Hushh — white noise designed for a dark bedroom
Ten looped sounds, a timer, and an interface that does not blind you when you reach for the phone at two in the morning.
Most sleep apps are designed for a lit room
The typical white-noise app opens on a bright card grid, plays an ad, and pauses when the screen locks. Every one of those is a problem at bedtime. Brightness wakes you up, an unexpected ad wakes up whoever is next to you, and playback that stops at screen lock defeats the entire purpose.
Hushh is built around the actual conditions of use: a dark room, a phone face-down or on a nightstand, and someone who wants the sound to still be there in twenty minutes. The player dims the screen, playback continues in the background with a media notification, and a sleep timer stops it on schedule.
What is in the white noise app
A short, curated library and the controls that matter in the dark.
- Ten looped sounds. Rain, brown noise, fan, river, fire, café, thunder, ocean waves, forest and wind. Brown noise in particular is the one people come looking for — deeper than white noise and easier to sleep through — and a fan loop is the closest digital equivalent to the appliance most people actually fall asleep to.
- A sleep timer. Set a duration and the audio stops on its own. Five-minute nudges up and down let you adjust it without hunting for a picker, which matters when you are already lying down.
- Background playback that survives lock. Audio runs as a foreground media service with a notification, so locking the phone, opening something else or putting it in a pocket does not stop the sound. A wakelock keeps playback stable through the night.
- A screen that gets out of the way. The player can dim the display through the platform brightness channel, so the phone stops being a light source in a dark room.
- A three-channel mixer. The Pro tier lets you layer up to three sounds at independent volumes — rain over a fan, or thunder under ocean waves — which is how most people actually want their ambience rather than picking one loop.
No subscription, no meditation course
The sleep-app category is dominated by subscription products that bundle white noise with guided meditations, sleep stories, celebrity narration and a monthly charge. If all you want is rain to sleep to, you are paying for the rest of the catalogue every month.
Hushh is free with a one-time Pro purchase for the mixer and an ad-free experience. The audio is bundled with the app, so it plays with no connection and streams no data while you sleep.
Who it is for
Light sleepers in noisy places: a flat on a main road, a shared house with different schedules, a hotel with a corridor door. Masking noise works better than trying to eliminate it, and a steady loop is what makes a sudden noise less startling.
Shift workers sleeping during the day, where traffic and daylight both conspire against you. Parents settling a baby, where a fan or rain loop is a well-worn trick. And people who work in an open-plan office and use brown noise as a concentration aid rather than a sleep aid — the same loops work for both.
Playback and privacy
All audio is bundled with the app, so nothing streams and nothing is downloaded while it plays. There is no account, no sleep tracking and no microphone use — the app does not listen to your room. Internet access is used only for the ad banner in the free tier.
Hushh is a comfort and masking tool, not a medical device, and it does not diagnose or treat sleep disorders.
Frequently asked questions
Does the sound keep playing when I lock the phone? Yes. Playback runs as a background media service with its own notification, so locking the screen or switching apps does not stop it.
Which sounds are included? Rain, brown noise, fan, river, fire, café, thunder, ocean waves, forest and wind — ten looped sounds.
Is there a sleep timer? Yes, with quick five-minute up and down adjustments so you can set it without fully waking up.
Does it need an internet connection? No. All the audio ships with the app and plays offline.
Is there a subscription? No subscription. The app is free and ad-supported, with a one-time Pro purchase that adds the three-channel mixer and removes ads.