13 best white noise machines, tried and tested for better sleep

If you find yourself getting sucked in by screens just before bed and then have trouble falling asleep (no judgement here, TikTok is wildly addictive), this screen-free gadget is just the ticket. We were immediately struck by what a good-looking piece of tech this is. It sits in a wooden cup, and has key-like levers on the top to control it. It doesn’t need any pairing or other faffing – just plug it in and go.

The Morphée has three keys. The first one controls the theme of your session. You can choose from eight themes, including breathing, nature sounds, visualisations and body scan. We tried all of them at different times, and, as soon as the sessions started, we could feel our troubles melt away – it’s absolutely magic.

The second key lets you choose from one of eight sessions – so you have eight different sounds for each theme. This means you’re not listening to the same thing over and over again, which we liked. The last key lets you choose either an eight- or 20-minute session. There are also play/pause buttons, volume buttons and you can choose between male or female voices.

We absolutely loved the Morphée – it’s so simple but has fast become an essential for us, and not just at bedtime – we found we used it to calm down during periods of stress, too. Just brilliant.

Read our full Morphée sleep aid review

All the functions on this versatile little box are brilliant. There’s a range of six sounds, including hairdryer, ocean, summer night and fan. You select these by turning the large tactile dial on the top of the unit. There’s also a timer function, so you can play your selected sound for 15, 30 or 60 minutes, or indeed you can just have it on constantly. The volume is adjustable, and it can get quite loud, so make sure you’re an adequate distance away, to preserve your ear drums.

You can plug this white noise machine into the mains or load it with 4 AA batteries. It rinses through the batteries at a pretty rapid rate, though, so, unless you’re travelling, we advise it’s kept near a plug – we marked this down slightly, as we felt like the flex could have been longer.

Yoto Players are like Swiss Army knives, such is their versatility. We’ve been using various Yoto iterations for close to seven years, and this third-gen model is a fantastic white noise machine (among other functions). 

Via a linked app on your phone, you can select a coloured light for your Yoto to emit at a chosen bedtime. We find this sets the scene nicely, helping our mini testers know when it’s time for bed. 

Via the app, you can then choose to play brown, pink or white noise, or “noisy fan” – these are all preloaded and totally free to access. If you’re worried about delicate ears, you can set volume limits and adjust these between daytime and night-time. You can also access free sleep podcasts designed especially for children, including Sleep Tight Stories and Sleep Tight Science – our seven-year-old tester loved these. If you come to rely on these for getting your kids to sleep, you can play the sounds through your phone out and about, and even through your car’s speakers.

There’s also a dizzying amount of content you can access via their library. Pay for a card and it arrives digitally, with a physical card arriving in the post a few days later. You can insert a card into the Yoto player manually, or control it via an app on your phone. As well as a huge stock of audiobooks, there are cards loaded with lullabies, guided meditations, nature sounds, sleepy tales and more. We cannot rave about Yoto players more. They are on the expensive side, but they’ll last a whole childhood, way beyond the baby years.

We were completely converted to Headspace during testing. In fact, we’re now totally addicted. You access it via an app on your phone. In the explore section, you can head straight for the “sleep” area (there are “meditate”, “move” and “music” areas, too), which has a large library dedicated to white noise and sleep sounds. You can set a sleep timer of 60 or 480 minutes, or control it manually.

You can also access sleep casts – ASMR-style storytelling about something fairly mundane yet charming. Our favourite was Midnight Laundrette but there are plenty to choose from, including some Star Wars-themed ones. And that’s not all – there are also guided meditations for sleep, sleep music, kids’ sleep stories, exercises for sleep, night-time SOS (if you wake in the middle of the night), soundscapes and sleep radio. This is your sleep toolkit, whatever your concern. You can try it for seven days for free, then subscribe monthly or for a whole year in one go.

This is a multi-sensory white noise machine. It emits a soft pink glow that is calming for kids at bedtime, plays pink noise and also releases scented vapour. This is especially amazing if you have a snuffly baby, and it helps ease stuffed-up noses and tickly coughs.

The app will alert you when it’s your baby’s wind-down time, and prompt you when it thinks your child is ready for a new schedule. You can edit the schedule yourself and see analysis of your child’s sleep. You can even contact sleep specialists, via the app, for personalised guidance. You can also use the app to control the device, so you don’t need to go into your child’s room to change the light, volume, sound or switch the diffuser on and off. We found this device brilliant for our preschool testers – creating a calming environment at bedtime with the scent and light really helping them drift off to sleep. The sound seemed to help the kids sleep longer, too.

As ever, for convenience, Amazon’s Echo dot is hard to beat. To use it as a white noise machine, you can enable the “sleep sounds” skill, then ask your Alexa to play your favourite track. There are 125 sounds to choose from, including white noise, train ride, frogs, vacuum and Swiss massage. You can also combine two sounds to create your own sleepy sound cocktail. During testing, we found Alexa tried to play sounds from other skills, such as Spotify, so it wasn’t without slight frustration. We figured out you have to verbally select the skill before requesting the track. We did love that the audio didn’t play on a loop, though, just continuously, so we weren’t aware of how much time had elapsed.

