I tested these AI sleep earbuds and they do a lot more than muffle your partner's snoring

The Fitnexa SomniPods are taking on the sleep headphone market by stuffing as much as possible into two tiny earbuds. This is your one stop sleep tracker, audio library, calorie counter and personalized AI coach.

That’s a lot, and a lesser earbud might be overwhelmed. But at the core of the Fitnexa is a solid design that impresses as both a sleep aid and headphones. Plus, the integrated AI wellness coaches add an exciting layer of hands-on self-improvement to an otherwise standard sleep tracker... if you pay to subscribe, that is.

Some necessary compromises hold the Fitnexa back from taking on its biggest competitors (the Soundcore Sleep A30, namely.) I might expect better sound for the price and the cluttered app meant it took me more days than I'd like to admit to figure out basic functions like the alarm.

However, the Fitnexa SomniPods certainly pack in enough features to take on the best sleep headphones we've tested. Learn more in my full Fitnexa SomniPods 3 Sleep Earbuds review below.

• Fitnexa SomniPods 3 at Fitnexa for $189.99

Fitnexa SomniPods 3 Review: Specs

Fitnexa SomniPods 3 Review: Price & Availability

• Currently $189.99 and only available from Fitnexa
• Similar price to competitors Ozlo and Soundcore
• AI Coach and advanced health tools require a subscription at $49.99 per year

The Fitnexa SomniPods 3 cost $189.99 at Fitnexa US. They are shipped to Canada, Europe and Australia — but you'll have to convert the currency yourself.

That puts them in the same price bracket as the Soundcore Sleep A30 earbuds — undoubtedly the SomniPods closest competitor — which typically retail at $199.99. Although the Soundcore earbuds have the benefit of being completely subscription free.

While Fitnexa does offer a variety of features for free (including sleep tracking), a subscription opens you up to the AI Coach and the full-range of health tracking features, but adds another $49.99 per year.

As the SomniPods 3 only came onto the market in November 2025, I'm twiddling my thumbs waiting to see what discounts we can expect. If it's anything like the Soundcore sales, I predict you'll need to wait for Black Friday for the biggest discounts.

Fitnexa SomniPods 3 Review: Design & Comfort

• Comfortable for side sleeping and back sleeping
• Hard body can cause some soreness
• IPX4 waterproofing

Beige and compact, the Fitnexa SomniPods are designed to fit snugly in your ears and get lost easily in your sheets. Thankfully there's a 'find my earbuds' function, or this whole thing would have been a bust from night one.

But the compact design serves an important purpose: comfort. Unlike your standard wireless earbuds, the SomniPods are almost flat, so they won't dig painfully into your ear as soon as your head hits the pillow.

It’s this super thin design that contributes most to the comfort of the SomniPods because while the included silicon ear wings offer some padding, the shell of the earbud itself is hard. Lying on my side, it took some maneuvering to get my ear, earbud and pillow playing nice and I'd often wake up to some soreness. That's not unusual in a sleep earbud — the Soundcore has a similar problem for side sleepers — but it's worth noting.

Back sleepers, however, are golden. And if you’re traveling or working, the lightweight SomniPods are comfortable to wear for extended time periods.

However, I’d be remiss not to mention the experience of my colleague, Frances Daniels. She’s been testing the SomniPods as well and has yet to start the morning with them still in her ears. Maybe she just has freakish ear canals but as she wears the Loop Quiet 2 ear plugs regularly and they manage to stay in during the night, I think the problem lies elsewhere.

We've experienced this problem with both the Soundcore Sleep A30 and Soundcore Sleep A20 too, so it's not an isolated Fitnexa issue.

Fitnexa SomniPods 3 Review: Controls & App

• Touch controls can be customized
• But require a firm hand to work
• App is packed-full but not the most user-friendly

The Fitnexa SomniPods use touch controls, which can be customized in the app. It's a fairly standard set-up; the hardest part is actually finding the function in the user interface.

The tap controls aren’t particularly sensitive and require a firm hand before they take notice — I use the JLab Go Pods day-to-day and they're much more responsive. However, the upside is that it's hard to errantly change settings in the night, a problem we noticed from time to time while testing the Soundcore A30s.

The app isn’t the most user-intuitive, which I attribute to Fitnexa trying to do so much with it. As well as sleep sounds, ANC and sleep tracking, you can monitor fitness goals, log meals and speak to an AI helper (more on that later.) As a result, some useful features get buried. It took me far too long to find the alarm setting, for example, despite being a basic addition.

