What exactly is snoring?
If you’re a snore you’re in good company. John Hopkins University estimates nearly 1 in two people are occasional snorers whilst 25% of us snore regularly.
Snoring is simply what happens when air can’t flow properly through your breathing passages – when we inhale and exhale air through our nose, mouth and throat.
If any of the airways are restricted, air, forced through the obstructed area can cause vibrations in the soft palate, tonsils, adenoids or tongue – and hence that familiar rumbling, rattling noise that’s familiar to many of us.
Is snoring harmless?
Snoring usually comes to the fore as a social or relationship problem, disrupting the sleep of your family, bed partner or housemates. But it needs to be said that there can be serious health issues as well. Although that’s not the focus of this product guide we don’t want to downplay these concerns, so we’ve outlined the health aspects this in this section below.
But mostly we want to bring to your attention some of the best hi-tech advanced snoring devices in 2023, as well as some of the simpler, common solutions that can help alleviate mild-moderate snoring that’s not attached to any other health problem.
Best Smart Anti-Snoring Devices 2023
Smart Nora
Debuting on Kickstarter in 2015, Smart Nora is one of the most popular hi-tech anti-snoring devices in 2023. A non-invasive solution, Smart Nora works by listening for any signs of snoring, then when it detects a sound, it gently moves your pillow, without waking you, stimulates the throat muscles so you can breath freely again.
Smart Nora consists of 3 components, an inflatable insert that you place underneath your pillow, the ‘Bedsider’ which listens out for signs of snoring, and the case which sits on the floor and contains a mini-pump.
With Smart Nora you don’t have to wear anything on your body, no masks, nose strips, belts or chin straps. Just get into bed and let the device work its magic. According the company’s website Smart Nora has helped over 140,000 customers sleep better.
Smart Nora is available from $359 or $33/month from the company’s website
Save $40 on Smart Nora now >>
Zeus Sleep
Invented by leading British sleep doctors, the Zeus anti-snore device is a sleek, non-invasive wearable device worn under the chin at night that’s designed to tackle the root cause of snoring, and promote peaceful, uninterrupted sleep.
Attaching to the underside of the chin with specially designed adhesive pads, Zeus uses sensors to detect minute vibrations in the throat before you start to snore and then delivers tiny micro-electrical impulses to stimulate the relaxed muscles in your tongue.
This causes the muscles to contract without waking you up, but at the same time opening the airways, preventing snoring and allowing you to breath easily again. The electrical impulses are specifically targeted to be to be imperceptible to the sleeper, but strong enough to provide stimulation to the throat muscles.
Zeus comes with a bedside USB charging dock, a storage unit/carrying case for travel and a set of replacement adhesive pads. Zeus is designed to be an app-free, simple to use device. There’s no accompanying smartphone app, no data tracking or Bluetooth connectivity to worry about. Just switch on and you’re ready to go.
Zeus is available for £150 from the company’s website. Due to FDA regulations, Zeus is unfortunately unavailable for purchase in the USA.
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Motion Pillow
Although not officially available yet, Motion Pillow, hailing from Korea uses a similar design and principle as Smart Nora to detect vibrations in your throat and adjust your head position to prevent snoring.
Motion Pillow consists of two components, a smart memory foam pillow with 4 inflatable chambers which is connected to the ‘Solution Box’ which detects, records, and analyzes your snoring patterns, sending instructions to the inflatable pillow to optimize your head position and prevent snoring during the night.
Motion Pillow uses an algorithm to determine exactly the amount of adjustment to your pillow, and the accompanying smartphone app helps you track and analyse your night’s sleep to monitor your progress and improvement.
Price is yet to be announced but you can register here to to be notified of the product launch.
Learn more about Motion Pillow >>Snore Circle
Snore Circle from Chinese health-tech startup VVFLY Electronics Co is a 4th generation smart anti-snoring device that uses sensors to detect and stop snoring before it happens. Whilst previous generation products included an anti-snoring mask, and an earpiece, the latest Snore Circle utilizes a similar design to the Zeus anti-snoring device.
The Snore Circle YA4300 Electronic Muscle Stimulator Pro is a wearable device you place on your chin and is equipped with a high-precision sensor to detect snoring vibrations in the throat. When vibrations are detected, Snore Circle deploys minute electrical impulses via transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) – a noninvasive pain-relief technique.
This in turn stimulates the muscles around the throat, opening up the airway to make breathing smoother and quieter. Snore Circle comes with an app that offers an advanced level of functionality including the ability to set up to 30 different levels of intensity of stimulation, depending on the severity of your condition. There’s also a full data analytics section in the app which records sleeping habits, and monitors the amount and intensity of snoring.
Snore Circle is available from the company’s website and retails at $159
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Go2Silence Smart Positional Therapy Device
You may not have heard the term but positional therapy has been around in various forms for a long, long time. Essentially it’s a way to reduce snoring by preventing you from sleeping on your back, and shifting you to a side-sleeping position.
