Endel – The Personalized Soundscapes App

So far, I’ve been a big fan of my own Spotify playlist creations or Spotify’s own curated ones. Whether it would be for a genre of music, one of my favorite artists, my Christmas jams, or even ambient/instrument music for helping me focus at work.

I’ve heard about Endel before, but I’ve never really dived into this app. Soundscapes sounded interesting on paper to me, but the algorithmic aspect made me unsure of its musical practicality. Could such advanced neural calculations with various data points make good background-filling beats?

While browsing the App Store on my iPhone, this popped up as one of the recommended apps for 2020. Makes sense, right? Music to help with sleep and relaxation would be immensely popular in 2020.

So, I decided to take the plunge. After all, I caught the Black Friday sale on their yearly subscription. Once I virtually tossed them my 33 Canadian rupees and finalized my contract, I was off to get lost in the dynamic sounds.

Let’s Talk Endel

What really drove me to initially download the app actually was the number of data points. As of writing this article, several active conditions are taken into account when the algorithm is generating said constant sounds. If allowed, it will track the following:

• Heart rate
• Location & weather
• Number of steps you’ve taken (and your walking/moving speed)
• Time of day
• Sleep data

Note: As mentioned earlier in my article, this is on an iPhone. I presume the Android experience is the same if not similar.

Using these sensors, Endel is able to play the perfect sounds for your environmental state so you are placed back into a natural rhythm known as the Circadian Cycle. This offers great benefits to the human body and immense compensation for the anxiety and stress “buffet” given to us in 2020.

If you’re really interested in how exactly Endel is accomplishing this with the power of AI and local processing on your smartphone or Apple Watch, check out the Science section on their website here:

Another feature you will find in this app is different types of sounds for different activities. The main categories you will find upon opening the app are AI Lullaby (Grimes’ own collab sounds with Endel), Relax, Focus, On-The-Go, and Sleep. Scrolling downward will reveal tailored sounds for more specific tasks with timers and alarms once the session duration is complete:

• Deep Work
• Chill
• Self Care
• Study
• Meditate
• Power Nap
• Read
• Chores
• Create
• Workout
• Yoga
• Commute

This app does seem to be quite promising regardless of the steep normal $70 CAD/year subscription cost. I’ve used the On-The-Go mode while driving places and performing errands. This article has been written almost completely while using the Focus mode. To be clear, I’m still in my infancy when it comes to the number of written articles on my Medium and Vocal.Media profiles. Getting past 300 words is sometimes a struggle for me. With this app, I’ve gotten past this limit in no time.

If this keeps up and using Endel’s Focus mode is a writing habit I learn to develop, I might eventually earn back the yearly $70 investment into this app. Not saying that this will happen in 2021, as earnings from writing articles is a long-term development, but perhaps in one of the following years.

Should you use Endel?

Short answer, yes. As expensive as the yearly subscription might come to the common folk, if you want to invest in making yourself a better human then $70 CAD each year isn’t that much. Think of all the other mindfulness activities. The various ways people relieve stress and/or find a means of escaping reality. These same 70 dollars might not last an entire weekend, let alone a month or year.

On the other hand, if even the great benefits brought by the yearly fee isn’t enough to pry your hard-earned money from your cold, dead hands… no need to worry. Endel has thought of you as well.

For those who already use Spotify, you can find them here: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3JNr31WfX56vgwBuIcdOt4

If you’re a gamer and simply need sleep, they got your back with their endless sleep soundscape: https://www.twitch.tv/endel

You can also yell at your Alexa device if you feel like it: https://www.amazon.com/Endel-GMBh/dp/B07C8FSTFP/

Above all else, may we all find our rhythm again in 2021.