American Jiggle Machine Awards: 2025

This year’s American Jiggle Machine sole award goes to the Ezvalo white noise machine made in China.

First, some background. Each year––or, at least, some years––around Christmas time I attempt to provide a service to readers of the Record. That service is to alert them to potential Christmas gifts that, when the onion is peeled back a bit, prove to be clunkers, items to avoid.

The apotheosis of clunkers would be the exercise machine from the ‘50s that featured a wide strap wrapped around one’s buttocks––a strap that would jiggle the calories and fat away without an ounce of effort on the exerciser’s part. Truth? The only calorie burned was the one used by bending over and plugging the machine in. A clunker fer sure.

One award from the past was the weighted blanket. Back then I compared sleeping with this product was a bit like cuddling up with a Sumo wrestler with restless leg syndrome–– one dismissed from the profession due to a weight problem.

Another award went to the trash compactor, a brilliant device that, yes, made one’s trash smaller: But, at the same time, made that same trash last twice as long, smell exponentially worse, weigh too much to cart out to the bin easily, and leaked brown death juice all over the kitchen linoleum.

Since then, I understand, the compactor business is in a predicted decline, but apparently the weighted Sumo blanket is hanging on in the shops.

Now back to the Ezvalo sleep inducing noise machine, this year’s winner.

The concept is swell: It is a speaker that plays one (or a combination) of eight raspy sounds to induce sleepiness.

There are bucolic sounds for ocean waves, steady rain falling, birds warbling, campfire crackling, rude bathroom noises, and more. And each sound chosen has its own volume toggle switch. So, the cumulative effect can be as loud or soft as the sleep seeker desires.

And it works. The Ezvalo experience can be as soporific as a lecture on the metaphysics hidden in Taylor Swift lyrics to an aging audience of baby boomers.

But before you rush out and buy a gaggle of ‘em for your bffs, let me tell you a bit more.

The Ezvalo––by now no doubt you’ve realized that backwards its Olavze––works with a rechargeable battery. Now for the feature you’ve been waiting for: It dings when the charge is about to go out. I mean it really dings. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. It doesn’t stop.

Super, huh? You never have to worry about going beddy-bye without a charged up white noise device at your fingertips.

Slight problem though. It has no power button. You can’t slap at it and shut it down like an old-fashioned alarm clock. You have to pick it up and take it into another room where, if there’s no baseball bat handy, you gotta stuff it under the dog’s bed or toss it in the pantry and close the door on it.

You ask, when precisely does this nocturnal adventure normally happen?

Now we’ve come to the big reveal. It happens only when it is turned on. That is, when you’ve turned it on in order to sleep. In my case, the dinging starts just about when Raquel Welch in a diaphanous gown fluttering enticingly by an off-screen Hollywood prop department box fan, is floating into the room and is about to …, well never mind all that.

My Monday night experience with this year’s Jiggle winner was just past nod off time when DING, DING, DING, DING. Raquel gathered up her skirts, grabbed her box fan and booked it, leaving me abruptly to scramble in the dark to lay hands on the offending device. To pluck it up and cart it to the laundry room where I stuffed it in the washing machine. When it echoed in there, I pulled it out and crammed it under the dog’s bed. You could still hear it, though it was now muffled. Zack, my Lab puppy seriously considered biting me I could tell, but decided the Purina Pro Plan gravy train was too good to chance it.

I spent most of the rest of the night sleeplessly wondering about the product design committee that must have sat around a big corporate table considering, why don’t we include a nifty feature that dings like crazy when the battery goes down? Cool, huh? There was probably one junior guy or gal who timidly said, “Yeah, but ….” He or she was ignored.

Tuesday night––the following night––I was spent. Slept like a baby. My wife, ever the philosopher went, “Hey, maybe it works after all.”

Jim Austin lives in La Grange.