We have 3 young kids in the range from 2 to 5 years old. We use white noise heavily for our kids sleep. It isolates them from the noises we make around the house.
For this purpose I recommend "LectroFan" devices. We have like 5 "LectroFan Evos" in our's and our kids' bedrooms. They just work, no apps, no upgrades, no LEDs blinking, and thank god, no screens. These devices are worth their amount in gold.
On the phone I recommend using iOS built-in white noise feature. We use it when travelling by car, and our kids sleep in their seats. When we turn the white noise on they stop talking and it quickly lulls them into sleep.
Seconded on LectroFan. I've been using one for years for sleeping all night. No looping at all. Inside it only has 16K of flash, not enough to store samples. I once recorded it for 8 hours and looked for any repeating dips in the waveform, but found nothing. I used the old analog Marsona units for decades before this, so it had some good competition. Customer service was great when I contacted them years ago with a rattling problem with one of mine.
Same here, we have a lot of noise in our area. I have a LectroFan, and it's invaluable. It's simplicity is what makes it so great. We don't need apps for everything. In fact, I prefer to avoid them when possible.
It's kinda funny these things exist to me. I actually used to keep a window AC unit when I could have upgrade to something much nicer because the noise helped me sleep.
What’s the built in white noise feature in iOS? First time hearing about this!
Settings > Accessibility > Audio & Visual > Background Sounds
It's quite hidden in there but I think you can create shortcuts / quick access to it.