Not silence. A more stable sound environment.

The mechanism is the same: a steady sound raises the floor so sudden sounds stand out less. What a YouTube loop does not give you is a seamless join (most tick or dip at the loop point, which is an event, and events are what a masker exists to cover), a known level, the same loudness across sounds, or any measurement of what you are hearing. NeuroNest environments loop without a seam, sit at one loudness, and show their measured profile. If a free loop works for you, keep using it. If it ever woke you at the join, that is the difference.

Two systematic reviews rate the evidence for continuous noise as a sleep aid as weak and inconsistent, and a 2026 laboratory study found pink noise at 40 to 50 dBA reduced REM sleep in healthy young adults. We cite all three in our white paper. The positive studies are the ones with a problem to solve: an intensive-care ward, a loud city flat, a transient-insomnia model. The costs appear in good sleepers in a quiet lab. So we do not claim better sleep. We claim a mechanism that reduces the contrast of intrusions, a protocol that keeps the level low and favours sleep onset, and a five-minute test so you can check it on your own room.

You can grow used to any part of your sleep routine, from a particular pillow to a fan. A sound floor is reversible: turn it off and the room is as it was. The protocol has you lower the level each week to the quietest setting that still covers the problem, which is the opposite of escalation. If the noise you were covering goes away, so can the sound.

Exposure is a dose: level and duration together. Widely used guidance treats 85 dBA over eight hours as the reference dose. A masking bed set the way we recommend, quiet enough to talk over, sits tens of decibels below that. Earbuds all night are a different matter, which is why we recommend a speaker in the room. Muffled hearing or ringing afterwards means the level was too high.

Intermittent environmental noise reduces deep sleep; that is the problem. Continuous pink noise at 40 to 50 dBA reduced REM in one rigorous lab study. We do not know whether lower levels in a noisy bedroom carry the same cost, and we say so. Our protocol favours an onset window and treats all-night use as a deliberate choice for noise that continues through the night, at the lowest level that works.

Often you should. In the 2026 lab study, foam earplugs mitigated nearly all the sleep effects of intermittent noise up to 65 dBA and did more than pink noise. Earplugs cut the level of everything; sound reduces the contrast of what gets through. For a snorer or a loud street, the two together are stronger than either alone. For someone who cannot sleep in plugs, or whose problem is a quiet room where every small sound lands, a sound floor is the tool.

Both. Behavioural studies show added noise can help people with attention difficulties while hindering others, and a 2024 peer-reviewed study found rapidly modulated sound supported sustained attention most in listeners who struggle to hold it. The brown-noise-specific trials are still thin, and effects vary a lot between people. Treat it as something to test for five minutes, not a diagnosis-level claim.

A 2023 systematic review of 14 studies found the entrainment evidence inconsistent, with a minority of studies showing the predicted EEG effect. NeuroNest does not sell binaural beats. Some of our environments carry subtle rhythmic modulation under the surface; we list it as experimental and we are testing it rather than marketing it.

It is a fact we chose to publish rather than hide. The names describe texture; the numbers describe spectrum, and every bed measures deeper than textbook brown. For sleep that is where you want to be, because low-weighted sound is what people tolerate at a low level for hours. For daytime voices it is a weakness, and a speech-weighted bed is in production. The point of measuring is that you can see this instead of guessing.

Each environment is analysed from its master recording: spectral tilt in dB per octave, which colour of noise it is closest to and in what blend, steadiness as the fraction of the signal with no events against the floor, integrated loudness to the broadcast standard, and the loop length and format. The player shows these as the sound profile. Nothing on the screen is generated to look scientific; it is read from the file.

Endel generates soundscapes with an AI engine and lives in hardware partnerships. Brain.fm builds modulated music for focus and has published on it. Calm is a broad wellbeing library. NeuroNest is narrower: produced, steady, event-free environments for masking, measured from their masters, with an honest evidence grade and a test you run yourself. We do not claim to be better. We claim to show you the numbers.

Partly. Masking works best on steady sounds and less well on loud, irregular ones. Place the speaker between you and the snorer, use a brighter bed such as White Noise Blanket, keep the level low, and add foam earplugs if the snoring is loud. Lab data agrees: earplugs did more than pink noise for intermittent noise.

Please be careful. Newborns do settle to white noise in a randomised trial, and infant sleep machines are popular. But when 14 of them were measured at maximum volume, all exceeded 50 dBA at 30 cm, the recommended nursery limit, and three exceeded 85 dBA. Any sound for an infant should be well away from the cot, at a low setting, and only with your paediatric guidance. NeuroNest is not designed or marketed for infants.

Three usual causes. The level was set in a quiet moment, so it was too loud; set it while the noise you are covering is happening. The sound was bright and hissy; try a deeper bed. Or it was switched on when you were already lying awake, so it arrived as a new event; start it 20 to 30 minutes before lights out and give it three nights. If none of that helps, it may not be your tool, and that is a legitimate result of the five-minute test.

The web app is free with no sign-up and no ads. The iPhone app is in private beta and will be free to download. The five-minute experiment stores nothing unless you choose to submit, and then only your four answers, the task, the sound and the duration, with no name or email. There is no catch today. If paid features arrive they will be additions, not a wall in front of what is free now.

No. It is acoustic environment design. Sound can make a noisy room easier to sleep in. It does not treat insomnia, sleep apnoea or any sleep disorder. If sleep is poor most nights for more than a few weeks, see a doctor.

NeuroNest is built in Australia by Dion Lintos. The environments are produced in-house and measured from their masters. We do not yet have outcome data of our own, which is why the site runs a five-minute experiment with consent and plans a sleep check-in and an actigraphy pilot, all described in the white paper. Until that data exists, every claim here is a cited study or a measurement, not a testimonial.

No. For sleep, a speaker across the room at a low level works best and is kinder to your ears than earbuds for eight hours. In a shared office, headphones keep the sound to yourself and block more. Either way, set the level during the distraction and as low as still works.