A white noise machine that doesn't make white noise?
I've got tinnitus and use white noise or relaxing sounds to help distract from the constant ringing in the ears. I recently got a fan-based white noise generator that lets you adjust the tone and volume and have been using that in the bedroom to help sleep. I had been curious about some of the electronic white noise generators and thought to give this one a try, thinking I would use it in my office.<br /><br />Probably the best thing going for this device is that it looks nice. It's about the size of an Echo Dot, looks sleek, has a nice speaker on top, and a great looking screen. First impressions were very good. Actually operating the device is another story. There are 6 touch buttons on it (no tactile feedback) - power, volume, timer, lock, category, sound. Operating this should be easy, but it is really not pleasant. For instance, to adjust the volume, you can't simply press volume up or down, there are no such buttons. There is just a single volume button. You can hold it, and the volume will change in 1 direction. I guess it cycles to the loudest sound, and then back down to the quietest sound? Strange.<br /><br />Then there are the scenes/music you can cycle through. There's a category button, and a sound button. You can press category to cycle through categories, and within each category you can press the sound button to cycle through the sounds in that category. There's no indicator on the screen of which category or sound you are in. So you can cycle through things like nature, animals, life, etc. Some of the options are very strange, like there is an ASMR category which contains sounds like eating potato chips, or drinking water. There are some genuinely good sounds in here, but I find it very strange to navigate around. I wish there was some visual indicator of the category or sound, because I have to look at the instruction manual to try and figure out which category I am in. I suppose if you find a favorite sound and don't want to switch to others it would be fine, but I still don't like the process of navigating the sounds on this.<br /><br />The thing that is most baffling to me is that this is called a white noise machine, the manual calls it a white noise machine, but there are actually no white noise options to choose from on it.<br /><br />Pros:<br />- Looks nice<br />- Decent speaker<br />- Screen is good quality<br />- Displays temperature/humidity on screen<br />- Battery powered<br />- Can work OK if you find a sound you like and don't want to navigate around<br /><br />Cons:<br />- Single button for volume control is bad<br />- Navigating scenes/sounds is not intuitive, it's hard to tell where you are and where you're going without referencing the manual<br />- It's called a white noise machine but doesn't actually have any white noise option<br /><br />For all it gets right, the stuff it gets wrong is enough for me to not recommend it.
Rating: 1 stars