Wearability and Comfort of Earables During Sleep

Earables are an emerging sensory platform. In its realm, many past publications looked into sleep-related parameters such as sleep stages. However, none questioned their comfort and wearability during sleep. In our paper, we conducted a study with seven different market-available wearables targeted at daytime usage worn by 14 participants each. All devices reduced subjective sleep quality and affected the sleeping position of the wearer. As to be expected, we confirmed that devices which occupy more space of the outer ear canal with rigid parts are less desirable. Our results suggest that available form factors are mostly not suitable for sleep. Future earable designs can increase comfort by placing rigid parts behind the ear and using soft materials at the concha and in the ear canal.