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Aura — 3-Minute meditations, personalized by AI 😃
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Nice minimal interface. Can you tell us how you arrived at 3 minutes? I feel like that is a mini-session, not to say it would not be useful.
@ggnall thanks for the kind words! We've been beta testing our meditations with our users and in the beginning we even started from 1 minute meditations all the way up to 7 minutes. We found 3 minutes to be the sweet spot as it was the easiest for our users to truly form a daily habit around practicing mindfulness. 3 minutes is also the average time of a song, so many people were used to the length. We believe in the regularity of the practice as opposed to 1 lengthy session (which makes it infinitely harder to form a habit); and even though 3 minutes might seem short, within a few weeks you really start to see the positive impact mindfulness is having on your life :)
@thedannylee @ggnall Love this logic. I've struggled with making meditation a habit, even using Headspace. Hoping Aura helps with that!
@michaelcjoseph Thanks Michael, I cant wait for Aura to help you build a healthy habit!
It looks great, however how is it different from Headspace, Calm, Simple Habit, Brain.fm, and numerous meditation apps out there?
@vickyteke Hi Vikrant, the main difference is that we're the only app to use machine learning to personalize the experience for every user. On all other apps, you get on the platform and choose what you want to listen to -- we take your demographics, stress and positivity levels, and user ratings to recommend the best meditation for you daily. The great thing about using machine learning is that as you (and other people who are similar to you) meditate with Aura more and give feedback, Aura learns what kind of meditations work best for you.
We're also a true freemium app - free users get 1 meditation everyday, while most other meditations apps are premium + free trials.
Our premium users can state how they’re feeling to the app (I'm feeling stressed / anxious / etc) and Aura picks the best meditation for that emotion. It is the only app that asks for the user’s emotions to provide immediate support through extremely short guided meditations.
I hope that answers your question! If not, give Aura a try; you'll be able to tell the difference within the first minute. :)
@stevel_sk @thedannylee any plans on exporting data? Specifically mood tracking data. My psychologist and therapist track this kind of data with me frequently (monthly) and I would say it is very important for to have it available to follow along with doctors.
I've been trying this app on and off since the closed beta and find that this is the closest thing to having a truly effective morning routine distilled into an app. And its gotten better and better since. Like with any of these types of techniques (like other mindfulness apps) I think the benefits will only be seen after a good stretch of consistent use. I'm trying to stick to the habit of using it everyday and look forward to the continued refinement of the experience
How is this personalized? I did the 3 min meditation and felt good after it. I loved the quote beforehand, like an introduction into the meditation...
But regarding personalisation I was expecting something like:
- do you usually sit on a chair, on the ground or lie down when meditating?
- do you prefer very long breaths or short... through the mouth or nose...
- do you prefer breathing exercises or visualizing yourself
- are you more of a visual/feel/rational person...
Then the lovely lady would change her speech and always tell me to sit on the ground, and the sentence "breathe in, pause, breathe out, pause" wouldn't be said in 5 seconds, but more like "breaaaaaathe in.... pause [she goes silent 2 sec] .... breaaaaathe oooouutttt.... pause [her silent 2 sec]".
Also, changing voice to australian/american... like Siri.
Just suggestions :)
Thanks for working on mental health care!!!
@peterpremuzic Thank you for all the great feedback! I love all of the suggestions you put out there (would absolutely love to implement it). Since meditations are pre-recorded by our world class meditation teachers, therapists, and universities, it isn't able (at least for now) for the meditations itself to change durations on the spot.
How we personalize the meditations for our users, however, is by algorithmically choosing the best meditation that would best fit each user everyday. We take into account the user demographics, stress and positivity levels, and user ratings to determine which meditations work for which type of people. We search for people similar to you and see what kind of meditations work for them so that we can recommend it to you the next day.
I hope that answers your question, please feel free to reach out with more :)
@david_senate It's definitely on our product roadmap! Are you mostly interested in full on 3- minute meditations or more for breathing reminders throughout the day? Would love to hear more about your specific use cases :)
@thedannylee as Apple Watch has a default breathing option, my guess would be a 3-minute meditations guided with haptic pulses and moving forms, off course you record the heart pulse and motivate the user to lower his pulses rate by meditation. Also I would love to have the iPhone analyzing my pulses and schedule during the and trigger an invitation to meditation at the right timing in my day.
@david_senate Thank you, absolutely loved all of these suggestions. Will keep you updated when Apple watch integration nears.
I think Aura is a great app and has been quite successful in attracting users on Get Worm. Great job Steve and Daniel - I wish you will do great on PH! :-)
@sarthakmoghe Thanks Sarthak! GetWorm has been amazing helping us get Beta Testers in the early days, it's truly a unique product!
Steve, Congrats on the launch!! The app looks amazing, the UI is beautiful and I *love* the gratitude journal. I hope this takes off!
