Screen Soft Light / Scenes / WHITE NOISE

White noise

Stopped

Space plays or stops, F goes fullscreen.

No. 001 · WHITE NOISE

White noise — a steady hiss with a sleep timer and dim light

  • 01 Generated live, nothing to download
  • 02 Sleep timer with a one-minute fade-out
  • 03 Dim warm screen light, adjustable to black

White noise is the even, bright hiss of a fan or an untuned radio. Press Play, set the volume and a sleep timer, and the sound fades out near the end of it. A dim warm light on the screen keeps the room from going fully dark while you settle, and you can turn it to black.

Other sleep sounds and clocks —
Night clockFull screen clockPink noiseBrown noise
§ 01

What white noise is

White noise has the same power at every frequency, so a graph of it is flat. Each octave spans twice as many frequencies as the one below it, so a flat spectrum puts most of its energy in the high octaves. That is why white noise sounds bright, like a hiss or a radio between stations. That evenness is what makes it good at covering sudden sounds.

§ 02

The three differ in how power falls as pitch rises.

White, pink and brown compared

The three differ in how power falls as pitch rises. White is flat. Pink noise loses 3 dB per octave, so each octave carries the same energy and the sound is softer, like steady rain. Brown noise loses 6 dB per octave, so low frequencies dominate and it sounds like a deep rumble. The buttons on the player switch between them, and ocean waves, which is brown noise swelling about every ten seconds.

§ 03

Masking, not magic

A steady background makes sudden sounds stand out less against it, which is why people use white noise against traffic, thin walls or a partner who snores. Studies of whether it improves sleep itself give mixed, mostly small results, so treat it as a tool for hiding noise. If you wake up to a hiss that is too sharp, pink or brown noise is a gentler place to start.

Procedure

Three moves to peak output

  1. 01

    Press Play

    Sound starts when you press Play, because browsers only allow audio after a tap or click. Set the Volume slider low first if the room is quiet.

  2. 02

    Set a sleep timer

    Choose 15, 30, 60 or 90 minutes. The sound and the screen light both fade away over the final minute, then the page stops.

  3. 03

    Dim the screen light

    Slide Screen light to a faint glow, or to 0% for a black screen. Use Fullscreen to hide everything else on the device.

Inquiries

Questions worth asking

Q.01 Is white noise the same as a fan?
Close. A fan produces broad, steady noise that is uneven in pitch and shaped by the blades and housing. This page makes a mathematically flat spectrum, which sounds brighter and thinner than most fans.
Q.02 Can I switch sounds while it plays?
Yes. Pick another sound on the page and the current one fades out as the new one fades in. The volume and sleep timer carry over.
Q.03 What happens when the sleep timer ends?
In the last minute the volume and the screen light fall together toward zero, and then playback stops. The status line then reads Sleep timer finished. Press Play again to restart.
Q.04 Is this a recording?
No. The sound is generated by your browser as you listen, so there is nothing to download and no file to buffer. It plays as a repeating eight-second pattern, long enough that most people do not notice the loop.
Q.05 Will it keep playing when my phone locks?
Not reliably. Some phone browsers pause web audio once the screen turns off. Playing keeps the screen awake on browsers that support the Screen Wake Lock API (Chrome, Edge and recent Safari). Turn the Screen light down to 0% and the screen shows black. If your phone still stops the sound, switch off auto-lock for the night.
Q.06 How loud should I set it?
Quiet enough to talk over comfortably, and no louder than you need to cover the sounds you want to mask. The Volume slider is relative to your device volume, so the page cannot tell you how many decibels you are getting. For a baby's room, keep the speaker well away from the crib and the volume low.
Q.07 Does noise help you sleep?
The well-established effect is masking: a steady sound makes sudden noises such as traffic, a neighbour or a snoring partner less noticeable. Research on whether steady noise improves sleep itself is mixed and mostly small. It is not a treatment for insomnia or any other condition, so talk to a doctor if you cannot sleep for weeks.
Cross-reference

Try adjacent plates