A simple timer display is used to indicate the progess of your mediation session, supported by a selection of session and an interval bells, and background sounds, all of which can be recorded yourself on the local device.
Embedded Files
Overview
Overview
Establishing and maintaining a regular daily meditation activity is one of the first habits you need to develop in order to fully realise the benefits of your meditation practice.
The MeditateAide app for iPhone provides a number of useful functions to help you achieve this.
The main purpose of the app is to provide a simple meditation timer that allows you to quickly set session and interval times, and associated bells and background sounds.
Additional features include:
A 7 and 28 day progress tracker (accessing Mindful Minutes data from within the Apple Health app) which shows your daily meditation target in minutes and displays progress on a weekly or monthly graph.
A history feature which shows you a table of all your Mindful Minutes sessions held in the Apple Health app for the last month, together with the individual heart rate graphs for each session (if associated heart rate data is provided by an Apple watch).
If separate heart rate data is available from an Apple watch then a timeline highlights your meditation sessions within a 24 hour heart rate graph over a 7 day period, with zoom and pan option down to a 30 minute window.
An option to record and playback 5 voice memos each of 10 second duration, useful to capture any insights or urgent ideas that come to you during a meditation session.
An option to record 2 sounds of 10 second duration, which can be selected as the interval or session sounds for the meditation session.
An option to record and loop playback 2 additional background sounds each of 60 second duration, which can be played back as background audio during a meditation session.
A settings page to allow you to set your daily meditation target, to define the app colours which set the best mood for meditation, and to playback the various bell and background sounds. There is also the option to enable the timer countdown value to be spoken at each interval during a meditation session in various different languages, which could be used as a mindfulness trigger.
The timer page allows you to set session and interval times and to select the associated bells sounds. Background sound can be turned on and off during a timed session.
Timer Page
Timer Page
The opening first page shows the main meditation timer. Each button can be tapped to toggle through the various options for that button.
The top left button selects the interval audio sound that plays at each interval time, which includes: beep, ping #1, ping #2, bell #1, bell #2, speak timer value, speak heart rate value, recorded audio #1, recorded audio #2, haptic feedback. The beep and ping options revert to vibrate options when the watch Silent Mode is turned on in the general iPhone settings.
The top right button selects the interval period, with values of none, 10 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes or 30 minutes.
The bottom left button selects the session start and session end audio sound, providing the same options as that for the interval sound.
The central are shows the minute and second timer display buttons which, when tapped when the timer is not running, increase and decrease the session timer duration, starting at 1 minute and 5 minutes, increasing in 10 minute intervals up to a maximum of 90 minutes. The + and - buttons can also be used. If the interval time is greater than the session time then there will not be an interval sound.
The bottom right button starts and stops the timer. Sessions started with this button are uploaded into the Mindful Minutes area of the Apple Health app for storage (if permission was provided when the app was first installed).
When the timer is running the buttons disappear to simplify the display, but can be redisplayed again by tapping the screen, then hidden again by tapping the timer value again.
Performing a long press on the timer minute and second values will open the Insights page without the need to go via the menus page, useful if you want to record a voice memo during an active meditation session.
The 'Background Sound' label at the top of the timer screen can be tapped to turn on and turn off the background sound (which plays during a timed session), even while an active session is running.
Tapping or sliding up the 'Menu' label at the bottom of the screen will cause the menu options to appear. Tapping again or sliding down this label will cause the menu options to dissappear.
A running timer with associated sounds will continue to operate using the background airplay mode of the iPhone, even when the app is not running in the foreground.
Tapping the menu label slides up the menu options page, which can be tapped again to hide it.
Menu Page
Menu Page
When the menu tab is visible a set of buttons are available to access the Progress page, the History page, the Timeline page, the Insights page, the Settings page and this Aide instructions page.
These menu buttons will disappear when the timer is running, to simplify the display.
A 7 and 31 day progress chart indicates how you are progressing with your daily target.
Progress Page
Progress Page
Tapping the Progress menu button displays a page which shows the minutes remaining to allow you to reach your daily target, your current daily target and what has currently been achieved. A graph shows your daily progress for the current week. Lines coloured as grey indicate a day in the past.
Tapping the graph will show a similar graph for the last month.
A 28 day history of your recorded meditation sessions is provided together with a heart rate graph for each session (heart rate data requires the use of an Apple Watch).
History Page
History Page
Tapping the History menu button displays a page which shows a heart rate graph for the most recent stored meditation session, providing information on the start and end time of the session, and the highest, lowest and average heart rate values during that session. This graph will be blank if an Apple Watch is not being used to capture heart rate.
Swiping across the graph will refresh the graph showing equivalent heart rate information on consecutive meditation sessions recorded by the Apple Watch.
