Binaural

Binaural beats that play nicely with your music.

Binaural is a small iPhone app that plays binaural beats underneath whatever you are already listening to. It doesn’t pause your podcast, doesn’t take over the Lock Screen, and doesn’t pretend to be medicine. Pick a ready‑made sound for sleep, meditation, relaxation or focus, or tune your own, and let it sit quietly in the background.

iOS 27Personal appCollects no data

Plays alongside

Under your music, not over it.

Binaural mixes with other apps instead of interrupting them. Music and podcasts keep playing and keep their place on the Lock Screen. When a phone call or alarm interrupts, Binaural pauses and, when iOS allows it, picks up again afterwards, much as Apple Music does.

Plays alongside music and podcasts: Without pausing them or turning them down.
Pauses for calls and alarms: And resumes afterwards when iOS allows.
One honest exception: Apps that deliberately lower other audio, navigation for example, will lower Binaural too.

Five sounds to start with

Ready‑made, and sourced.

Each one is set from published studies of binaural beats, and a tap on the info button shows where its numbers came from.

The Favorites tab listing five presets with colored icons: Deep Sleep, Meditation (playing), Relaxation, Focus and Get Going, each with its beat, tone and noise. — Five presets
Deep Sleep, Meditation, Relaxation, Focus and Get Going.

A popover on the Meditation preset: Theta band, linked to drowsy and meditative states. The pairing a 2017 study used, with pink noise like rain. — Where the numbers came from
A tap on the info button explains each one.

Tune it yourself

Everything on one screen.

Slide the beat from 1 to 50 Hz and watch the band strip follow you through delta, theta, alpha, beta and gamma. Change the pitch of the tones, add white, pink or brown noise, or tap any number to type an exact value. Save the result as a favorite. The beat, the tone, the volume and the noise all fit on the main screen without scrolling.

The beat: 1 to 50 Hz, with a strip under the slider that names the band as you move.
The tone: 50 to 500 Hz, the pitch of the two tones.
The noise: White, pink or brown, always kept well below the tones so it never covers the beat.
Exact values: Tap any number to type it.
Favorites: Save any setting as your own.

How it works

Two tones, one beat.

A beat made inside your head: Binaural plays two pure tones, one in each ear, at slightly different pitches. Your brain hears the difference between them as a slow pulse or drift, the “beat”. At 10 Hz, for example, the left ear hears 245 Hz and the right ear 255 Hz.
Works only with stereo headphones: Because the beat is made inside your head rather than in the air, it only exists when each ear hears its own tone.
Quiet on purpose: The beat is subtle by design. Louder doesn’t make it clearer.

Made for bedtime

A timer that fades out.

A sleep timer from 10 minutes to an hour and a half, or any length you choose, fades the last 10 seconds to silence. Light and dark mode follow your iPhone, and every screen works with VoiceOver.

Sleep timer: 10 minutes to an hour and a half, or any length you choose.
Fades out: The last 10 seconds fade to silence.
Light and dark: Follows your iPhone.
VoiceOver: Every screen works with it.

In the app

A closer look.

A Frequency dialog over the Player asking for a value from 1 to 50 Hz, with 10 entered and a number keypad below. — Tap a number to type it
Any value, exactly.

Binaural’s Before You Listen screen: use stereo headphones, keep the volume modest, don’t listen while driving, and ask your doctor if unsure, especially with epilepsy or a heart implant. — Before you listen
Four points, shown before the first sound.

The Timer sheet listing 10, 15, 20, 30 (selected), 45 minutes, 1 hour, 1 hour 30 minutes and Custom, with a note that the last 10 seconds fade out. — Sleep timer
Ten minutes to ninety, or any length.

The research it draws on

Each preset is set from published studies.

Ingendoh, Posny & Heine (2023): Systematic review, PLOS ONE
Garcia‑Argibay, Santed & Reales (2019): Meta‑analysis, Psychological Research
Orozco Perez, Dumas & Lehmann (2020): eNeuro
Grose, Buss & Hall (2012): “Binaural beat salience”, Hearing Research
Jirakittayakorn & Wongsawat (2017): Frontiers in Neuroscience
Wahbeh et al. (2007): Pilot study

Honest about the science

No promises it can’t keep.

Studies of binaural beats report small and inconsistent effects, so Binaural doesn’t promise any. It describes each band as “linked to” a state of mind, the alpha band, for example, linked to relaxed wakefulness. It keeps the beat gentle, and asks you to use stereo headphones, because that is the only way the beat exists.

“Linked to”, never more: Each band is described as linked to a state of mind, never as something the beat puts you in.
No promised effects: Studies of binaural beats report small and inconsistent effects, so the app promises none.
Stereo headphones only: The only way the beat exists.
Before you listen: Four points on the first screen: stereo headphones, a modest volume, not while driving, and ask your doctor if unsure.

Privacy

It collects nothing.

No data, no accounts: Binaural collects no data. There are no accounts, and your favorites and settings stay on your iPhone.
Built natively: Written entirely in Swift for iOS 27, with no third‑party code.