I was exhausted. I had just returned from a trip and had driven more in three days than I normally drove in two weeks. This included several trips to accompany a friend to a nearby hospital, where I stayed until well after midnight. I was finally back home, in my own bed, and I was desperate for a good night's sleep.
So, I settled on one device from the stack of gadgets I have to review: the Aura smart sleep mask. It’s not exactly one of the best sleep trackers: unlike the Oura Ring, one of our best smart rings that monitors the quality of your sleep, the “Aura with an A” sleep mask focuses more on improving it. It does so with some interesting features, although it comes with a subscription-based app that’s all too common these days.
I charged the mask using the included USB-C cable and synced it with the Aura app (after signing up for the free trial, which lasts a week; after that, access to all the personalized meditation, sleep, and guided movement content on offer costs $59.99 a year, or about £45 or AU$90). I put it on and was surprised by how light and comfortable it was—the insert and eye pad covers softened the pressure of the hard plastic shell against my face. Though the sensation was unfamiliar, I quickly got used to sleeping on my side with it.
Its contoured design is said to block out 100% of light, and I'd say that aside from a small piece of light under the seam, it's pretty much completely accurate. Masks made entirely of fabric may be more comfortable for side sleepers, but this rigid mask blocks ambient light more effectively than a thin piece of fabric. It also lets you have some fun and gently tease your partner by pretending to be Cyclops from the X-Men.
The Aura mask has Bluetooth, allowing you to stream audio content from your phone through the mask using multiple ultra-thin speakers. The mask stores some ambient soundscapes, such as rain and forest sounds, in its Zen mode, and is designed to stream content from the Aura app.
I experimented with Spotify and found that I could play from there too, so if you wanted to use your own audiobooks from Audible, for example, there was no reason you couldn’t do that. I opted for basic Zen mode, pressing the power button under the fabric in the centre of the mask and going to sleep. It’s a strange sensation, pressing the mask against your face to turn it on, and I spent a bit of time playing around with it.
Other than waking up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and momentarily forgetting I was wearing it, I slept very well. Inside the mask is a light bar to wake up to called a light bar, which acts like the best wake-up lights to mimic the sunrise. It's a comparable experience to using a separate wake-up light and a very effective and very gentle way to wake up – much preferable to the alarm clock on your phone.
It really is an excellent piece of equipment and I can't fault either its comfortable design, its innovative features like the Glow Bar, or its performance as sleep headphones. I really enjoyed using it, although some of that may have been a novelty.
The biggest issue it faces, though, as mentioned in our full Aura Smart Sleep Mask review, is the price. At $229 (around £170 / AU$335) and with an extra $59.99 per year to access almost all of the content on the Aura app – which needs to be downloaded in order to use the mask – it’s really only aimed at those who have a lot of money to spend on better sleep.
I stopped subscribing to Calm when prices went up to $69.99 per year — after subscribing to a cheaper tier for years, it had given me the tools to carry out a meditation practice without its guided content, and the soundscapes exist on other streaming services like Spotify and YouTube.
There are cheaper alternatives to the Aura smart sleep mask, such as Snoozeband and Musicozy, which you might want to try first. I haven’t tried Snoozeband yet, so I can’t speak to its quality, but the Deluxe model costs $79.99 / £59.99 / around AU$120 – and that’s without the ongoing Aura app subscription.
I loved the experience of the Aura Smart Sleep Mask, but I wouldn't necessarily buy it as an essential without trying some cheaper alternatives first, especially with the subscription attached.
