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Sound Machines Can Be a Game-Changer For Light Sleepers—Here Are Our Tested Picks

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Sound Machines Can Be a Game-Changer For Light Sleepers—Here Are Our Tested Picks


Compare Our Top Picks

More Sound Machines We Like

Baby Brezza Sleep and Soother for $30: This is super light, can run on batteries or be plugged in, and has 18 sleep sounds and three timer options (or it plays continuously). There’s also a night light with three brightness levels.

Yogasleep Hushh 2 Portable Sound Machine for $30: The Hushh 2 is another great portable sound machine that you should consider. It has six sounds, three timer options, and a nice night light for softly illuminating your bedside table or guiding your way to the bathroom. The brand says this model is its most durable sound machine. I didn’t fling it down the stairs, but it has held up to falling off my nightstand.

Lectrofan Evo for $60: Another solid option from the brand that makes our top pick. The Evo has a few more sound choices (like ocean noises) and looks nicer, but we prefer the buttons on the Classic. They’re better for fiddling with in the dark. This one also jumped in price recently.

Dreamegg D1 for $36: This one plays a lot of the same sounds as the D11 portable machine, with a handful more fans and a spectrum of noises. The control panel is matte and soft to the touch, and you can set it to play continuously or for 30, 60, or 90 minutes. I tried the white version, but you can get a few other nice colors on the Dreamegg site. The rim also lights up.

Encalife Sound Machine for $86: This little sound machine has a blue light that you can match your breathing to in order to relax. You’ll also likely find it on sale often, which is good because I wouldn’t spend $86 on it. A very similar model is available under numerous brand names for far less money. Encalife says these are ripoffs, rather than from the same manufacturer. We can’t confirm that, but either way there are better options on this list for less.

Avoid

Allway Aqua10 for $119: I love that this looks like a cute Marshall amp and works as a decent-sounding Bluetooth speaker for sleep sounds and anything else you want to listen to the rest of the day. You need the Allway app to access the sounds, which include crackling fires, busy cafes, a spectrum of colored noises, and a wide selection of instrumentals. They’ll play for anywhere from five to 120 minutes. The Aqua10 also has a humidifier function, which looks extremely cool paired with lights that illuminate the vapor like a fire. But I found it to be fussy and leaky, and it seemed to stop even though the reservoir was full. It’s no longer available on Amazon, which might say something about its longevity.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can You Keep A White Noise Machine All Night?

If you plan on keeping your white noise machine playing sound on loop all night, make sure first that it has the capacity to do so. Some machines run on 30-, 60-, or 90-minute timers that auto-shut off, while others are continuous.

Does A Fan Make A Good White Noise Machine?

In a pinch, you can use a bedside or box fan in place of a white noise machine. It will create consistent noise (as well as temperature control for hot sleepers) to help you fall asleep. However, if you aren’t wanting to keep the room a bit cooler, or want more varied noise options, a sound machine’s the stronger choice.

How Did WIRED Select Models to Be Reviewed?

WIRED works with many brands on a partnership basis, where samples are provided to us for free to test and we give our honest feedback. In these partnerships, we also earn commission if they end up making the cut on whatever topic we are researching—in this case, sound machines. That doesn’t automatically mean they get premier placement on an article nor is it not the only way we select models. There are plenty that we find and purchase ourselves during research.

What Does WIRED Do With the Sound Machines After Testing Them?

Just like all products we test, including mattresses, pillows, sheets, and more, everything is donated to our local communities when testing is finished.

Power up with unlimited access to WIRED. Get best-in-class reporting that’s too important to ignore. Includes unlimited digital access and exclusive subscriber-only content. Subscribe Today.



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Lenovo’s Latest Wacky Concepts Include a Laptop With a Built-In Portable Monitor

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Lenovo’s Latest Wacky Concepts Include a Laptop With a Built-In Portable Monitor


Do you like having a second screen with your computer setup? What if your laptop could carry a second screen for you? That’s the idea behind Lenovo’s latest proof of concept, the ThinkBook Modular AI PC, announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Lenovo is never shy to show off wacky, weird concept laptops. We’ve seen a PC with a transparent screen, one with a rollable OLED screen, a swiveling screen, and another with a flippy screen. At CES earlier this year, the company showed off a gaming laptop with a display that expands at the push of a button. Sometimes, these concepts turn into real products that go on sale (often in limited quantities).

At MWC 2026, Lenovo trotted out three concepts. While it’s unclear whether any of them will become real, purchasable products, there’s some unique utility here, and a peek at how computing experiences could change in the future.

A Laptop With a Built-In Portable Screen

The ThinkBook Modular AI PC has a second screen hanging magnetically off the back of the laptop, and it can show content to people sitting in front of you.

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

Image may contain Computer Electronics Laptop Pc Computer Hardware Computer Keyboard Hardware Monitor and Screen

This is with the second screen removed from the back and placed in front of the main display. The keyboard is removable and works via Bluetooth.

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

As someone with a multi-screen setup at home and a fondness for portable monitors, the ThinkBook Modular AI PC appeals to me the most. At first glance, it looks like a normal laptop. Take a look behind, and you’ll notice there’s a second screen magnetically hanging off the back of the laptop, like a koala carrying a baby on its back.

