Sleep sounds
Fan sounds for sleep
Before any app existed, this was the fix: switch on a box fan, point it at the wall, go to sleep. Half the people searching for white noise are really looking for this, and the difference between the two is worth two minutes of your time.
A fan makes broadband noise from air turbulence plus a very quiet periodic thump from the blades, sitting somewhere between pink and brown in balance, which is why so many people sleep to one without ever calling it white noise. Tock uses a recording of an actual fan rather than generating it, because that blade rhythm is the thing that makes it read as a fan at all.
- Real recordings
- 22Real recordingsThe fan is one. Turbulence generates fine, blade rhythm does not.
- Machine beds nearby
- 4Machine beds nearbyA fan, a room heater, an air purifier and an air conditioner, all slightly different.
- Distance settings
- 3Distance settingsFar, Near and Close, on this and 41 other sounds.
Turbulence plus a blade rate
Most of what you hear from a fan is air being torn up as it moves past the blades and the guard, which is broadband noise sloping down towards the top end. On its own that is just a noise colour with a slightly odd shape.
What makes it a fan is the second component: a very quiet periodic thump at the rate the blades pass a fixed point. It is far below the noise in level and most people never consciously hear it, but remove it and the sound stops being recognisable.
That is the reason this one is a recording. Getting the turbulence right is easy. Getting the blade rate to sit at exactly the wrong side of noticeable is not.
A fan is a masker, so it can run all night
Tock sorts sounds by job. Fall-asleep aids like a fire or a piano fade out after half an hour, because they have shape in them. Maskers hold still, so they get 30, 60 and 90 minute options and the choice to run through to your alarm.
The fan is a masker, and it is one of the few sounds where the all-night option is the obvious default rather than a compromise.
It is quieter than the fan you own
Real fans are loud, and a lot of people who sleep with one are running it well above what they would choose if the sound were the only thing they were buying. A phone speaker across the room at a moderate level does most of the masking work with a fraction of the level, because it does not also have to move air.
Set the distance to Far first, then raise the volume until the thing you are covering stops standing out. That order gets you to a lower final level than the other way round.
Who it suits, and who it does not
Worth trying if
- Anyone who already sleeps with a fan and wants the same sound without the draught
- Hotel rooms and other people's houses, where you cannot bring the actual fan
- Winter, when you want the noise a fan makes but not the air it moves
- A first try for people who find pure noise colours too clinical
Probably skip it if
- Deep low-frequency intrusion, since a fan tails off before it gets down to where traffic lives
- Anyone bothered by the faint periodic thump, which some people hear immediately and then cannot unhear
How it behaves once it is running
- 01It is one of the 22 bundled recordings, so it plays from the app with nothing to fetch.
- 02You can layer up to four sounds at once and save the result as a mix, so a bed you like is one tap the next night.
- 03A distance control puts it Far, Near or Close, which changes how present it feels rather than just how loud it is. 42 of the 63 sounds carry it.
- 04It fades with the sleep timer, and the good-night screen dims itself to near black after twenty seconds so the phone stops being a light source.
What to put underneath it
Four sounds at a time is the limit, and three is usually the sweet spot. These are the pairings that hold up.
- Brown noiseBrown noise supplies the bottom octave a fan does not really have, and the fan supplies the mid-range texture brown noise is missing. Between them there are no gaps.
- RainfallRain over a fan is the most-used mix people build, because the fan holds a rock-steady floor and the rain stops it sounding like one continuous machine.
- White noisePush the fan to Far and put white noise on top when you need the bright end for a specific sharp sound, without losing the familiar hum underneath.
Questions people ask
Is a fan the same as white noise?
No. White noise is flat per hertz and sounds bright. A fan slopes downward towards the top end, so it sits closer to pink or brown, and it carries a faint blade rhythm that no noise colour has. People who say they like white noise often mean they like a fan.
Can I use this instead of running my actual fan?
That is most of the point. You get the sound without the draught, without the electricity, and without waking up cold at 4am. If you also want the airflow, keep the fan and use this on nights when you do not.
Will it loop noticeably?
It is a recording, so it does loop, and Tock smooths the seam before it wraps. A fan is one of the harder loops to catch because the sound is so uniform, but if you are seam-sensitive, layer brown noise underneath and the generated layer will cover it.
Which is better, the fan or the air conditioner sound?
The fan is broader and slightly brighter. The air conditioner and the room heater sit lower and hum more, so they cover low intrusion better and disappear into the room faster. All three are in the Noise group and take a tap to swap between.
Related sounds
Nearby textures worth trying on a night this one does not land.
- White noiseWhite noise holds equal power in every one hertz band, which makes it the brightest of the sleep noises and the best at covering thin, sharp sounds: keys in a lock, a running tap, a voice through a wall. That same brightness is why plenty of people last about an hour before switching to pink or brown.
- Brown noiseBrown noise puts almost all of its energy in the low end, dropping roughly 6 dB with every octave you climb, so it reads as a rumble or distant surf rather than a hiss. That low weight is exactly why it covers traffic, footsteps and a neighbour's bass better than white noise does, and also why it can feel like pressure if your room is already quiet.
- Sleeper trainA sleeper train bed is a low broadband rumble with a slow, regular rail rhythm over it and the closed-in quality of a cabin, and that combination masks well while giving your attention something gentle to rest on. The rhythm is also the catch: a regular pattern is something you can start tracking again if you surface at 3am.
- Pink noisePink noise drops about 3 dB with every octave, which works out to equal energy in every octave and is close to how a lot of natural sound is distributed, from rain to wind in trees to tyres on a wet road. It reads as a balanced hush rather than a hiss or a rumble, which is why it is usually the right thing to try before you commit to either extreme.
Elsewhere on the site
Different corner of the same problem.
- AlternativesTock vs the iPhone Clock appIf you want an alarm and nothing else, keep the Clock app. Tock rings on the same Apple framework it does, so the reliability argument is a draw. Tock is only worth paying for if you want the night before the alarm to change when it goes off, and you want a morning report and a mission before it stops.
- RoundupsThe best sleep apps for iPhone, sorted by what you're fixingFor iPhone, the best sleep app depends on the problem. Tock is the best all-round pick when the alarm and the morning are what is broken, Apple Health Sleep is the free place to start, Calm is for people who cannot fall asleep, AutoSleep is for Apple Watch owners, Rise is for sleep debt and SnoreLab is for snoring.
- Wake timesWaking up at 7:30amBedtimes by sleep cycle for a 7:30am alarm.
- Wake tonesNature alarm soundsBirds, water and weather make calm wake tones and carry one specific failure: a natural sound is easy for a sleeping brain to fold into a dream rather than treat as an alarm. Tock counters that in two places, by scheduling the alarm through Apple's AlarmKit so it lands on the system full-screen alert, and by keeping it ringing until a wake-up mission is done.
- Head to headAlarmy vs PillowThese two aren't really competing. Choose Alarmy if the problem is that you stay in bed. Choose Pillow if you own an Apple Watch and the problem is that you have no idea what your nights look like.
- FeaturesWidgetsTock puts tonight outside the app: 3 Home Screen widgets, Lock Screen and StandBy accessories, 3 Control Center tiles, 8 Live Activities, Siri App Shortcuts, 4 quick actions on the icon and a Focus filter.
You cannot just decide to fall asleep
Fan is one of 63 sounds in Tock. Layer four at a time, save the mix, and let the alarm wake you at a lighter moment in the morning.