Infinite Breath

The challenge

A new approach to proper breathing

No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or strong you are, none if it matters if you're not breathing properly.

   — James Nestor

After reading the book Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor, a New York Times Bestseller that gained a lot of popularity during the Covid pandemic, I was inspired to learn more about how to breathe properly, as well as to see if there were any apps out there that I could use to help train myself along the way.

I tried out a lot of different types of apps, but I always found myself wanting a more intuitive visualization, along with more information and context about different types of proper breathing techniques. This desire, along with an innovative visualization technique I had learned from my mom, and Infinite Breath was born!

The distilled objectives

Create a compelling breathing and meditation app that:

1. Actually offers something unique and different from existing apps
2. Can be used natively on iOS, Android, and web
3. Informs the user on various breathing techniques in an easy to read format directly in the app

The solution

To achieve a unique and different experience from existing breathing apps, I first had to know what existing apps offered. After trying all of the leading apps, I realized I could differentiate my app by combining all of the elements below:

A unique breathing animation

No other app out there uses the infinity visualization. I believe it allows for a more intuitive learning process of synchronizing your breath to specific patterns, as the rise and fall of the dot around the infinity curve gives more meaningful visual feedback than a dot going around a circle, a breathing bubble, or a moving line graph.

Education on proper breathing

Many breathing and meditation apps lack a decent amount of information around various breathing techniques, if they have any at all. I wanted to get this part of the app right as it really serves as the basis of the app. It guides the user towards proper breathing, both in inspiring them to try these techniques for their health benefits, as well as to educate them on how to perform them.

For this part of the app, I did extensive research on various breathing techniques that have been shown to have health benefits. I then condensed this research into short blurbs about each pattern and programmed the animations around each pattern.

A calming, modern experience

To acheive a calming, modern experience, I followed Material Design principles and used Material Design components, along with a muted color palette based around black and beige colors.

I then wanted some visual representations of the various breathing techniques to tie everything together. I experimented with various types of icons and graphics, but nothing felt right. At this point, I picked up my Remarkable digital tablet and started doodling. After a few doodles using different pen styles and weights, I realized that illustrations in the style of Chinese brush calligraphy would fit perfectly into the app.

The colors along with the illustrations and Material Design components create a relaxing and easy to use space for the user to learn and meditate within.

Native support on iOS, Android, and web

To achieve a cross-platform experience, I decided to use Flutter to code the app. I took the 2021 Flutter Development Bootcamp course from the London App Brewery, and after finishing was able to bring all of these concepts into programming the app. Flutter allows for compiling a single codebase into native iOS, Android, and web apps.

The results

If you just want to try it out, you can use the final web app here, or go here to download the desired mobile app for you.

After putting in a good amount of work on creating marketing materials and app store listings, I released the app on ProductHunt. Since release, there have been over 4500 users across 140 different countries with an average engagement time of nearly 3 and a half minutes, all acquired organically through this one post on ProductHunt, friends and family, and app store listings. The app has received an average rating of 4.5 stars on the play store and an average of 5 stars on the apple store. I'm very happy with this result as it indicates that (roughly speaking) most people who have tried the app have stuck with it and have done at least one full breathing session.

Quotes from reviews/comments

A huge thank you from my end for creating this app. I was in search of an Infinity mediation option in some breathing excersie app from quite some time. And finally saw your app and tried and became a huge fan, hands down its the best breathing excersie app on the entire play store.

Amazing. It works so well. It has a very immersive experience, that you can breathe the way they want you to without even thinking after a while. Plus it explains the logic for each breathing technique quote thoroughly. Highly reccomended.

Great app to help try out new breathing techniques for beginners.

Just what I needed!

Inspiring!

Great job done on this new app. Keep on adding new types of breathing, and I very much like the Customize option.

Future work

I plan to do some further marketing work at some point in the future by posting to breathing and meditation forums.