@abhinavvadrevu It's great seeing you here, and thanks for your kind words! I also must say, I already love KaleKam and can't wait to see you guys grow :)
I have been using Aura since I saw it featured on @techcrunch last week. It has really improved my morning routine and helped me stick to my New Years resolution of meditating daily. Thanks Steve and Daniel!
@aaaronholland thanks for the kind words, awesome to hear Aura is helping you meditate daily!
Great looking project. It crashes consistently after a few seconds on the iPhone 6s Plus though. Could not really use it so far..
@san_picciarelli Thanks for letting us know--our server had a small problem from unexpected high traffic this morning. If you uninstall the app completely and re-install it should be working perfectly fine now :) Sincere apologies for the inconvenience!
@thedannylee Sweet as Daniel. No inconvenience at all, I'm happy you guys sorted it out this swiftly and I'll be sure to give it another go. Best of luck with the project.
I just downloaded and tried the app and I have to say it really helped clear my mind and relax! The world is crazy and the stresses are great, we need a way to reset and your app is a positive tool towards that end, so thank you Steve and Daniel.
as somebody who doesn't know much about meditation I feel like 3 minutes is really short. Would you tell me a little bit about this decision? looking forward to the Android version. Any ETA for it? Also $12 for Premium does sound like a lot.
@gopietz Great question! We've been beta testing the length of our meditations with our users for quite a bit. We even started from 1 minute in the beginning all the way up to 7 minutes. We found 3 minutes to be the sweet spot as it was the easiest for our users to truly form a daily habit around practicing mindfulness. 3 minutes is also the average time of a song, so many people were used to the length. We believe in the regularity of the practice as opposed to 1 lengthy session; and even though 3 minutes might seem short, within a few weeks you really start to see the positive impact mindfulness is having on your life :) No hard deadline yet, but we've already started working on Android! $12 may sound like a lot at first but if you think about it, it's the cost of 1 chipotle meal per month for something that can help take care of your mental health which is invaluable.
@thedannylee Hey Daniel, thanks for getting back to me. Sounds good! I'll give it a spin when the Android version ships. You're right, $12 is not a lot for something that helps you handle stress. I compared your price to Headspace who are in a similar market. Their (annual) price tag is half of yours. Plus, you can find tons of coupons for it. That's where my "a lot" judgement came from. I'm sure Aura is worth it though. Good luck.
@gopietz Head over to www.aurahealth.io to get on the android list :) We'll notify you as soon as its out! Actually our pricing is the same as Headspace for monthly ($12.99) and yearly ($7.92). We do both provide meditations but the main difference between us and any other meditation app out there is that we're using machine intelligence to really personalize the experience. It's hard for people (especially beginners) to understand what type of meditations they want in the beginning. What people do know, however, is how they're feeling at the moment -- and we're capitalizing on that to provide as much value as we can to our users. Thanks for all the feedback!
Hi Product Hunters!
This is Steve, co-founder of Aura. My brother @thedannylee and I dropped everything to make mental health care simpler and more affordable for everyone. Mindfulness has transformed our lives, and we wanted to help everyone relieve stress & anxiety effortlessly through creating an AI-powered mindfulness app.
Unlike other meditation apps, Aura algorithmically chooses the best meditation for you every day. After each meditation session, you rate the session and Aura learns about what works for you best, and it even improves the recommendation for other users similar to you.
Even better, Aura’s meditations are really just 3-minutes and are created by the top meditation teachers, therapists, and universities in the world. Aura’s free forever to meditate once a day, and Premium users get to meditate whenever they want—they choose how they’re feeling, and Aura chooses the best session for them.
We publicly launched on TechCrunch on January 1 of 2017 (bit.ly/aura-health), and we’re very excited to be on Product Hunt with all of you! Please try us out for free at www.aurahealth.io.
Thank you for hunting us, @lylemckeany!
@stevel_sk @thedannylee @lylemckeany Congratulations on the launch!
"After each meditation session, you rate the session and Aura learns about what works for you best, and it even improves the recommendation for other users similar to you." - I'm a really big fan of this idea. Somethings don't work for some people and mental health is a very personal issue - if you get stuck doing something you don't like, then it really isn't helping you and you will most likely not improve. Thank you! Can't wait to use it
Looks good guys, best of luck moving forward. For what it's worth, my opinion is that going up against Headspace and having the same price as them is gonna be really hard for you. They are already so well established even thou you bring something new to the table. Maybe start out a bit lower just to make sure you don't lose users due to the price.
@baboon Hi Horea, thanks for your advice! We've definitely been careful with pricing and will keep your suggestion in mind. Headspace is a 10-day trial product whereas we're a true freemium product, and we've had the privilege of allowing anyone interested in meditating to form a daily habit without paying. We're just monetizing from power users who believe in the product, thus the price :)
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