Review: Anker Soundcore Sleep A20

It’s starting to feel a bit repetitive to begin our reviews of Soundcore products by pointing out that, once again, a product has arrived with fresh thinking and innovation. However, Soundcore consistently manages to stay at the forefront and introduce new ideas that might initially need a bit of polish. But they have always been far ahead of their competitors.

In this review, we are diving into the world of sleep with the Anker Soundcore Sleep A20, whose core concept is to use various ingenious methods to create the right conditions for better sleep, measure it, and even provide reminders about it. In many ways, the concept succeeds, but sometimes quality is preferable to quantity.

First Impressions – Anker Soundcore Sleep A20

They are tiny! So small that they could almost pass for an earpiece used by agents in action movies. And they are small for a reason: so that Soundcore can overcome the primary hurdle—being able to sleep on your side with an earbud in. Depending on how firm your pillow is, they have actually succeeded. They are shallow enough that you aren’t disturbed and don’t experience ear pain when sleeping with them in.

Naturally, they come with several different sizes of ear tips and the “wings” that keep them in place. But it’s not entirely ordinary. The Soundcore Sleep A20 lacks active noise cancellation, and we suspect there are two explanations for this. Firstly, it can be difficult to cram that much technology into earbuds as small as the Sleep A20. But more importantly, noise cancellation can fatigue your ears, which would likely leave you feeling more groggy than usual. Instead, Soundcore uses double-layer ear tips in two variants: one with sound isolation and one without, which instead allows for ventilation of the ear canal. These sit on top of the wings, which have their own tip to keep the earbuds securely in place.

Remember what we wrote at the beginning about Soundcore being innovative? These are exactly the kind of ideas we mean. And we aren’t done yet.

Hardware and Settings

Before we move on, let’s quickly cover some basic functions. Unlike all other Soundcore headphones we have tested, you cannot fully customize how you want the buttons to function; you only have double- and triple-tap options to work with. However, this feels logical to avoid accidental clicks and long-presses. The buttons aren’t the easiest to control due to their size, but you can’t have everything. What you do get, however, is massive battery life. A single charge gives the earbuds 14 hours of playtime (at 50% volume), and with the case, you get a total of 80 hours. Decidedly impressive. This is, however, with Sleep Mode activated; if you use Bluetooth, the total time shrinks to 60 hours—which is certainly nothing to scoff at either.

With the Soundcore Sleep A20, sound quality is not the focus in the same way it is with, for example, the Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 NC. This isn’t to say the sound is bad—not at all—but you don’t get anywhere near the same power. But that isn’t really the main point of the Sleep A20. On the contrary, we feel the most important factor is having enough volume steps to find the perfect level. This is something we’ve complained about with the Shokz Open Fit 2 +, where it’s often either too loud or too quiet for falling asleep, but praised in the Audio Technica ATH-TWX9, where you can decide for yourself how many steps you want. The Sleep A20 allows you to adjust the volume with great detail. However, you cannot use them as a headset for calls, and they do not support wireless charging.

There is a lot to customize, and we like that. However, the earbuds’ tendency to enter Sleep Mode—meaning they disconnect from Bluetooth and play one of the pre-loaded soundscapes—was a bit hit-or-miss at first. But everything is adjustable, so it’s just a matter of configuration. Once that’s sorted, it all works well.

The Main Event – Sleep Optimization

Sleep Insights

Let’s get to the core of it: sleep, as there is plenty to discuss here. To put it simply, the main idea is that you can use both earbuds to listen to a podcast or any of the many included soundscapes to fall asleep, and even keep them playing while you sleep. Anker Soundcore includes several sections of sleep knowledge that are both interesting and valuable. The earbuds also track your sleep, measuring deep sleep, how much you toss and turn, how often you wake up, and so on. You can set a bedtime and receive a reminder or set a wake-up alarm. On top of all this, you can ask the earbuds to use “smart volume,” where they adapt to the ambient noise level, either trying to mask sounds by increasing the volume or decreasing it if your surroundings are very quiet.

Soundscapes: Plentiful, but Low Quality

As mentioned, there is an unusually large number of them, and the idea of being able to combine them is interesting. However, we would have preferred half or even a third of the quantity, provided they were of high quality. Because what Soundcore has put together isn’t particularly… enjoyable. Some of the options, like the sound of a cat lapping up milk, aren’t exactly soothing. On the other hand, the rumble of a train, a tumble dryer, or more traditional sounds like wind in the trees or waves on the beach have their charm. You can upload these to the earbuds and use them in Sleep Mode, and we understand that memory constraints likely play a role here. Again: fewer sounds with higher quality would be better. But best of all would be the ability to record ten minutes of your own audio—the wind in the woods, ocean waves, a hot-bulb engine, or whatever brings you inner peace. This would have been exceptionally good, especially in the context of what the Sleep A20 is trying to achieve. With better audio and a sufficiently long loop, it becomes harder for the brain to detect the pattern.

AI Brainwave

Anker Soundcore has addressed this fairly successfully with something they call AI Brainwave, a function that is particularly interesting. These soundscapes cannot be uploaded to the earbuds and must be run via Bluetooth, which is a drawback. But what makes them special is that they are loop-free; in other words, they are generated as you listen to avoid repetition, achieving pattern-free soundscapes. The sound quality is also higher and more enjoyable with these. You can then layer additional sound effects onto the base options to vary the soundscape further. It’s a clever and effective way to utilize AI.

The Sound

We are satisfied with how the Sleep A20 sounds, considering its size and purpose. You get a soundstage that is good enough to enjoy music at lower volumes, or listen to a podcast or audiobook. The Sleep A20 is not intended to be a pair of standard music headphones, so comparisons would be unfair. Still, the sound feels fresh and adequate for most things. This makes it even more of a shame that the pre-loaded soundscapes aren’t of a higher standard.

The Bottom Line – Anker Soundcore Sleep A20

The core idea is brilliant, and the dual-tip design to avoid the need for active noise cancellation is well-thought-out. Perhaps noise cancellation could have been implemented to keep the volume down and, together with the smart volume, adapt to ambient noise. Price-wise, the Soundcore Sleep A20 sits at 1,700 kronor. Does it feel worth it? In terms of performance and construction—yes. When it comes to the central feature of the uploadable soundscapes—no. It gets slightly better with AI Brainwave, but then you lose the ability to put your phone away.

But if we look at the bigger picture and consider that you can actually play whatever you want. You can disable Sleep Mode entirely and stream HD-quality soundscapes while still benefiting from a host of features—most notably, being able to wear headphones while sleeping on your side. In that context, the Anker Soundcore Sleep A20 becomes much better value. It is truly cozy to be able to drift off without waking up with ear pain during the night, and the battery life is genuinely impressive. It’s just a shame that Soundcore’s interesting idea of combining soundscapes is undermined by the fact that you’d rather listen to something else with better quality.

Anker Soundcore sent review units for this test. The provider of the material has no editorial influence on our tests; we always write independently with our readers and consumers in focus.