The screen is connected to the laptop using pogo-pin connectors, so you can use it in this state to display content to people in front of you, say, if you were making a presentation during a meeting. Alternatively, you can pop this second screen off, remove a hidden kickstand resting under the laptop, and magnetically attach it to the 14-inch screen so that you have a traditional portable monitor experience. (You’ll need to connect this to the laptop via a USB-C cable in this orientation.)

If you don’t have the desk space for that orientation, you can always remove the keyboard from the base and pop the second screen there—it’ll auto-connect to the laptop via the pogo pins, and you’ll be able to use the Bluetooth keyboard to type on a dual-screen setup that resembles the Asus ZenBook Duo. The whole system is a fantastically portable method of improving productivity on the go, and the laptop isn’t too thick or cumbersome.



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The 5 Big ‘Known Unknowns’ of Donald Trump’s New War With Iran

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The 5 Big ‘Known Unknowns’ of Donald Trump’s New War With Iran


More recently, Iran has been a regular adversary in cyberspace—and while it hasn’t demonstrated quite the acuity of Russia or China, Iran is “good at finding ways to maximize the impact of their capabilities,” says Jeff Greene, the former executive assistant director of cybersecurity at CISA. Iran, in particular, famously was responsible for a series of distributed-denial-of-service attacks on Wall Street institutions that worried financial markets, and its 2012 attack on Saudi Aramco and Qatar’s Rasgas marked some of the earliest destructive infrastructure cyberattacks.

Today, surely, Iran is weighing which of these tools, networks, and operatives it might press into a response—and where, exactly, that response might come. Given its history of terror campaigns and cyberattacks, there’s no reason to think that Iran’s retaliatory options are limited to missiles alone—or even to the Middle East at all.

Which leads to the biggest known unknown of all:

5. How does this end? There’s an apocryphal story about a 1970s conversation between Henry Kissinger and a Chinese leader—it’s told variously as either Mao-Tse Tung or Zhou Enlai. Asked about the legacy of the French revolution, the Chinese leader quipped, “Too soon to tell.” The story almost surely didn’t happen, but it’s useful in speaking to a larger truth particularly in societies as old as the 2,500-year-old Persian empire: History has a long tail.

As much as Trump (and the world) might hope that democracy breaks out in Iran this spring, the CIA’s official assessment in February was that if Khamenei was killed, he would be likely replaced with hardline figures from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. And indeed, the fact that Iran’s retaliatory strikes against other targets in the Middle East continued throughout Saturday, even after the death of many senior regime officials—including, purportedly, the defense minister—belied the hope that the government was close to collapse.

The post-World War II history of Iran has surely hinged on three moments and its intersections with American foreign policy—the 1953 CIA coup, the 1979 revolution that removed the shah, and now the 2026 US attacks that have killed its supreme leader. In his recent bestselling book King of Kings, on the fall of the shah, longtime foreign correspondent Scott Anderson writes of 1979, “If one were to make a list of that small handful of revolutions that spurred change on a truly global scale in the modern era, that caused a paradigm shift in the way the world works, to the American, French, and Russian Revolutions might be added the Iranian.”

It is hard not to think today that we are living through a moment equally important in ways that we cannot yet fathom or imagine—and that we should be especially wary of any premature celebration or declarations of success given just how far-reaching Iran’s past turmoils have been.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has repeatedly bragged about how he sees the military and Trump administration’s foreign policy as sending a message to America’s adversaries: “F-A-F-O,” playing off the vulgar colloquialism. Now, though, it’s the US doing the “F-A” portion in the skies over Iran—and the long arc of Iran’s history tells us that we’re a long, long way from the “F-O” part where we understand the consequences.


Let us know what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor at mail@wired.com.



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This Backyard Smoker Delivers Results Even a Pitmaster Would Approve Of

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This Backyard Smoker Delivers Results Even a Pitmaster Would Approve Of


While my love of smoked meats is well-documented, my own journey into actually tending the fire started just last spring when I jumped at the opportunity to review the Traeger Woodridge Pro. When Recteq came calling with a similar offer to check out the Flagship 1600, I figured it would be a good way to stay warm all winter.

While the two smokers have a lot in common, the Recteq definitely feels like an upgrade from the Traeger I’ve been using. Not only does it have nearly twice the cooking space, but the huge pellet hopper, rounded barrel, and proper smokestack help me feel like a real pitmaster.

The trade-off is losing some of the usability features that make the Woodridge Pro a great first smoker. The setup isn’t as quite as simple, and the larger footprint and less ergonomic conditions require a little more experience or patience. With both options, excellent smoked meat is just a few button presses away, but speaking as someone with both in their backyard, I’ve been firing up the Recteq more often.

Getting Settled

Photograph: Brad Bourque

Setting up the Recteq wasn’t as time-consuming as the Woodridge, but it was more difficult to manage on my own. Some of the steps, like attaching the bull horns to the lid, or flipping the barrel onto its stand, would really benefit from a patient friend or loved one. Like most smokers, you’ll need to run a burn-in cycle at 400 degrees Fahrenheit to make sure there’s nothing left over from manufacturing or shipping. Given the amount of setup time and need to cool down the smoker after, I would recommend setting this up Friday afternoon if you want to smoke on a Saturday.



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