Hi!
I’m Ethan Green from nosleeplessnights.com, and in this video I’m going to be doing
a review of the Roffie white noise machine.
This one has 30 different sounds to choose from and a night light.
And it's quite small and portable.
So I think it's one that will appeal to a few people - potentially the parents of small
children.
Now, what I’m going to do in this review is split it into a few different sections.
First of all, I’m going to talk about the specifications and the features.
And then I’m going to play all 30 sounds very briefly so you can listen to them.
And after that I’m going to talk about an issue which has cropped up with this one,
which is about the company asking you for reviews on Amazon.
I actually bought this one myself on Amazon for 25 pounds.
It was an Amazon choice product at the time, but as we'll see later in this review perhaps
it shouldn't have been.
And after that, I’m going to conclude with some of my final thoughts.
So without further ado, let's pop over to the table and I’ll tell you more about it.
Okay, so let's talk about the basic specifications first.
In terms of the dimensions, it's quite small and portable.
It's 4.5 by 4.5 by 2.8 inches, which is 115 by 115 by 72 millimeters.
It doesn't weigh much either; it's 353 grams, which is 12.4 ounces.
So it's at the smaller end of the white noise machine range of dimensions, that I’ve looked
at anyway.
As for the power, it came with this very, very long USB cable: it's about a meter and
a half long, which is great as it means that you can have more flexibility to place it
where you like in your bedroom or your study or your office.
It doesn't need to be really close to the power outlet.
As for the power, it didn't come with an adapter so you’ve just got the cable here, but I
think most people have a USB outlet these days.
For example, I’m going to use this standard UK 5 volt DC USB power adapter.
So I’m just going to plug it in now, and then I’ll be back to talk about the rest
of the device.
So, let's talk about the buttons first.
As you can see, right on the top there's a button for the night light, which I’ll show
you in a minute.
And then you can see some little pictures which show you the different main sound settings.
Here you've got on and off.
And these tiny little holes there have little blue LEDs, which you probably won't be able
to see because it's so bright where I’m filming, but you don't notice those if you're
using it in the dark.
These little categories, I wish the pictures were a little bit bigger because they're - they're
really really tiny.
I’ve got it right up to my camera at the moment, but if you've got it a meter away,
for example, you can't see what they are at all unless you've got superman vision which
I don't because I wear glasses.
So with those main categories, there are six of them and each of them has five different
options as well.
So that's 30 sounds in total.
To cycle through them you've got some buttons on the side: this one here cycles through
the main categories and that one there goes through each of the options within that category.
We've got power on and off and we've got volume up and down.
That's something I do like because occasionally you find white noise machines that share the
same buttons for the track choice and the volume, which annoys me.
So I like the fact that they've got separate buttons there.
As for the buttons, there's something else to mention.
Where are they?
This side here.
We've got timers here of 30, 60 and continuous.
So for 30 minutes you need to slide it that way, and then 60 in the middle, and continuous
play over to the right there.
And I do think that it would have been good to have a few more timer options, but at least
it does have some.
This button, the slider, is a little bit stiff and quite small, so if you've got finger sensitivity
issues you might struggle with this one.
So yeah, if you've got finger sensitivity issues and bad vision then you're going to
really struggle with this machine.
Another thing to mention is that it's got the headphone jack there -a standard 3.5 millimeter
outlet, so you can listen privately if you're sharing a bedroom or sharing your office or
study with someone else and they don't particularly like white noise.
So those are the main features to talk about, now let's have a listen to all of the sounds.
So let's turn it on, and these are going to be the - let me see if we can see the LED
- yeah you can just see it: these are the fan sounds.
[various fan sounds] Okay these are the white noise sounds.
[various white noise sounds] These are the nature sounds.
[various nature sounds]
Okay, next we have sea waves.
[various ocean sounds]
And this is rain or thunderstorms.
[various rain sounds with and without thunder] And then these are the ones which are under
the category of lullaby.
[heartbeat sounds] um yeah not really a lullaby
[very deep and quiet hum] also not really a lullaby
[electronic sound] something from a sci-fi movie
[sound of whales] whales very nice but not lullaby
[ticking clock sound] And probably in my opinion the exact opposite
of a lullaby.
So let's go to another standard one and look at the volume.
Here we've got a fan sound, let me turn the volume up to its maximum.
[fan sound] That's it - it's not that loud really.
And you can adjust the volume, it has incremental volume controls so you can have it much quieter.
And I have to say, considering the overall speaker quality, having it on a lower volume
is probably going to be something you're going to want to do.
So let me talk through some of those sounds and explain what I think about them.
First of all, I had a listen out last night.
