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Snoring pillow: orthopedic or "smart"?
Last reviewed: 04.07.2025
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Among the anti-snoring remedies offered to people with this problem, the orthopedic anti-snoring pillow deserves special attention.
Anti-snoring pillow orthopedic
The purpose of an orthopedic pillow against snoring: while sleeping, lying on your back, to create the correct position of the head, that is, one in which the relaxed soft tissues of the nose and oropharynx will not impede the free flow of inhaled and exhaled air (causing vibrations accompanied by sound).
Rectangular pillows such as Penelope Silent Sleep, Othello Medi Point, Anatomic 001 (Orthovitex) or AntiSnoring have a hollow cavity in the center for the back of the head. The models differ in the materials used for filling and the outer cover.
The Qmed Anti Snoring (manufactured in Poland) and Anti-Snoring (Ukrainian brand Day&Night) orthopedic pillows, filled with foam that has a “memory effect”, have a recess for the neck and a lower central part.
It should be noted that there is no information confirming the effectiveness of these products in preventing snoring. [ 1 ]
Smart Anti-Snoring Pillows
The Snore Activated Nudging Pillow, a contoured "smart pillow" for snoring with an optimal head position and activated nudging of the sleeper, was filled with polyurethane by the manufacturers (Hammacher Schlemmer, USA) and a microphone and an inflatable balloon were placed inside. The microphone picks up the sound vibrations of snoring, which leads to automatic inflation of the balloon. The inflated balloon, nudging the sleeping person, encourages him to change his position. The pillow also returns to its original state automatically.
An analogue is the GoodNite Anti-Snoring Pillow (Nitetronic GoodNite Anti-Snoring Pillow) from Nitetronic (headquartered in Hamburg, Los Angeles and Shanghai). This interactive pillow with a sound and vibration detection function, in addition to a built-in microphone, has head position sensors and six air chambers that automatically inflate and deflate to ensure the correct head position.
The second version of this pillow even comes with the NiteLink2 app for smartphones.
At the end of 2014, Nitetronic Europe GmbH conducted a controlled polysomnographic study of the effectiveness of this pillow in the sleep laboratory of the ENT Clinic of the University of Mannheim (Germany) with the participation of about 160 people over 18 years of age who had a normal body mass index and suffered from nocturnal snoring when sleeping on their backs.
The result of this study showed a significant reduction in snoring severity when changing head position during sleep (lying on the back) on the GoodNite pillow.