[Test & Review] Morphée Box: Sound Issues & Won’t Turn On After 1.5 Months

Have you ever heard of the Morphée Box machine? It’s a machine that helps you sleep, and sleep well.

I’ve always been a sleepyhead, able to fall asleep anywhere: on a crowded bus, on a plane, on a boat… but because of my health issues, the quality of my sleep has decreased : I have nightmares, or I grind my teeth until I wake up with a terrible headache.

Despite many hours of sleep, I feel like I haven’t slept at all and my well-being is plummeting. I thought about playing texts and sounds from the Calm app… but having a speaker or a phone right above my head, even in airplane mode, never relaxed me. Probably a waves thing.

Again, this post is not NOT sponsored

That’s when I remembered the little machine Morphée Box, designed in France and made in France in China and available:

On Amazon €79.95 (there’s occasionally a €4 or €5 discount): Amazon link

On the Fnac website €79.95: Fnac link

On the Nature & Discovery website €79.95: Nature & Discovery link

UPDATE: a friend who has the same box told me that some boxes have a manufacturing defect, hence the crackling and poor sound quality. I’m going to return mine
UPDATE January 2022: indeed my second box is flawless, no crackling.
UPDATE February 2022: My Morphée Box died for no reason, and I’m going to get a refund. It’s over, I’m giving up!

What’s the Morphée Box for?

It’s a bit like a speaker but that only plays pre-recorded content conducive to sleep. It’s not connected to anything, emits no waves, no light.. and can only play the 224 pre-recorded sophrology / meditation / pleasant sound sessions (between 8 and 20 minutes).

It helps insomniacs sleep, and allows people with restless sleep to get more restful sleep.

It’s perfect for me because for my anti-bruxism treatment, I need to have pleasant thoughts before falling asleep, and have a relaxed jaw..

What better than a little sophrology session away from all other Bluetooth machines, Wi-Fi, blue light, etc.?

Indeed, I was immediately drawn to this “no waves” story of the Morphée Box. In a world where we receive notifications every minute, I’m starting to appreciate high-tech machines that offer a true disconnect (like my e-reader screen. that doesn’t even show the time) and just before sleep, we need disconnection even more.

Moreover, the nomadic and practical format of the box will allow me to take it everywhere (you cover the keys with the wooden lid). The battery has a battery life of about 3 hours (7 to 10 sessions), which I find is not much, especially for someone like me who never thinks about charging and also uses it outside of nap/sleep times. But hey, it has a battery, that’s the most important thing, you don’t need to plug it in constantly (I don’t like electrical wires near my head).

Packaging

Even the packaging is too cute. You can clearly give it as a gift as is.

The design

I love this old-school style, it’s super classy. It’s a very beautiful object. My friends notice it right away, and just the beauty of it makes them want to buy it.

The fact of not having waves, and just a small light in the middle that comes on when you turn on the box, I really really like that!

During the session, there is absolutely no light, and the box turns itself off at the end of the session. That’s great!

For more discretion (use in a hostel dormitory, for example, or if you sleep with someone not interested in the Morphée Box), the machine can be used with headphones wired.

Or, in a group meditation setting, the 3.5mm jack can be plugged into speakers.

Personally, I find it uncomfortable to sleep with wired headphones. I’ve never managed to do it, and especially since I move around in my bed, I risk pulling on the headphones and knocking the Box over, so it’s good to have offered this option, but in reality, it’s only useful if I use it during the day, to relax for example, without disturbing JB.

The design negatives

• I’m surprised the keys are plastic. At this price, they could have used stainless steel keys. Too bad!
• The lid is wooden, and there’s a sort of silicone around the black part to fit it well into the lid, but it’s not intuitive. If you’re not careful, like me at first, you might not push it in enough because the box is wobbly in its base.

• There’s no charge indicator. You don’t know when to charge, or if you’ve charged it properly. Indicator lights are supposed to give this information, but actually, it doesn’t work.
  • UPDATE: the light indicators don’t work on my first Morphée Box, which has a manufacturing defect, but it works on my 2nd Morphée Box.
• The theme key becomes less precise when you turn it toward “music” and “nature,” it’s slightly off-center. I don’t know if I should blame the production in China or the design in France. Sigh.
• Some complain about the lack of light. If a session isn’t enough to fall asleep, turning the keys in the dark isn’t easy. But with practice, you recognize the buttons by touch, and after 3 nights, I can restart the same session just by touching the buttons in the dark (you just need to find the ON and PLAY buttons).

The sessions

The text was designed by sleep experts. Before starting a session, you choose:

• the theme
• the session number
• the duration
• the voice (male/female)

A small booklet details each session. This booklet can be kept if you want to know exactly what each session is about.