Tapping the heart rate graph will cycle through three different scale settings.
A table below the graph shows all the stored Mindful Minutes sessions retrieved for the last 28 days from the Apple Health app. Tapping each table entry will display the details of the session and the heart rate graph for that entry.
This screen will display Mindful Minute data recorded via other meditation apps so the heart rate graph may be empty if no associate heart rate data is available.
The timeline graph summarises your heart rate over the last 7 days, indicating the times of each meditation session.
Timeline Page
Timeline Page
If an associated Apple watch has been used to capture your heart rate data then tapping the Timeline menu button displays a page which shows a timeline 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. The heart rate and last recorded time displayed by the graph is also displayed.
The top right button will zoom into the timeline to a period of 24 hours, 12 hours, 6 hours, 3 hours, 1 hour and 30 minutes. The top left button will reset the graph back to the latest 24 hour timeline and default scale.
Tapping the graph will cycle through three different scale settings. Swipping across the graph will pan across the timeline allowing you to zoom into and view different time periods over the last 7 days.
If a gap of greater than 3 hours is detected in the 24 hour heart rate data then the time duration of the gap is shown on the top of the graph, which can be used as an indication of sleep time in each 24 hour period, useful if you charge your watch overnight.
If no heart rate data has been collected via an associated Apple watch then this page will not show any data.
Up to 5 voice memos can be recorded directly from the iPhone to capture any important thoughts and ideas during a meditation session.
Insights Page
Insights Page
During a meditation session interesting 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.
Tapping the Insights menu button displays a page which allows up to 5 voice memos to be recorded and played back directly on the iPhone, each with a maximum duration of 10 seconds. Recordings made on the iPhone version of the MeditateAide app will be reflected on the associated Apple watch app and recordings made on the associated watch app will be reflected on the iPhone app.
When the Insights page is displayed tap on one of the 5 record buttons to start recording a voice memo and use the iPhone microphone to record your voice memo. The microphone and speaker on the iPhone is used unless bluetooth headphones are linked to the iPhone.
A long press tap on the timer minute and second labels can be used to quickly access the Insights menu directly, especially useful during an active session when the menu options are not available. 3D touch on the MeditateAide icon is also available to open the Insights page directly.
Your daily target, app colours, background and bell sounds can be configured from the settings page.
Settings Page
Settings Page
Tapping the Settings menu button displays a page which provides access to a range of app settings.
The Target setting allows a daily target to be set in minutes. Tapping the minute and seconds button increases and decreases the target value from 1 minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, then increments of 10 minutes up to a maximum of 180 minutes. This value is automatically synchronised with the Apple watch version of the app to keep the two devices the same.
The colour section allows you to set a button and timer colour which reflects across all the various screens and graphs. Tapping each respective button cycles around the available colour options. An option is available to set the app background colour to either white or black. Button backgrounds automatically change to match the selection.
When the spoken 'speech' option is selected for either the interval or session timer, the spoken volume can be set by the speech volume setting in the Speech area of Settings. The Language setting allows one of 22 languages to be selected. A random option is available at the end of the list to allow a random language to be used each time the heart rate or timer setting is spoken.
In the Background section, a number of background sounds are available to play during a timed meditation session which can be selected in this settings page. Two background sounds of 60 seconds each can be recorded directly on the iPhone for playback in a continuous loop.
The Audio1 and Audio2 options in the Sound section allows you to record and playback two custom audio sounds of 10 seconds duration to be used as a session or interval bell. The audio is recorded and played back directly from the iPhone. These two recordings are automatically synchronised with the Watch version of the MeditateAide app. The remaining sound options allow you to listen to the other available options for the interval and sessions bells, which are bell1, bell2, beep, haptic feedback, ping1 and ping2. The audio1 and audio2 and bell1 and bell2 options will still play if the iPhone Silent Mode is turned on whereas the other sound options will not play a sound but will result in various types of vibrations.
User guide information for each device type is available from within the app.
Aide Page
Aide Page
Selecting the Aide menu option will provide access to help text for the individual types of apps for iPhone, iPad or Apple watch, covering the main features of the MeditateAide app.
Installation
Installation
On first install of the iPhone version of the MeditateAide app a pop up will appear asking if the app can access the Apple Health app.
Two permissions are required: one to read Heart Rate and Mindful Minutes information from Apple Health app, and one to write Heart Rate and Mindful Minutes information to Apple Health app.
An additional permission is required for accessing the iPhone microphone. When the microphone is first accessed within the Insights or bell recording feature, a request to access the microphone will appear on the iPhone.
The iPhone app is also required to install the corresponding watch app onto the Apple Watch and to enable the required access permissions to the Apple Health app.
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