Reviews are the affiliate funnel — which means the incentive to be dishonest is real. This page is our public commitment to how we actually select, score, and disclose. We are an editorial review site: we evaluate products against measured specifications, the consensus of independent testing, and our reviewers' expertise — not a hands-on lab. Where we haven't used a product ourselves, we don't pretend we have.
Every pick is an editorial judgment built from three inputs:
These are editorialselections, not lab tests. If a reviewer has genuine first-hand experience with a specific product, that's noted on that product's page — everywhere else, the verdict is our reasoned judgment from the evidence above.
We rank products on their published, verifiable specs — the numbers that genuinely separate one product from another in its category. We don't invent measurements. Where a spec isn't published, we say so rather than estimate it, and where a performance claim comes from the maker, we attribute it rather than present it as our own finding.
For claims that touch health or safety, we cross-check against independent reviews and published guidance rather than repeating a brand's number as fact.
Every product carries a “How it scores” card rating it on five dimensions that matter for its category, derived from its measured specs. Earplugs, for example, weight noise blocked, comfort, and fit; wearables weight accuracy, battery, comfort, and value.
Each category uses its own weights, and every card surfaces the breakdown so you can recompute the ranking for your own priorities. Scores are computed from specs — never adjusted for an affiliate relationship.
We publish negative verdicts. If a product doesn't deserve a buy, we say so — with the reasons and what we'd choose instead. When a category isn't mature enough to recommend anything, we say that too.
When nothing in a category earns a recommendation, we leave it off. The absence of coverage is the verdict.
Every recommendation with an affiliate link discloses the relationship at the decision point — the buy button — not just in the footer.
The full list of affiliate programs and approximate commission rates lives at /affiliate-disclosure. Affiliate revenue does not influence our rankings: scores are computed from specs before the affiliate decision is made.
Health- and parenting-adjacent content is reviewed by credentialed experts before publication:
Content flagged reviewed has completed reviewer signoff. Content flagged pending reviewhas shipped under our editorial process but has not yet received independent reviewer signoff — the verdict is ours, not the reviewer's.
Every editorial score we've given, pulled into one dataset — how each category scores on average and the highest-rated products across the catalogue.
Open The Sleep Index →If a recommendation reads as too soft on a product, or you have first-hand data that contradicts our ranking, write us. We update recommendations publicly with a changelog when we're wrong.
Email: [email protected]