Themes

There are 8 themes

• Body & Breathing & Movement: I find the texts more or less similar. Very focused on relaxing the body and mind. My favorite sessions are “Movement session 3 20 minutes,” “Breathing session 7 20 minutes” which focus a bit longer on relaxing the head and especially the jaw. It’s really good for my bruxism.
• Travel: offers visualization sessions, imagining yourself in pleasant situations or places. They recommend it for daytime, but some sessions can be used before sleep to have pleasant thoughts.
• Rhythm: to lower the heart rate and relax. It’s the theme that can be used in the middle of the day to calm down if you have a bout of stress. Cardiac coherence is recommended 3 times a day, so I love launching this program during the day. More during the day than in the evening.
• Nap: this program is special. There are only 4 minutes of texts, then depending on the duration you chose, a gentle melody plays after 8 or 20 minutes. So you wake up gently, the nap is deep but short enough to get other things done
• Music: 8 gentle music tracks. This is my least favorite theme. I find the compositions way too similar. I play them when I want some ambient music during the day, but the speaker isn’t a Bose speaker either. My musician ears are bothered by the sound quality when playing music (whereas with the texts, the sound quality is about acceptable).
  • UPDATE: a friend who has the same box told me some boxes have a manufacturing defect, hence the crackling and poor sound quality. I’m going to return mine
  • UPDATE January 2022: indeed my second box is flawless, no crackling. The sound quality for music is a little better (even if it’s still not a BOSE)
• Nature: 8 sounds recorded in actual nature: a cat’s purr, thunder, rain… I find this theme lovely for relaxing during the day but I’ve never managed to fall asleep with ambient noises

You can jot down your favorite sessions in the provided blue notebook to come back to them later.

Sessions

8 sessions per theme

Duration

8 minutes or 20 minutes

I find 8 minutes sufficient when I’m really sleepy. If I still feel like surfing the internet but I force myself to bed, I’ll rather use the 20-minute session.

Voice

I think men already dominate the world enough that I don’t need a man’s voice to guide me into sleep ahahhaa

So naturally I pick the woman’s voice and it’s great. But the man’s voice is great too. Both voices are quite enveloping, I find.

Number of sessions

• 8 themes x 8 sessions x Choice of 8 and 20 minutes x 2 male/female voices (for the texts)
• In reality, there are 32 sessions reserved for naps, and 32 sessions that are just music & nature sounds.
• So strictly speaking, there are only 160 different sophrology & meditation texts

Test & Review

I’m implementing several methods at once to reduce my bruxism so I can’t tell if my cheerful awakenings and deep sleeps are due to my new mouthguard, my remote sessions with my hypnotherapist, or Morphée Box.

What I know is:

• I was able to keep my smartphone as far away as possible while sleeping. So less temptation to surf Facebook or Instagram at 2 AM. That alone helps me sleep earlier.
• The sessions are short (max 20 minutes) so even if I turn on the speaker, it doesn’t bother JB
• I can relax better when Morphée Box’s voice tells me to relax my whole body—than trying to do it myself. As you know, not everyone can self-hypnotize or self-relax. I’m sure that if Harry Potter had the same device, it would have been much easier for him to fight the Death Eaters (you have to think of a happy memory before using the Expecto Patronum spell).
• I can also use it during the day to treat myself to little moments of relaxation. There’s also the “nap” mode if I feel like sleeping in the middle of the afternoon.
• I always manage to fall asleep before the end of the session. I don’t understand half the text because I’m already caught between waking and sleeping, so I know a voice is speaking, but I’m already a bit out of it.
• I think you still have to focus on the text and content, otherwise sophrology doesn’t work (or works less well). It’s really the text and the reading pace that help you relax. The text was written by pros, they know how to guide us into relaxation. It’s really powerful.
• The main goal is to sleep well. By helping us to completely disconnect (we can put our phone super far for once), relax us and sleep deeply. I don’t think it’s an ideal solution for real insomniacs. It’s more for people without discipline, too tempted to scroll on Tiktok at 1 AM, or who sleep with all their problems on their shoulders—and so they sleep but don’t really rest. Having a machine like this is about creating a sleep ritual, lowering anxiety levels, relaxing your body, leading to truly restorative and deep sleep.
• Even if we missed the sleep train (the cats were fighting and when I got up to scold them, I couldn’t fall back asleep right away), we can start a session and get back to sleep, I find that super cool—or super useful—for those with a small bladder who lose sleep every time they get up to go to the bathroom.
• The nap feature is really great. First, the iPad alarm is always too aggressive. Here, not only do you sleep more deeply thanks to the 4-minute text, but waking up (8 or 20 minutes later) is accompanied by super gentle music. The downside is that sometimes you need a nap longer than 20 minutes, so the machine isn’t suitable.
• The price: €80, it makes you think, a lot… but a sophrology session costs €60 an hour, and sleep apps like Calm aren’t cheap either if you pay for the annual subscription. Plus, there’s too much temptation to go on the internet because your phone is right there. I find the price acceptable, even though €50 would have been more reasonable.

