Conair Sound Therapy Pillow

Man, oh man... Conair should be ashamed to be selling this thing.First off, I feel like warning other potential buyers that although the product listing page says absolutely nothing about returns, if you try to return this item, Amazon will tell you that this item isn't eligible for return and you will have to contact customer service by chat. email, or phone to replace or refund it. Fortunately, Amazon's customer service is superb, so it wasn't too much of a hassle, but still worth noting.As for my experience with the pillow:When I first tried out the speaker, I noticed the sound quality was horrendous. I'm not an audiophile, but the built-in sound samples sound heavily compressed (like 96kbps MP3). I'm assuming to cut costs, they went with an extremely small storage chip on these, so they had to compress the audio clips a LOT to fit them in. In addition to the low quality sound, at mid to higher volumes, the quality of the speaker itself really shows: you can hear it crackling/rumbling as if the speaker is not made to support such a high amplification...The sound quality is so bad, I assumed I got a defective unit. After receiving a replacement that had the same poor quality, I concluded that this is simple a bad product with low quality speakers and lots of design oversights.I decided to at least give the replacement a fair shot at night. Then I discovered more design oversights besides the speaker and sound quality:1. First thing noticed is that the speaker is a hard lump in the pillow. Depending where you position your head, you can feel it and it will be annoying if you have your head on it. Some thicker or stiffer stuffing would probably alleviate this. Another issue with this is that it will sound a lot louder or lower, depending on how close your ear is to the speaker. Maybe this is unavoidable, but it's still an aspect to consider as a buyer. If you move around, adjust and reposition your head and your pillow while trying to fall asleep, this will be noticeable.2. Second is the volume dial. It's very sensitive physically and in how much it adjusts the volume. A tiny nudge will make a big difference, especially since your ear is right near the speaker. And if you hug your pillow like I do, it's pretty easy to accidentally nudge the dial with your arm, which can cause an abrupt spike in volume or lowering or muting of the sound. And from there, it's very annoying and tedious to change the volume back to where you want it because the dial is sensitive and because you're in the dark, of course.3. Lastly, why, oh why, would they put bright green LEDs on a product made for sleeping?? It's one thing to have to put tape over the lights on all my other electronics that stay on at night—I don't expect sleeping to be one of the top priorities or considerations for manufacturers of those products—but I'd expect someone designing a pillow to consider that having bright LEDs to indicate the timer mode would be bothersome to someone trying to sleep on it. They could have at least decided to use dim, red LEDs which wouldn't shine very brightly, but these green ones make a visible glow, even through a pillowcase. You'll need a dark, probably black pillowcase to mask this, or you'll have put to tape or something over them.With all these design oversights and flat-out lacking quality, I simply could not recommend this product to anyone. You'll be better off getting a cheap speaker (there are many low-priced pillow speakers on Amazon) and sticking it under your favorite pillow.

I'm a creative person and sometimes that keeps me awake at night, thinking of things I want to do or create. It's often very hard to shut my brain off.This pillow is a tad on the expensive side, after all, it's just a pillow that has a little really-cheap audio loop player built in. The fidelity of the loops is not very good and I think that is one of the things that makes this work so well, it's boring to listen to.There is a timer built in but you're not required to use it, if you don't select a "time out" it will play all night which is what I want because if the sound stops I wake up and start thinking again.There are several sounds to select from, each plays a short 4-6 second loop, over and over and over. There are a few water-like sounds but the one that I like best is the "summer night, field of crickets", it's softer and more gentle than the others.One button turns the player on and off, a second button lets you cycle through the available sounds. After you get accustomed to the controls it's easy to operate while laying in bed.The volume control is a bit touchy but if you're careful it's possible to find a good level. I use a second pillow on top of the Conair Therapy Pillow and that also cuts the volume.I'm a sound engineer by trade, the audio quality of this thing is fine, it sounds a bit muffled because the speaker has got a pillow over it and I add a second one on top of that.With this pillow I'm able to get a good nights sleep filled with dreams and my partner does not complain about it either. She says she likes the sound of the crickets even though they're very quiet (to her).My biggest complaint about this pillow is the battery compartment. You need a screwdriver to open it. What did they buy a bunch of the worlds worst battery holders and used them in this? It's not worth taking off one star because the batteries do last a long time. When I need to replace them I'm throwing the battery door away and using a piece of tape to hold them in so I don't have to go get a jeweler's screwdriver to replace them next time.I'm really surprised how well this pillow works. I can see why it would be non-returnable, I don't want to sleep on a used pillow (I don't like using hotel pillows either).I'm planning on ordering a spare one of these so in case it breaks I'm covered, yep, I like it that much.Good luck and sweet dreams to all!

Ok... long story short I have really bad insomnia and my s.o. doesn't like sound machines so, figured I would try a sound pillow (earbuds/headphones hard to sleep with).ANYWHO. I got the pillow 2 days ago, just put batteries in it and was super excited... turned it on and... wow, I'm really sorry but the sound is pretty awful. I turned it down as low as I could hear it just to make sure it wasn't all "crunchy" sounding from being too loud. The pre-loaded samples are, unfortunately from what other people have concluded, are overly compressed low quality GARBAGE. However- the day I got it, I slept on it (I forgot about batteries lol) to test it and I won't lie, it was a vast improvement on my last pillow, as far as comfort goes. I'm going to try the provided aux cord with my phone and some white noise apps just to test to see if the pre-loaded samples are garbage, the speakers, or both. Will update asap.UPDATE: OK so don't get this pillow for the pre loaded noises, definitely use the aux cord and download a white noise app ( I really like the Relax Melodies app ), keep the pillow volume lowish, turn the volume of the app up, and OMG so much better. There are tons of high quality relaxation tracks on YouTube as well, you just gotta find what works for you but... my last word of advice is to not buy this pillow based on the sounds it already provides. It comes with an aux cord, so go ham, see what you like OUTSIDE of the samples, and I'm sure you will have a satisfying experience. 10/10

Pillow meets my expectations. Not the first purchased.