For those who attempt to slumber next to a snoring partner, there may be an alternative for getting a good night’s sleep. And it’s not the couch.
The Hearing Safety Group at Smithfield-based Bacou-Dalloz began marketing in November Good Night Snore Blocking Ear Plugs, which are manufactured to block out the sound of snoring, but allow the things sleepers need to hear – like crying children, alarm clocks or ringing phones – to pass through.
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“The type of material we use blocks out noise more uniformly and allows you to hear things more naturally,” said Bill Sokol, vice president of strategic marketing for the Hearing Safety Group.
While the patent for the earplugs had been around for several years, no one could figure out how to make the product, Sokol said.
“Manufacturing (the earplugs) was a really difficult thing to do,” Sokol said. “It uses totally different technology and materials.” After three years in development at San Diego-based Howard Leight, which is part of the hearing group, the finished product hit store shelves in early November.
The earplugs are different from the traditional foam version, Sokol said, in that they don’t produce “muffling or distortion.” The Good Night version is made of thermoplastic elastomer material and a patented dual density foam construction. That means unlike the traditional plugs, the interior portion of the plugs is much denser and the exterior has more air. The earplugs employ an acoustical technique called uniform attenuation, which means that all frequency levels are blocked evenly and sounds are heard more naturally.
“And because it blocks sound more naturally, it allows you to hear the things you’d want to hear,” Sokol added.
The earplugs, made of soft foam, are “no roll” ear plugs. The semi-rigid core of the plug allows easy insertion instead of rolling and then waiting for expansion as with traditional earplugs. The Good Night version is smaller in diameter than most regular cylinder earplugs, which means they can fit even small ear canals, Sokol said.
The technology used in Good Night Ear Plugs was originally designed for use in the industrial marketplace. For example, workers in a loud industrial setting would be able to hear each other shout, but the din of machines would be lessened.
“People need to be able to communicate with each other on the job,” Sokol said.
Then Bacou commissioned a study about earplug usage and found that 50 percent of those surveyed were buying hearing protection for bedtime.
“And more than 50 percent of those people were buying them to screen out a snoring bed partner,” Sokol said.
According to Ed Woo, vice president of research and development at Howard Leight, snoring affects 30 percent of the U.S. adult population over age 30. Some 60 percent of males between ages 45 and 60 snore on a regular basis and 40 percent of females in that same age bracket snore consistently.
The earplugs, however, aren’t made for the snorers, but designed for the 73 percent of people who report losing sleep due to the snoring of their partner. Studies have shown these people can lose as much as an hour of sleep per night.
“To date, every snoring remedy in the drugstore aisle targets the person who’s doing the snoring,” Sokol said. “This is the first product to target the true sufferer of snoring – the person losing sleep.”
In addition to using advanced noise-filtering technology, the Good Night Ear Plugs can be used when sleeping in unfamiliar environments like hotel rooms and during air or train travel.
Designed for a single use, Good Night Ear Plugs are sold in packages of 30 pairs and retail for $7.99 at Walgreens.
Sokol said there’s no risk to wearing earplugs to sleep on a regular basis.
“We come to this with over 30 years of experience of making products that go in your ear,” Sokol said. “People wear them eight hours a day in all different environments.”
For more information about Good Night Snore Blocking Ear Plugs, visit www.goodnightearplugs.com.