So far, I’m really impressed. I didn’t think I needed it because I sleep well anyway, but I often end up surfing the web if sleep doesn’t come quickly enough. Thanks to this machine, I’m more disciplined, I sleep more and more deeply.

I use it a lot during the day to start my cardiac coherence sessions 3 times a day. I could do it with my smartphone, but with this machine, it’s much simpler—no need for Bluetooth, searching for the speaker, etc.

I’m really happy with my purchase (as long as you get a unit that doesn’t crackle), plus the lid protects the clips and lets me take it everywhere with me on trips.

The machine is available in several languages, so you can also give it to your foreign friends. Note: each machine only covers one language.

UPDATE 6 weeks later: My Morphée Box died for no reason, and I’m going to get a refund. That’s it, I give up!

The downsides

• They have a long pause between sentences. So sometimes you wonder if the session is over or not, and just when you’re about to turn the box back on, the sentence continues 😀
• Actually, because of that long pause between sentences, it sometimes makes me jump, especially if I’ve set the volume too high. So now I set the volume to moderate, and the voice that comes back abruptly after the short pause doesn’t startle me anymore.
• Visualization sessions (Journey) can cause more stress if you pick the wrong one. For example, I’m really afraid of swimming in the middle of the ocean, and when I started the “swimming with dolphins” session, it stressed me out more than anything else haha, so don’t pick sessions randomly. At the start of the session, they’ll explain the theme, like “Fireplace, 20-minute visualization session,” so if you don’t like it, switch.
• The sound quality is average. You can really notice it when you play music; the sound lacks clarity and precision (it’s also possible the music tracks are poorly recorded). But pure text sessions work without any issue.
  • UPDATE: a friend who has the same box told me some boxes have a manufacturing defect, hence the crackling and poor sound quality. I’m going to return mine
  • UPDATE January 2022: indeed my second box is flawless, no crackling.
  • UPDATE February 2022: My Morphée Box died for no reason, and I’m going to get a refund. That’s it, I give up!
• You can’t upgrade the machine: for example, adding or removing texts isn’t possible because nothing was planned for that, you can’t “update” the program. I’m afraid of using the same sessions all the time and eventually getting bored (or knowing the content by heart) and it becoming less effective. The trick would be to start a different session each day (80 different texts), but hey…
• It’s still too big for truly nomadic use. I couldn’t take it if I had to change hostels every day. As a digital nomad, yes, but not for a round-the-world trip.
• The battery life leaves a lot to be desired. A battery giving only 3.5 hours of use! What? Since when are batteries this crappy?

A manufacturing defect that isn’t disclosed.

The boxes may have a manufacturing defect (crackling). It seems to be a known and frequent issue (check the comments online). Seeing that both my girlfriend and I got units that crackle, I think it’s common, but the brand doesn’t communicate about these defects at all, nor does it recall defective models. It’s a rip-off, and I think for a wellness brand, that’s pretty poor.

Morphée Box completely dead after 6 weeks.

One evening, I discovered when trying to turn on my Morphée Box that it was completely dead.

Yep, just like that, it won’t power on. The on/off button no longer works, and there’s no way to resurrect it.

I contacted customer service. Apart from offering a refund/exchange, there’s no way to fix it.

I’ll have to go through Boulanger, where I bought the box, to get a refund. The adventure ends here for me, because between the crackling (undisclosed) and the box dying after just a few weeks (with no incident to explain it)… That’s when I started reading reviews on their Facebook page, and plenty of people have the same problem: one day, the machine just stops working.

In short, The quality is crap! The Made in China label shows its limits. While there is high-quality Made in China these days, Morphée Box chose the worst manufacturer, and you can feel it from the plastic clips to the recurring issues.

What about kids?

Following the success of this machine, they released:

• Morphée Boxes in other languages (English, Spanish)
• a machine just for kids (bigger than the adult one, but super cute)

• a Morphée Zen for relaxing anywhere (but you must use headphones with it)

Price and where to buy?

If technical issues don’t scare you, you can buy the box from the retailers below or on the official website.

• On Amazon €79.95 (there’s occasionally a €4 or €5 discount): Amazon link
• On the Fnac website €79.95: Fnac link
• On the Nature & Discovery website €79.95: Nature & Discovery link