Of course, the Echo dot has many more functions than a white noise machine – you can listen to guided meditations, Spotify, podcasts and more, and that’s just for sleep. If you want more than a one-trick pony, and something you can command without lifting a finger or looking at a dreaded screen, this is great.

When we got our hands on this white noise machine, we couldn’t quite believe it was so tiny. It’s about the size of an egg cup, so, we found we could lob it in the tiniest bag, or tuck it in a pram or near a car seat with no problem. You simply charge it up and go.

The library is slightly limited, compared with some of the other dizzying libraries in this round-up, but it’s got the essentials – white noise, nature noises and a few lullabies, if that’s your jam. You just click through the menu until you find the one you want. We liked that you can still choose from 30, 60 or 90 minutes of play time or constant, if you like.

A perennial favourite of parents, Ewan is all about getting newborn babies off to sleep. This little lamb mimics the sounds of the womb, with a mixture of pink and white noise, and the actual sounds of a real heartbeat and womb. Sounds a bit creepy but babies love it. This deluxe version has a cry sensor – when it senses a baby is crying, it starts up automatically, hopefully soothing your bundle of joy back to sleep with no help from you. This cry sensor listens for four hours and then assumes the coast is clear and switches itself off automatically.

Ewan has pop-out controls, so you can sling him in the washing machine if he gets grubby (how are babies sick on everything?). His tail can be attached (by Velcro) to the size of a cot, to keep him safely away from your baby while he gets to work. For his final trick, Ewan can emit a pink glow, which should also help your baby feel safe and comforted.

We know what you’re thinking: this thing is for getting you out of bed, not helping you drift off. However, we’re pleased to say it’s capable of both, which saves on bedside table real estate. This gadget has 31 sounds to choose from, including white noise, waterfalls and even kittens. Sure. You can also set it to mimic the sunset and sunrise, with a customisable duration of 15-90 minutes, and it minimises blue light at bedtime, to aid sleep further.

We liked that this has everything thrown at it – it definitely made our bedroom routine feel more calm and structured, and we loved the huge range of sounds we could choose from. In the morning, we got quite into listening to the DAB radio – something we haven’t done in years, and have become big fans of Greg James as a result.

Lumie also offers a 45-day trial of this product, so you can give it a spin and see if you get on with it.

To call this merely a clock is seriously downplaying this brilliant gadget’s abilities. It is a clock, yes, but it can also produce sounds to help lull you to sleep. We got a bit addicted to the sound baths playlist – there’s something on there to suit most tastes, including guided mediations, breath work, and brown, pink, white and grey noise. There are even cityscape noises for those that can’t sleep without the hum of traffic whizzing past.

In the settings, you can decide how long you want the sounds to last, so it doesn’t play all night. You can also use it as a night light, to create a warm ambience for sleep. The brightness is adjustable, so you can find the right balance for you, you can also ask your Loftie to remind you when bedtime is. There’s even a blackout mode, which means the time won’t be displayed unless you press a button.

This is a really handy white noise machine to take with you on the go, from travelling with your little one to simply having this device in your change bag, ready for when youngsters resist naps. Lightweight and compact, the Dreamegg plugs in to charge, then it is good to go – or you can leave it plugged in if you’re just using it at home.

The swirl on the top acts as a night light – you can have it on soft light, a pulsing glow or off. You can then pick between 11 sounds, all of which were actually liked (rare). Our mini tester was a fan of the fan noise, but there’s music, nature sounds, white noise and various pink noises, too.

We found this device really easy to use – the buttons have a different texture to the casing, so you can feel them even in the darkest bedroom. We like white noise machines with a timer, and this one can be set for 30, 60 or 90 minutes, or you can go for constant. We also appreciated that it didn’t need to be placed near a mains socket all the time, and it comes with a tie and a hook, so you can attach it on a pram or in the car, if you want.

Great for adults and kids alike, this portable white noise machine offers a winning combination of soft lighting and gentle sounds to help you relax and drift off. Kids will like that you can choose the colour of the night light (top tip: go for sleepy, cosy reds rather than harsh blue tones) and the touch controls on the light. You can cycle between 15 noises, including deep white noise, Tibetan water bowls and electric fan.

The controls are ridiculously easy to use, with buttons along one side. There’s a timer, so you can select between 15, 30 and 60 minutes of playback, or go for continuous playback, if you like. It’s also got quite a decent volume for its size – we found we never needed to turn it up very high. You can plug this white noise machine into the mains, charge it and then take it out with you, and, it’s got a carry loop on it if you wanted to attach it to something.

This white noise machine is battery operated only, and is designed to soothe babies to sleep. It’s easy to use, with buttons on the top with six sounds to choose from, a volume button and a cry sensor. The cry sensor automatically activates the noises if it hears your baby cry, hopefully meaning you don’t have to do much yourself – though, we had mixed results with our mini testers.

The machine automatically turns itself off after 20 minutes, which is great for conserving battery power but, if your little darling takes a while to fall asleep, it might not quite be long enough. You can’t adjust this time, either.

The machine is small – it fits in the palm of our hand and takes three AAA batteries, so is relatively light. It’s perfect for taking out and about with you, or away on holiday. Simple yet effective.