The age-old favourite primitive positional therapy technique is to attach a tennis ball to the back of your pajamas – it’s even recommended on the UK government’s health guidance page for snoring. The idea being, who wants to sleep on top of a tennis ball….? So you naturally roll over to your side, which puts the airway in a better position for clear breathing.
Well, Chinese health tech outfit SleepOn, who also make the popular Go2Sleep wearable ring tracker* have brought positional therapy into the 21st century with their innovative, feature-packed Go2Silence anti-snoring device. It consists of a 2 inch inch ball which clips to the back of the pajamas or T-shirt with a magnetic clip.
With a bunch of smart sensors inside the device, Go2Silence detects when you’re sleeping on your back, and uses customizable vibrations to gently coax you into side sleeping, reducing snoring without waking you.
Apart from the hardware, you get a bunch of functionality with the included smartphone app. Not only do you get detailed sleep analysis reports, including sleep stages, you also get full reports of your sleep position data, showing you exactly which positions you slept in during the night, at what time and for how long.
Go2Silence is a unique and innovative anti-snoring solution and is available from the company website*. Retail price is $199.
Get Go2Silence Now >>CLICK FOR LATEST DISCOUNT
Nasal strips
Whilst they may not work for everybody, nasal strips, or nasal dilators work by increasing the space in the nasal passage, providing a larger airway through which to breathe at night. Some are placed externally on the nose with adhesive surface, others are placed internally inside the nose.
Mouthguards and oral devices
If your snoring problems are caused by your throat/ tongue, as opposed to problems in your nasal passages, one solution is to wear a snoring mouthguard at night. Also known as mandibular advancement devices (MAD) mouthguards work by phsyically pushing the bottom jaw forward helping to open the airway. Whilst some people may not find mouthguards a comfortable solution, they can be an effective solution in reducing or even eliminating snoring at night.
Positional therapy
As the name suggests, positional therapy for snoring works by shifting you from lying on your back to your side. If you’re a snorer, sleeping on your back increase the chances of soft tissues in the throat and palate to fall into and block your airway.
There are many varied and novel solutions which positional therapy. Specially-shaped snoring pillows, belts and even strapping a tennis ball to your back at night. There are also more expensive smart gadgets like NightShift which have sensors to detect when you’re on your back and will vibrate to shift your sleeping position
Medical and health concerns of snoring
The popular perception of snoring is that of an inconvenient problem – an annoyance that your partner tolerates, but hardly a major cause for concern.
Viewing snoring in this context however is a mistake, because oftentimes snoring is a symptom of one of the most commonly under-reported chronic health conditions in the world today – sleep apnea.
What is sleep apnea?
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), the most common form of the condition is a serious sleep disorder that causes your breathing to stop and start repeatedly during sleep, sometimes hundreds of times in one night.
Most cases of sleep apnea are thought to go undetected (because we’re asleep), but estimates of OSA prevalance go as high as 1 in 4 of the population. If left untreated OSA cause high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and even an early death.
The number one symptom of sleep apnea is consistent loud snoring, so if that’s you, and especially if you’re overweight, a high risk factor for OSA, you need to seriously consider talking to your primary health care provider to get yourself checked out.
Sleep apnea is no joke, so it’s highly advised to heed any warning signs. Good news is that there are many great solutions these days including CPAP devices, mouth guards and even surgical procedures that can radically improve and even eliminate sleep apnea completely.
Other types of snoring solutions
Snoring remedies have been around for a long time. There’s even a whole museum dedicated to the different ways we’ve tried to tackle snoring over the centuries. – from ancient Egyptian herbal remedies to tortuous-looking face masks.
These days thankfully we have a wide range of options at our disposal. Not all treatments work for everybody but broadly we can break these down into the following categories:
Lifestyle changes
If you snore, before you try and seek out any treatment or intervention, consider some factors that may put you at a higher risk factor of being a snorer.
- being overweight or obese
- smoking
- drinking alcohol
- allergies or asthma
- sleeping on your back
If you tick any of these boxes it’s worth your while addressing these concerns before you try any other anti-snoring treatment
Medical and surgical procedures
The last resort, if you’ve tried every other solution to fix snoring is a medical procedure to correct anatomical features of the mouth, noise and throat that are causing airways to become blocked.
Of course you should only undergo such a treatment under the strict guidance and supervision of your doctor. And whilst any surgery is invasive and potentially traumatic, the good news is that these procedures are relatively routine these days and have a good success rate. Here are some of the most common surgical procedures for snoring:
- Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (UPPP) – this is surgery which widens the airway by removing excess tissue in the throat to. The object is to remove potential blockages, increase the airflow to reduce or eliminate snoring. More info
- Maxillomandibular advancement (MMA) – this procedure works by altering the structure of the jawbone, advancing the upper and lower jaw to increase airflow when you breathe More info
- Pillar procedure (palatal implant) More info
- Tonsillectomy or Adenoidectomy More info
We hope you enjoyed this round up of the best anti-snoring devices in 2023. Please feel free if you have any questions to drop us a line at mail@sleepgadgets.io