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Here’s how I’ve been using the LectroFan White Noise Machine made by ASTI.
The ASTI brand has all sorts of white noise and fan sounds, plus other real nature sounds machines. The express purpose is to help you develop better sleep habits.
As a member of a household with early mornings of my mom and dad getting ready, and my wife staying asleep, as I start preparing coffee time and getting ready for an 8-hour shift of remote work… I have crappy sleeping habits.
I think lots of other caregivers have crappy sleep habits too, so I’m sharing my meager experience here.
You can buy the LectroFan on Amazon #ad, and if you do, we will get a small commission. Thanks!
On Off Button
The On Off Button (and the size of essential buttons in general) is too hard to find for people with fine motor impairment.
So this is only recommended for normal functioning caregivers, and not necessarily the care-receiver. If the care-receiver would want to turn it off one day, they’d have a really difficult time because the buttons on this device are tiny.
Volume
Good performance in the auditory department! You can make it super quiet and way too loud to sleep. The Lectro fan has a full range of volume, so it’s a good fit for the hard of hearing.
My mom keeps joking with me that it's good for spies. She says you can turn it on in a room and have a conversation and the outsiders won’t hear.
Like when you’re talking about your care-receiver’s health care and you don’t want your care-receiver to hear.
Different Sounds
I’m not very impressed with this feature.
The “fan sounds” are mostly the same type. I suppose there’s one I do like better than the rest.
The “White Noise” sounds goes from low frequency to high frequency. Your doggy would hate those high frequency ones. Shrill to the canine ear!
I bet there are white noise machines that have a more soothing sound variety, like ocean whales or beachside wind, but the LectroFan’s got only white and brown noises. Then again, it is called a white noise machine!
Durability
So far so good. I dropped it onto hardwood floor twice already. Once when setting up, once when taking photos of the LectroFan interface for this post. It's still going like the Energizer Bunny.
The LectroFan high fidelity white noise machine has timer settings. When you tap the 60 Mins button, you start a countdown from 60 Mins. If you tap it 3 times, then that’s a 180 timer until it will shut down on its own.
But I don’t use that. I just leave the device on all day all night every day and night.
I don’t suppose a tiny white noise vibrating speaker costs much in utilities or consumes too much electricity. It creates a nice aura around your place of sleep.
By keeping the white noise one all the time, whenever I’m around my bed, I notice the gentle white noise and am reminded of sleep.
I think as I’ve been using it like this for over 9 days and I’ve started falling asleep faster when I get into bed.
To come back to one of my earlier questions. That’s the reason buying a LectroFan has benefits over using a sleep noise app. If you use and app, then you’ll need to use your phone. A number of studies have reported “using your cell phone at bedtime is worse for getting to sleep”.
Keeping the LectroFan on 24/7 creates a kind of positive psychological loop that helps you get to sleep faster. That’s my experience anyway.
One of the first thoughts I had when starting to use it was: “couldn’t I just use a free app instead of this?”. Now I know the answer is a resounding NO. The way I use it, the LectroFan is on all the time, and that cannot be done with a phone.
It’s so nice to get into your place of sleep near rest time and be drawn in by the sound nearby your bed. It’s like a psychological signal that it’s time to sleep. A phone just can't do that.