Fitnexa SomniPods 3 Review: ANC & PNC

• Decent ANC and PNC
• Masks low-level noise and muffles more disruptive sounds

Active noise cancelation is expected nowadays from a sleep earbud at this price point and the SomniPods deliver with built-in ANC.

Overall, the quality is decent — the ANC alone blocked my ticking clock and the traffic passing by my open window. And while I don’t share a bedroom, I did give the ANC a whirl while my mom enjoyed a post-Sunday lunch nap (she really took one for the team) and it successfully muffled her snores.

Best of all, the SomniPods completely masked the sound of my neighbor’s son hitting a basketball against the side of the house over and over and over, something which had me close to pulling my hair out.

The Fitnexa SomniPods can’t beat the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds when it comes to ANC, but should put up a good fight against the Soundcore Sleep A30s. Once you have the ANC running and some white noise hissing, the rest of the world does almost disappear. Yes, even the basketballs.

The PNC (passive noise canceling) itself is good and with just the earbuds in, sounds were muffled but not blocked. If you are just after PNC with no bells and whistles, the SomniPods are outclassed by a pair of silicone Loop Quiet 2 earbuds.

Fitnexa SomniPods 3 Review: Sleep features

• Impressive sleep library and integrated ANC help sleep
• Sleep tracker captures the basics well
• AI Coach offers personalized advice for a subscription fee

The combination of ANC and side sleeper comfort alone makes the SomniPods strong contenders for our guide to the top-rated sleep headphones and that's just the start of the dedicated sleep features.

First, you have access to a range of sleep sounds in the app, plus some basic sounds stored local to the earbuds. The local sounds are pretty uninspired and loop regularly, so if you have the battery life, go for the app.

I've been using the brown noise to pretend I'm sitting in first class, jetting off around the world (you can't judge another person's happy place), and I've been impressed with how quickly I drop off. And so is my AI coach, FYI.

Other features like integrated alarms and wind-down notifications add to the day-to-day usefulness of the SomniPods, even though these features are fairly standard among sleep trackers.

Wellness tracking

Integrated wellness tracking is the first of SomniPods big features, bar audio, and it goes hand-in-hand with the AI tools, which I'll dive into next. The app covers the basics I'd expect from any of the best sleep trackers: time to sleep sleep, time to wake, and sleep cycles.

Overall, I’ve found the SomniPods sleep tracking less accurate than my Withings Sleep Mat (although the Withings is the gold-standard here.) The timings are largely accurate but I'm not sure it's nailed my sleep stages — my Withings always tracks more deep sleep and, on a similar note, my colleague Frances found that on some nights, the SomniPods detected no REM sleep at all.

However, one metric I do like is position tracking. It’s a neat feature that trackers rarely include, but it might help identify the causes of aches and pains, or even heartburn (sleeping on your left side eases the digestion process.)

One thing to note is that it takes a moment for Fitnexa to get your sleep tracking data together, so don’t freak out when you open the app to discover you only got three hours last night. Like all of us, the SomniPods take a minute to pull themselves together in the morning.

Sleep is the most detailed and least 'hands-on' of the tracking features, but you can also log your meals, hydration and exercise. The AI meal identification is the stand-out here, although it needs some work — there's no way my brown roll racked up over 400 calories.

AI Coach

As a sleep nerd, I love getting data back from my sleep tracker but even I can admit the numbers aren't always that useful at fighting exhaustion and sleep deprivation.

So the SomniPods offer something different. Upgrade to the subscription plan and you gain access to your own AI 'Coach.'

So how does it work? First, set a wellness goal. Next, pick your AI Coach. I opted for Hebe, a detail-orientated helper who gives you the facts, but there's also supportive Lana and pusher Evan. (Although having chatted to them all, there's not a huge personality difference.)

Once the app starts collecting data, you can mine your coach for personal advice. Expect detailed feedback mixed in with reflections from your sleep tracker and actionable advice — Hebe noted my lack of deep sleep might be behind my afternoon slump and recommended some energy boosting exercises.

You’ll get better responses the more you use every aspect of the app, which can be a bit of a time drag. Hebe is often concerned by my lack of hydration, but I’ve simply forgotten to log my drinks. This means I waste some of my precious chat credits being told to drink water (AI credits are limited per day, so avoid chit-chatting.)

I am admittedly wary of relying on an AI coach for sleep advice. If you do think a lack of sleep is impacting your day-to-day life, I'd recommend speaking to a healthcare professional (sorry, Hebe.)

