Aum
For sleep · for stress · for focus
You can settle yourself.
Most days you don't get much say in how you feel. Aum gives you one back, the oldest way there is: a held note, and a breath slowed to meet it. Your mind loosens its grip while you follow it. There is nothing to learn first.
Wear headphones if you have them.
What it is
A session has somewhere to go. It starts near the state you are actually in — wired, or wide awake at three in the morning — and moves from there. A light on screen keeps the pace of your breath the whole way, so you always have something to follow.
Your breath is the one part of your nervous system you can work by hand. Slow it, and the rest settles. Do it enough and you stop needing the app to get there.
Nothing here is a recording. Every sound is made on your phone as it plays, so no two sessions are the same and nothing ever loops. Nobody talks over it, and it runs with your phone in airplane mode.
What it's for
It meets you where you are.
Seven kinds of session, each with somewhere different to take you.
Sleep
For nights your head won't stop. Long descents that fade out after you've gone.
Calm
For when you're wound up. Led by your breath, and it works fast.
Reset
Three minutes between things, so the next one starts clean.
Focus
A steady pulse for work that needs you present, with nothing on screen to watch.
Meditate
Long, unbroken sits. Nothing interrupts you.
Lift
For flat days. It starts where you are and climbs from there.
Binaural
One rate, held the whole way. Headphones only — on a speaker the beat never reaches you.
The feel of it
You feel it, not just hear it.
Sound you only hear stays in your head. Aum puts weight underneath the tone and pulses your phone in time with it, so a session has a body to it.
- Low end you can feelEvery tone carries octaves below itself, so even a high frequency sits in your chest.
- Your phone breathes with youThe vibration motor pulses on the same rhythm as the sound, so the beat arrives through your hands as well as your ears.
- Headphones add one moreA slow beat that isn't in either ear on its own — it appears from the difference between them.
Breath
Your breath sets the pace.
Pick a pattern and the whole session runs at that rate — the swell of the tone, the pulse in your phone, the orb on screen.
- Easy to stay withHolds get a countdown ring, so you don't lose your place.
- Or make your ownFour numbers: in, hold, out, rest.
Honesty
We tell you what's proven.
Not all of this is equally well supported, and the app says which is which instead of hoping you don't ask.
Slow breathing
ResearchedSix breaths a minute is well studied. It runs under every session.
Rhythmic stimulation
EmergingReal, but the effect is smaller than most apps imply.
The Solfeggio frequencies
TraditionalNo clinical evidence. 528 Hz does not repair DNA.
Privacy
There is nothing to send anywhere.
There is no account to make and no sign-in. Your session history is written to your own device and never leaves your device, and one tap clears it. We run no analytics and sell no ads, so we hold no record of you at all. Buying the full version is the only thing that ever needs a connection. Read the full privacy policy.
Pricing
Pay once.
Calm and Headspace are good apps. Neither should cost more every year than the phone you run it on.
One purchase, not a subscription.
Buy it once and it's yours, offline, for good.
- Calm$69.99 / year
- Headspace$69.99 / year
- Aumonce
Free to install, with five sessions and the Coherent breathing pattern included — enough to see whether it does anything for you. Everything else is visible in the app before you decide.
What's inside
The whole box.
The tones
Every tone has its own colour. 440 Hz is there so you can compare it with 432 and decide for yourself.
Four themes
The session screen stays dark in all of them.
Important
Aum plays sound and vibration. It is not a medical device and does not treat anything.
If you have epilepsy or a seizure disorder, talk to a doctor first. Every session uses rhythmic stimulation.
Don't use it while driving — the sleep programs work. Check with a clinician first if you're pregnant, have a pacemaker, or are being treated for a heart, neurological or psychiatric condition. Keep the volume low.
Full details in our Terms of Service.