If your family travels on a regular basis, the Marpac Hushh Compact Sound Machine is a must-have. Unlike many other white noise machines that weigh down your luggage, this one comes in at only 3.5 inches in diameter and 3.8 ounces. My husband and I have used another Marpac sound machine for over a year now, but we wondered if this smaller, rechargeable model would deliver the same great sound—and in a travel-friendly package—so we put it to the test, using it in our kids’ room for full week in our home and for a week away at grandma’s.
Setup Process: No user manual required
One major plus is that there’s no guesswork when it comes to setting up this sound machine. We simply plugged in the Marpac Hushh using the provided USB cable. Once it was charged, all that was left to do was choose which soothing setting we preferred and set the volume that would help lull our kids to sleep. As someone who is not usually the most tech-savvy, I appreciated this easy process. My husband and I would usually set the sound machine at about 8 p.m., right as we put our boys, ages 18 months and 7 years old, down for bedtime. We love that the Hushh comes with a baby-safe clip to make it easy to attach the sound machine to a stroller or car seat, but you can also just set it down on any flat surface. We ended up clipping it onto the door handle in the bedroom so our boys wouldn’t argue about whose sleeping space it was closest to.
Battery: Varies on use
While you do have the option of keeping the Marpac Hushh plugged in and running, the beauty is that once you charge it fully, you don’t have to worry about setting it anywhere near an outlet; the Marpac Hushh has a rechargeable lithium-ion battery. Depending on whether you use the nightlight and how high you keep the volume, this machine can last you anywhere between four and 22 hours. We found that keeping the light on and the volume high drains the sound machine much more quickly; we let our kids have a few minutes of fun with the nightlight before ultimately turning it off to save the rest of the battery for the sound. When we went in the next morning at 6:30 a.m., the machine was still purring after 10.5 hours of continuous use.
Sound and Light Quality: Good enough
Our 1.5-year-old and 7-year-old are accustomed to sleeping with the Marpac Dohm Classic, which we also reviewed, so we were nervous that they’d have a hard time sleeping with this new sound. But after a little excitement about this cool contraption entering the room and letting them play with the bright green buttons, they settled down. As we quickly learned, the Hushh’s compact size doesn’t mean that it skimps on sound. There are three soothing sounds to choose from—bright white noise, deep white noise, or gentle surf—and all three of them adequately filled the rooms in both our apartment and in a large room at their grandma’s when we turned it up to the highest setting. The deep white noise most closely replicated the sound our kids were used to hearing with our Marpac Dohm, so that became our default, but our 7-year-old did request the gentle surf from time to time and had fun pairing it with bedtime stories. Our 1.5-year-old slept soundly both ways. Truth be told, though, compared to the original Marpac Dohm, which we use on a nightly basis, the white noise is more synthetic, which means that once and a while you’ll hear skipping or more of a static noise in the background.
Range: As expected
We live in a modest-sized apartment in Brooklyn, so while the range is not necessarily an issue for us, we do need our sound machine to block out loud sounds from outside our windows. It held up against trucks and voices, and that’s actually more than we expected from a sound machine of its small size. Still, while we had success with it in our small apartment bedroom, I’m not sure the sound would fill up a large room in a larger home.
Features: Nightlight and great customer service
There’s a nightlight feature for kids who might be scared of the dark, as well as a child lock option, which prevents little ones from adjusting the setting and volume themselves. We found this very helpful the first few nights when our 1.5-year-old kept wanting to press the buttons. Being able to lock it allowed us to say “all done!” and set it for the evening.
Price: Affordable
At about $30, this sound machine option is absolutely an affordable one compared to others on the market—especially considering its versatile, travel-friendly size and charging abilities. Plus, since the product is made by Marpac, you also get a customer service quality promise and a one-year limited factory warning. Not happy after 101 sleeps? You can return it with no questions asked.
Marpac Hushh Compact Sound Machine vs. Marpac Dohm Classic Natural Sound Machine
The Marpac Hushh seems to do the job just fine, and it’s particularly handy to pack for trips. But when compared to the Marpac Dohm Classic, there are some important differences: The Dohm delivers a real fan noise that fills up a room, while the Hushh makes more synthetic sounds. We also don’t love that we can’t adjust the tone of the Hushh, as we can by twisting the Dohm. Even still, the Dohm is hard to transport, so we think the tradeoff between the high-caliber sound of the Dohm and the portability of the Hushh is a fair one. Overall, both of these sound machines serve their purposes. We’d suggest investing in the Dohm for home or office use and the Hushh for traveling near and far. With its small stature charging abilities, the Marpac Hushh Compact Sound Machine is the perfect packable solution for families on the go.