Fitnexa SomniPods 3 Review: Sound Quality

• Decent audio quality for everyday listening
• Expect some tinniness
• Sleep sounds perform best

The SomniPods have decent audio quality… for a pair of sleep earbuds. That’s an important distinction because for $189.99, you might get your hopes up that this can rival some of the best wireless earbuds.

Not so, but the SomniPods do offer good overall sound quality for everyday listening. The layered clarity of Berghain by Rosalía was largely maintained but the oomph of those high notes was let down slightly by a lingering hiss and some tinniness. You also won’t get a particularly complex listening experience — leave that to the AirPods Pro 3.

However, if you’re looking to simplify your tech, the SomniPods are useful as all-round earbuds. Particularly as there’s an equalizer on the app, offering some control over your listening experience. Pre-set options are built-in but you can also tinker to create something to your liking.

The sound quality is best when listening to traditional sleep sounds. The white noise is perfectly drone-y and the brown noise is that soothing hum of rumbling along in your private jet. On that note, songs with a strong bass are delivered with heft through the SomniPods. I took Down By The Water by PJ Harvey for a spin and got happily lost in its sneering, scuzzy repetition.

Audiobooks are also crisp and clear, and if you do cycle through the sleep noises Fitnexa has to offer, I can attest that the dolphin sounds are spot on and super weird to fall asleep to.

Fitnexa SomniPods 3 Review: Call quality

• Can make and receive calls
• Microphone is fine but not best for day-to-day

Being able to make and receive calls is another string to the all-round usefulness of the SomniPods, even if the call quality is distinctly average. You’ll sound tinny to the person you talk to and, in response, they’ll come across a little thin. However, the vocals are clean and there was no issue with background noise during my brief calls.

All-in-all, it’s a useful addition to the Fitnexa SomniPods and helps it stand out against competitors such as the Ozlo Sleepbuds, which can’t take calls.

Fitnexa SomniPods 3 Review: Battery life

• 12 hour playback time with ANC off
• Only 6.5 hour playback time with ANC on
• Charges quickly in the case and holds 48 hours altogether

There's really two stories to the battery life of the SomniPods: with and without ANC.

Without ANC you have a playback time of roughly 12 hours, which is more than enough to get you through the night (you should be sleeping around 7 to 9 hours.) I never quite knocked out 12 hours in one go but after around six hours at my desk, the battery had dropped by 50%.

When you turn the ANC on, however, the overall playback drops to just 6.5 hours. That's not enough for a full night and means you have to be careful with your ANC use, lest your sleep tracker packs in around the early hours. After an hour of ANC paired with brown noise, I was down to around five hours of charge.

To help preserve the battery life, make sure to turn on the Sleep Detect feature. This spots when you've fallen asleep and turns ANC off accordingly (the Soundcore A30s have a similar feature.)

The SomniPods also offer timers for almost everything, so you can set your sounds going for as long or as little. By ensuring your music / audiobook / white noise only plays for a set amount of time, you can save some battery life for when it's needed, and not waste energy piping in brown noise when you're already asleep.

The ANC battery life isn't necessarily a flaw — the Soundcore A30 and Ozlo have similar issues — and by the time the buds die, you're asleep. However, if you wake up in the night, you often won't have enough juice to get yourself back to sleep.

Thankfully, the buds charge quickly; after 30 minutes, the case had jumped to around four hours battery life (from completely dead) and it took less than two hours to be back to 100%. Plus, the case holds roughly two days of power, meaning you don't have to charge the earbuds every morning.

Fitnexa SomniPods 3 Review: Verdict

Fitnexa attempts a lot with the SomniPods and for the most part, this is a solid pair of sleep headphones. The combination of good ANC with a decent audio means if unwelcome noises are keeping you up, you can enjoy a more peaceful night with the SomniPods.

However, the strongest feature is the AI Coach, which is primarily for subscribers. The advice is both helpful and actionable, and because it draws from your own sleep tracking data, it goes beyond the usual AI sleep routines.

It is a case of 'you get what you put in' and to make the most of the features, you'll need to log your food, drink and exercise regime. This is a bit of a time suck, but it might be worth it to avoid my AI Coach telling me to drink another glass of water, especially as chat credits are limited.

If you aren't interested in the AI upgrade, however, the SomniPods fall just behind the Soundcore Sleep A30 earbuds overall. Both are good all-rounders but the SomniPod newcomers are just pipped by the old guard when it comes to sound quality and ANC.

Still, the Fitnexa SomniPods 3 put up a good fight and at $189.99, I would consider them a decent investment — you get a lot for your money, even though you might question if you need it all.