February 22, 2019 – Oculus has today announced the addition of ‘Calm’, Apple’s 2017 App of the Year and a Google Play 2018 Editor’s Choice Award winner.
Calm offers a variety of meditations that are intended to help users manage stress, anxiety, depression, and sleep. Today’s announcement means that users of the app can now experience it on Oculus Go and Gear VR as well.
“We have always believed that VR can be a powerful medium for meditation and relaxation,” says Calm.com, Inc. Director of Product Tony Hsieh. “It has the ability to easily transport and immerse anyone into another reality from anywhere. We couldn’t wait to explore what this meant for Calm.”
From grief, resilience, and gratitude to the philosophical practices of Wabi Sabi and Ubuntu, Calm’s VR debut includes 10 of the original app’s meditations led by Calm’s Head of Mindfulness, Tamara Levitt.
After selecting a meditation, users can then choose one of three calming locations: a mountain lake, a redwood forest, or a white sand beach in Hawaii.
Commenting on the obstacles of translating the 2D mobile app into a VR experience, Hsieh said: “One of the biggest challenges was capturing high-quality nature content for the VR experience. We wanted to provide highly immersive scenes and thus focused on capturing stereo 3D 180° video and spatial audio. This allows us to display a higher resolution in the headset and offer a transformative 3D video and audio experience to the user.”
He added, “It’s an inspiring time for both meditation and technology, and I’m very excited to see how we’ll be able to bring a more immersive, powerful meditation experience to people in an easy and accessible way.”
Image credit: Oculus
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Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix. With a background in research and report writing, he has been covering XR industry news for the past seven years.