It took me quite a while to identify the lengths of the loops because they're actually pretty
good in terms of not having breaks or clicking noises.
But they do seem to be quite short, the loops, once you do spot them: around 30 seconds on
the nature sounds, the ones that I could tell anyway, but you've really got to listen out
to them I think.
But yeah, if you're an adult and you're worried about looping and you're the kind of person
that spots intermittent sounds that can be identified then you will notice those loops.
As for the white noise and the fan sounds, I think it's good that they've got different
options.
But again, the pink and the brown noise - if that's what they're supposed to be - aren't
particularly relaxing just because the speaker just lacks bass really.
As for the nature sounds, I like the fact that it's got various different ones, but
you can hear a kind of highway or motorway in the background of some of them so it's
not pure nature sounds.
The sea wave – it’s good that they've got different options there, I quite like
those.
And the thunderstorm, it’s good that you can have some just with rain or some with
thunder as well because not everyone likes thunder and not everyone likes just the rain.
The lullaby, I don't know why they put lullaby as a category, maybe they couldn't think of
anything else.
Maybe annoying sounds would have been a better category topic.
But yeah, I know some people have had some success playing heartbeat sounds, or metronomes,
ticking clocks, to babies and small kids so maybe that's one to try.
But for me, I think really, overall my opinion would be that it's good that there's 30 sounds,
lots of options, some people appreciate that, but I think it would have been better to have
less sounds and a better speaker quality.
Now let's have a look at the night light because I can't really show it in this particular
bright setting.
So here's a video that I’ve already taken of the night light.
Something I really like about the night lights is that it has two main settings: you can
have it pulsing or you can have it on a fixed brightness.
And I really like the warmth of this glow, I think really, this is probably one of the
best things about this white noise machine.
Okay, now let's talk about this little thank you note that appeared in the box when I bought
it.
The key thing is the line in the middle: “if you're satisfied with the product we invite
you to share your great user experience by writing a five stars review on amazon”.
not any review, not a one, two, three, or four stars review, but it has to be a five
star review.
And then you can get a free gift of 15 money back or a zero pressure eye mask.
If you turn it over there’s steps to get your free gift, and it means that it's very
clear that you have to leave a five star review.
You can't get the free gift if you leave a one, two, three, or four star review.
This is called product review manipulation.
Now, at the time of making this video - I just checked on amazon - there's 255 reviews.
93% of them are five stars, the majority written in English.
There was only five one or two star reviews, written in German, Italian and French and
they were quite damning about this product.
So really, I’ve got no evidence that all of those five star reviews, or even any of
those five star reviews weren't genuine.
Perhaps they all are genuine, maybe people in the UK just really love this white noise
machine, but I do have a little bit of a suspicion that it might not be the case for everybody.
Now one thing that I will say about this is that there's a real problem which is even
beyond the Roffie, which is the fact that it ended up as an Amazon choice product.
And I think that if a product is engaging in this kind of review manipulation and then
it's related to the Amazon choice recommendation then something's wrong there.
Okay, so let's wrap up with a few of my final thoughts about the Roffie.
As I said at the beginning, I really do think that this one is probably going to be best
suited to parents who want to leave a white noise machine in a kid's bedroom and play
soft white noise to them to help them sleep or to help them relax.
I don't really think that this is going to be one that's most suitable for adults, especially
if you're an adult that's used to good speaker quality, good sound quality, and you're the
kind of person that listens out for loops on white noise machines because really, with
a 30 second loop as I could tell on some of the nature sounds, you will spot it if you
listen to it regularly.
Also, I think if you're an adult, perhaps you're not going to make the best use of the
nightlight function.
Maybe you will, but I suspect many adults won't.
Some of the other things that I think are worth bearing in mind is that it is quite
easy to operate, I like the fact that it's got separate buttons for each of the controls,
and it allows you to identify the exact category of sound you want pretty quickly and then
cycle through those sounds.
You know, you don't need to press one button 30 times just to find the sound that you like.
It's good that it's got a couple of timers, it's a shame that it didn't come with a power
adapter - just the USB cable - but you know, for me personally that's not an issue just
because I’ve got so many USB outlets anyway.
The price is pretty good as well, 25 pounds I paid, so it's quite cheap for a white noise
machine.
So really, I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether it's going to be one for you as an
adult or whether it's appropriate for you because you've got kids that you want to play
white noise to.
And if you do, one of the good things about this is that you can have it on a lower volume,
which is what you should do if you're playing it to kids anyway.
So thanks again for watching, I hope that you enjoyed this video.
If you did, and you'd like to see more please subscribe to my YouTube channel to see more
reviews and more sleep products.
Thanks again, this is Ethan from No Sleepless Nights.