MeditateAide

The MeditateAide app for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch provides a number of useful functions to help you sustain a consistent approach to your meditation practice.

The main purpose of the MeditateAide app is to provide a simple meditation timer with the option to quickly set session and interval times, and to select associated bells and sounds. Bell sounds can be recorded on the local device to be selected as an interval or session bell.

The apps can run independently on each device type, so for example, full functionality is provided on the Apple Watch, which can be operated without the need to remove your iPhone from your pocket or bag, or even have your iPhone with you.

The Apple Watch version uses the watch's in-built heart rate monitor to show in real time your current heart rate with an associated graph during your meditation session. Your highest, lowest and average heart rate for the current session is also displayed.

Two timer options are provided on the watch version, one which results in your Mindful Minutes data being updated within Apple Health, and one which doesn't, useful for when you want to time and monitor your heart rate during informal mindful walking or other mindful activities.

Both the Watch and iPhone versions have access to the Apple Health app, allowing Mindful Minutes data to be updated and displayed together with the heart rate data for each meditation session.

For the iPhone and iPad versions backgrounds sounds can be played during a timed meditation session.

Key additional features include.

- A progress tracker which shows your meditation time (Mindful Minutes) over a 7 or 31 day period. You can set your daily meditation target in minutes and your daily progress against your target is summarised on a weekly or monthly graph. On the Watch version, the 7 day graph can be selected in the settings page to show as a Complication on your watch face as well as other gauge options, requires Apple Watch Series 4 or later (not available in the iPad version).

- A 7 or 28 day history shows a table of all your Mindful Minutes sessions held in Apple Health app, together with the individual heart rate graphs for each session. Highest, lowest and average heart rate values are shown for each session (not available in the iPad version).

- A timeline view shows a graph of your heart rate over the latest 24 hour period with an indication within that period when a meditation session was recorded. The highest, lowest and average heart rate values are shown for the visible period. Tap the graph to zoom into the timeline. Rotating the crown or swiping across the graph will pan across the timeline allowing you to zoom into and view different time periods over the last 7 days (not available in the iPad/Mac version).

- During a meditation session interesting insight, thoughts and ideas can arise which you may want to remember and review at a later time. To avoid disturbing your session by dwelling on them or breaking off to write them down, a useful approach is to quickly record them so you can review them after the session is ended. An option is provided to record and playback 5 voice memos locally on the device. During a timed meditation session an option is provided to quickly access the Insights menu directly.

- A settings page allows you to customise options such as your daily meditation target, to define the app colours which set the best mood for meditation, to define the way Complications are used to show your progress with graphs and gauges on your watch face (requires Apple Watch Series 4), and various bell sounds (two of which can be recorded directly on your local device). On the iPhone and iPad versions it is possible to record your own background sounds.

The MeditateAide app can be used alongside your other favourite meditation apps if the app records Mindful Minutes within Apple Health. This will allow the MeditateAide progress and history pages to include data from the other apps.