems like Soundcore's sleepbuds are prone to battery issues very frequently, since I've now seen issues with uneven battery discharge in 4 separate pairs of A10 and A20 earbuds. My wife's A20 sleepbuds are still on the 1.50 firmware, as the 1.57 firmware has been pulled by Soundcore. I asked support about this and they confirmed that there were multiple hardware revisions of the A20's, and the replacement A20's that I got (which are on the 03.22 firmware) are a later hardware revision than the A20s that were on the 1.50 and 1.57 firmware. Support left it very ambiguous as to whether or not hardware with the 1.50 line of firmware would even continue to get firmware updates, or if that hardware revision has been effectively abandoned by Soundcore. If you are going to purchase these, you need to make sure that the firmware is the 03.22 line, and NOT the 1.50/1.57 line, since that means you have an older revision of the hardware. Read more