- Hi, guys.
Cliff Olson, doctor of audiology
and founder of Applied Hearing Solutions
in Phoenix, Arizona, and in this video,
I'm doing a detailed review of the SNOOZ white noise masker,
which is my new secret weapon against tinnitus, coming up.
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Tinnitus or tinnitus, whichever you prefer to say,
can be extremely annoying.
In most cases, it's your brain's response
to the lack of auditory input
typically caused by a hearing loss.
And if you find yourself in a quiet room,
it can make your perception of tinnitus even worse
because there's no significant amount of sound
to distract you from it.
Due to this, hearing aids are a great way
to reduce your perception of tinnitus during the daytime,
but unless you have a Lyric hearing aid
that you can wear 24/7, when you go to bed at night
and take your hearing aids out,
that tinnitus eventually comes back.
However, another thing that you can do
without having to wear hearing aids
is using a noise masker.
Noise maskers have been used for years
to help treat tinnitus because it helps distract your brain
away from focusing on that tinnitus sound.
In fact, I have a number of videos on my YouTube channel
where I have a variety of different masking sounds
that do help out significantly
with the perception of tinnitus.
The problem is it's not always convenient
to be playing these videos,
especially when you're going to sleep.
This is where the SNOOZ White Noise Machine comes into play.
But before I get into my review
on this nifty little device, if you could do me a huge favor
and click the like button, it really helps out my channel
because it gets these videos in front of a broader audience.
And while you're at it,
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go ahead and do that right now as well because that ensures
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That being said, let's go ahead and get into the review.
Now there are a lot of white noise generators on the market
so I will link this particular product
in the description of this video
if you want to check it out yourself.
SNOOZ is by far the best tinnitus masker
that I have ever used, and I have used a ton of them.
First of all, it actually uses an internal fan.
It does not digitally create sound,
which is really nice because I feel like the fan noise
is a more natural sound than a digitally reproduced sound.
On top of that, it doesn't have a loop,
meaning, when you're listening to a digital sound,
let's say that the track is a minute long,
every time it switches from track to track
or reloops back through that same track,
it's like you hear that little skip of a CD,
which can be extremely annoying
in a lot of these different noise generators.
Now I'm gonna go ahead and turn on the SNOOZ right now,
and you can hear it running.
And I want you to pay attention to the change in pitch
of the white noise.
(device whooshes)
When you rotate the outer shell,
it actually changes the perception of the pitch
of that white noise, so you can actually find the pitch
that best masks your tinnitus.
Now of course, the third thing that I like about this
is that you can change between 10 different volume levels,
so you can actually make it pretty loud,
(device whooshes)
or you can turn it down and make it softer.
It just depends on the volume that you want to play it at.
So if your tinnitus is really, really bad,
you might want to have it on a louder setting.
If your tinnitus is not that bad,
you can probably back it off a bit.
The fourth really cool thing about SNOOZ
is that it actually has its own smartphone app
that lets you control your device.
The SNOOZ app is available for Apple and Android devices
and allows you to do a variety of cool things
with your SNOOZ device.
First, it allows you to select
which SNOOZ device you want to adjust
if you have multiple SNOOZ devices
in different rooms of your house.
It also gives you the ability
to control the volume level of your SNOOZ device.
You can put the SNOOZ device on a timer
so it runs at very specific times
on different days of the week.
You can put the app into dark mode
so you don't wake anyone up with an app that's too bright.
And you even have a nursery calibration feature
to ensure that you don't set the white noise too loud
where it could damage hearing.
Pretty much the only thing
you cannot do from the smartphone app
is adjust the pitch of the white noise
because you actually have to physically rotate
the outer shell to do that.
The fifth thing that I absolutely love about this device
is that it is so sleek looking and it's very compact.
So you wouldn't think twice
about actually, like, putting this on your nightstand.
It's a lot better looking
than virtually any other noise generator
that is out on the market that are just ugly eyesores
that you would never want to have on display.
This guy actually looks pretty nice.
And on top of that, he's actually a lot smaller
that I thought he was gonna be, so I can actually take,
and I'm actually referring to him as, like, a he,
but I can actually take this guy on a trip
and not take up a whole lot of space
inside of an actual suitcase.
So he travels really easily,
especially if you get the travel case
that you can purchase separately.
SNOOZ also has smaller options.
They have the SNOOZ Go and the SNOOZ Go Baby.
These devices are digitally generating this white noise
so I haven't tested them out yet.
I don't know how well they work.
But when I do reviews of these particular products,
I will go ahead and link them
in the description of this video.
The sixth thing that I like about the SNOOZ
is that it's actually pretty energy efficient.
In fact, the company states
that it's up to 98% more energy efficient
than a typical fan.
And when it comes to a fan,
there are other problems associated with that as well.
First of all, if it's in the wintertime,
you might not want to be blowing a fan
inside of the bedroom to cause circulation of air
just to make things more cold.
You can adjust the pitch of a fan,
but basically, it requires you
to actually change the speed of the fan
and you have very limited adjustments
from that perspective as well.
As awesome as SNOOZ is,
there are a few negatives about this particular device,
and the first one is the cost.
SNOOZ is almost double the cost
of another typical noise generator out on the market.
While I happen to believe
that the additional features justify the additional cost,
you might not feel the same way.
Of course, you also have the potential
of a significant other not liking the sound
of having a noise generator inside of the bedroom.
In these particular cases,
you might do better with the Bose Sleepbuds.
I use the Bose Sleepbuds regularly.
If you want to check out my review
of the Bose Sleepbuds, you can find that
in the description as well.
And like I mentioned before,
the other negative that I see with this
is that you cannot adjust the pitch
of the white noise through the smartphone app.
You can do some other cool things with the smartphone app,
but changing the pitch is not one of them.
That actually requires a physical adjusting
of the outer shell.
Otherwise, I think SNOOZ is the perfect option
to mask tinnitus while you're trying to fall asleep
or if you're trying to concentrate
but you're in a quiet room.
In fact, I was actually gonna send this device
back to the company when I was done with my review,
but I liked it so much that I just decided to keep it.
So if you have tinnitus that prevents you
from falling asleep at night or staying asleep at night,
or you just have trouble concentrating in a quiet room
because the perception of your tinnitus
just gets worse and worse, then I highly recommend
that you give SNOOZ a try.
That's it for this video.
If you have any questions,
leave them in the comment section below.
If you like the video, please share it.
And if you want to see other videos just like this one,
go ahead and hit that subscribe button.
Also, feel free to check out my website, DrCliffAud.com.
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