I let AI build a tool to help me figure out what was waking me up at night

I have like 20 brands of foam earplugs in my drawer, 5 different pairs of custom silicone airplugs, unusual earplugs from Kickstarter like [1], and so on. What I'm saying is I know my way around the earplug block. Here's what I'd write for your categories:

Foam: The most effective, by far. I suspect many people wear them incorrectly and do not insert them far enough. You can use lube (they make special ear lube for stuff like hearing aids, although I think anything medical grade will do) if you have difficulty doing so. I have unusually small ear canals; the most comfortable and best I've found by a mile are Mack's Ultra Soft Foam Earplugs. These are much more comfortable than slim fit alternatives and also have very high attenuation.

Silicone: expensive (but they're reusable and last years), but the least fussy once you get them. They are moulded to your goddamn ear---it's a perfect, pressure-free fit every time and they go right in. Drawbacks include lesser attenuation and attenuation that isn't immediately at 100%---it takes a while for it to "seal". I abadoned these once moisture started to accumulate between my ear canal and the plug and I'd hear it as I moved and it became very annoying.

Wax: joke attenuations compared to foam, and bad compared to silicone. The most expensive long-term unless you're serious about reuse. Somewhat fussy and may fall out. Very comfortable (little insertion).

Foam + wax: this is what you really want if you care about maximum attenuation. My ear canals are slightly too short to comfortably insert an entire Mack's earplug, so I snip the ends off mine, lube them up, and insert them completely flush into my ear canal. Then, I take a wax plug and mould it on top. It's perfectly comfortable and it performs better than any other option I'm aware of. I tend to also wear a Bluetooth sleep mask and play rain sounds on 100% volume and it just comes through the double earplug situation to mask any very loud/spurious noise. To remove the flush-inserted earplugs, I use a pair of blunt tweezers.

When I used slim fit foam earplugs I'd routinely get ear infections. Switching to silicone fixed that, but suffered from the aforementioned issues. With the ultra soft earplugs + wax method I never get ear infections. I make sure to always insert a fresh pair (but I reuse the wax ones for a few days) and to always do so with clean hands. I think the infections are due to friction between the plug and the canal during insertion as well as plugs that are too large/exert too much pressure once expanded---the lube and very soft plug addresses those issues.

[1] https://paxauris.com/

This, this exactly. Uncomfortable and itchy to the point of keeping me awake until I take them out. Do not understand how anyone can sleep with them in!

Came to see if someone commented on that. I have generally seen Garmin as one of the good ones on several criteria:

- when hit by ransomware, disclosed publicly, bit on the data loss and told them to fsck off

- devices can very much operate without any account, app, or cloud connection (of course you don't get the more advanced "Connect" features)

- plug it in and you have rw access to .FIT files over MTP

- same mechanism to build and sideload apps made with Monkey C

- ANT+ is a fairly open ecosystem (progressively replaced by BLE, often in much less open ways)

I hear that some people are annoyed that devices stop receiving major feature updates after a year or two, and see that as predatory "you must upgrade every year", which is like, ridiculous?

Also in a sense I like that I buy the device and it's mostly "done". Like a mechanical watch it's a utility item I can rely on and it won't ever have a Liquid Ass pulled up on me.

What about your rouladen? Articulated steel blinds block quite a lot of light, don't they?

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