Apple app + Crying Baby + Speaker??? = Sleep

July 14, 2021 11:25 PM

The newest grandchild is delightful but a light sleeper. Irish Coast and other wave scapes from MyNoise.net app send her and KEEP her asleep. Currently, I am losing my phone to her crib. How can we set up an independent speaker to run sea sounds to her crib without tying up our various devices? Or should we just get a very old iphone?
posted by dorothyisunderwood to Technology (8 answers total)

I use some sounds from Amazon music on anAlexa device. Any smart speafpker should do this for you.
posted by dbmcd at 11:27 PM on July 14, 2021 [1 favorite]

Yes, the great thing about smart speakers is that they handle the streaming themselves. You might use your phone to tell it what to play, but after that, the smart speaker's own CPU is in control. Myself, I fall asleep to the Ocean Sounds playlist on Apple Music, streamed over a Sonos One. If you're not an Apple ecosystem person, you might pick a different device or service.

But if all you really want is oceanic white noise for baby, the easiest solution is probably something like a white noise sound machine with wave sounds. No internet required, no streaming services to glitch, about $25.
posted by mumkin at 12:58 AM on July 15, 2021 [3 favorites]

My wife needs white noise to sleep, so I bought an inexpensive radio (Like $27 on Amazon) which also plays MP3 files from an SD card.

I have a dryer that I recorded to an audio file, which makes the perfect sound for her. So at night she turns on the radio and presses the Play button -- and since that recording is the only file on the card, it just loops all night.
posted by wenestvedt at 5:17 AM on July 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

You could always try plugging in the vacuum cleaner and turning that on in the same room instead, and seeing if that works, at least until you can get another solution. That seems to work for a lot of babies - the hissing of the suction, like the hissing of the waves going in and out sound a lot like the hissing of the the blood vessels and digestion that the child can hear in utero. That's why going sssshhh will sooth a newborn, and why sssh is a cross cultural sound for requesting someone quiet down.

I've got a noisy air purifier that might work too.
posted by Jane the Brown at 7:13 AM on July 15, 2021

It's useful to have a low-end tablet, so I'd probably just get one now. If I could find mine, I'd put it back in the kitchen for recipes and stuff.
posted by theora55 at 7:49 AM on July 15, 2021

Alexa will also do MyNoise, I believe, if you download an app for her. I also love MyNoise and I use a Bluetooth speaker to play it; I don't know how you're set up but possibly the speaker could play in baby's room while you have your phone in your room?
posted by The otter lady at 7:58 AM on July 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

If you are in a house / larger living space, I would use something like a Sonos speaker that plays over wifi, rather than bluetooth, so you don't have to be close to the speaker for it to work. If you do go with a bluetooth speaker, make sure to read reviews to see if it plays any connection / disconnection noises. The ones I have used make a very loud noise when turning on, connecting to the phone, and disconnecting from the phone. (in comparison, a Sonos / similar speaker doesn't make these types of noises)
posted by beyond_pink at 8:33 AM on July 15, 2021 [1 favorite]

For about $80USD (don't know the conversion or availability if you're elsewhere) you can get a good quality sound machine. We've had this in our bedroom for a couple of years (my husband grew up next to the beach and sleeps better with wave noises; I can't deal with his snoring and this helps drown it out) and like it a lot.
posted by Lexica at 1:24 PM on July 15, 2021