Most apps in this category play back audio files. binaural contains none. There is no loop point, no stream and nothing to download: the sound exists only while your phone is making it, which is why it can change with you.
The whole phone is the instrument
Five parts of an iPhone that other sound apps leave idle.
- Audio engine
- A synthesizer written for the phone's real-time audio thread. Tones, pulses and noise are calculated sample by sample, in stereo, with nothing pre-rendered.
- Camera and torch
- Photoplethysmography: light through a fingertip, read frame by frame, turned into a pulse signal the sound can follow.
- Haptic engine
- Core Haptics patterns driven by the same clock as the audio, so what you feel and what you hear are one signal.
- Motion sensors
- Gyroscope and accelerometer, sampled continuously, steering sound by tilt and stillness.
- GPU and display
- Metal shaders simulate a vibrating plate from the live audio, and the screen itself can become a light source.
Inside the app
Everything an iPhone can sense or do, put to work on one thing: listening.
Put headphones on, then switch it on.
- left ear
- Hz
- right ear
- Hz
Two tones, made in your browser. The app goes much further. How a binaural beat works.
A session is a score, not a loop
This is the difference between the ears across twenty minutes of an evening session. Run your pointer along it.
What we claim, and what we won't
True of binaural
- The beat you hear is made by your own hearing, not by the audio. That's measurable, and you just measured it.
- Sound is generated on the device, live. Nothing is streamed and nothing is a recording.
- The app checks each ear and fits the sound to them.
- Slow, paced breathing has a real evidence base. Resonance paces yours.
- No account. What you do in the app stays on your phone.
Things we don't say
- That a frequency heals anything.
- That listening treats anxiety, insomnia, ADHD or pain.
- That studies agree. They don't; effects are modest and vary from person to person.
- That this is a medical device. It isn't.
Keep it quiet. Don't listen while driving. If you're prone to seizures or have a neurological or heart condition, ask a clinician first.
41 studies, read and summarized
Trials, meta-analyses, and the experiments that found nothing. One lamp per study; the brighter it is, the more weight it carries.
- 6 strong design
- 28 mixed evidence
- 14 preliminary
- 3 no support found
- 2 background
- Binaural beat generatorTwo tones, live, with presets from delta to beta.
- What are binaural beats?How two steady tones become a pulse.
- Do binaural beats work?What the studies found, including the failures.
- For sleepWhat the trials found, and using sound at night.
- For focus and studyingWhy before work beats during it.
- For anxietyClear before a procedure, equivocal day to day.
- Isochronic tonesThe difference, and the one trial comparing them.
- 40 Hz and gammaMouse studies, failed replications, early trials.
- White, pink and brown noiseThe difference, with sound.
- Resonance breathingSix breaths a minute, and a pacer.
- CymaticsHow sound draws patterns, and what they can't do.
- The research libraryEvery study, one page each.
Questions people ask
What is binaural?
binaural is an iPhone app, coming soon, that generates binaural beats, pulsed tones and coloured noise live on the phone instead of playing recordings. It checks each ear, fits the sound to you, and can pace your breathing to your own pulse.
What is a binaural beat?
It is the slow pulse you hear when each ear is given a steady tone at a slightly different frequency. Play 200 Hz in one ear and 207 Hz in the other and you hear a 7 Hz beat that exists only in your hearing.
Do I need headphones?
Yes. Each ear has to receive its own tone, so stereo headphones or earbuds are required for the beat. The noise machine and breathing pacer work without them.
Do binaural beats work?
Sometimes, and modestly. Meta-analyses find small to moderate average effects on attention, memory, anxiety and pain, but studies disagree and some found nothing or a worse result. We summarize the evidence, including the failures, on this site.
When is the app available?
binaural is in private testing on iPhone and is coming soon to the App Store. The generator on this page is free to use now.
Is binaural a medical device?
No. It is for relaxation and listening practice. It does not diagnose, treat or cure any condition.
Coming soon to iPhone
binaural is in private testing. Leave your address and we'll write once, the day it's on the App Store.