Support

Stilla needs a heart sensor to compute HRV and heart–breath sync. The session itself works without one — only the heart metrics are affected.

Using Apple Watch: the most common cause is a missing permission. Open the Health app on iPhone → your profile picture → Apps & Services → Stilla, and make sure Beat-to-Beat Measurements is enabled. It's a separate toggle from Heart Rate, and it's the one that carries the heartbeat intervals HRV is calculated from. Also confirm the Stilla app is installed and running on the watch during the session, and that the watch is snug on your wrist.

Using a Bluetooth strap: see the next question.

Go to Settings → Health → Heart rate sensor in Stilla. Wet the strap's electrodes, put it on, and make sure it isn't already paired to another app or watch — most straps only talk to one device at a time.

Stilla uses the standard Bluetooth Heart Rate Service, so any strap that follows the spec works: Polar H9 and H10, Garmin HRM, Wahoo TICKR, and most others. Pair it inside Stilla rather than in iOS Settings → Bluetooth.

No. Stilla guides your breathing on its own — the visual, the sound, and the haptics all work with just an iPhone.

A sensor unlocks the physiological side: HRV, heart–breath sync, how far your heart rate settles, and finding your personal resonance rate. A chest strap is the most accurate; Apple Watch is good for trends.

Breathing near 5.5 breaths per minute engages the body's natural relaxation response, visible as unusually strong heart rate variability. The exact rate that produces the strongest response varies between people — roughly 4.5 to 6.5 breaths per minute.

Stilla can find yours. Run the resonance discovery sessions with a sensor connected; the app compares your heart's response across several tempos and settles on the one your body answers loudest.

Insights are built from completed sessions, and most of the heart metrics need sessions recorded with a sensor. A tab for a particular pattern stays empty until you've practised that pattern — Box and 4-7-8 have their own tabs, read on their own physiological terms, separate from Resonance.

Give it a handful of sessions. Trends and streaks need a little history before they mean anything.

Yes. On the session setup screen you can pick Resonance, Box (4-4-4-4), or 4-7-8, run each at its classic tempo or your own, and set fully custom phase timings and durations. Adaptive pace lets Stilla ease the tempo toward what your breathing is actually doing.

Open Settings → Appearance → Animation style and try another one — each guide moves differently, and the tide and reeds styles are much gentler than a pulsing orb.

If motion is the problem generally, turn on Reduce Motion in iOS Settings → Accessibility → Motion. Stilla detects it and switches to a still, non-animated guide.

Check Settings → Reminders → Daily reminder in Stilla, then confirm notifications are permitted in iOS Settings → Notifications → Stilla. If you denied the permission the first time it was asked, iOS won't ask again — you have to enable it there.

Yes — that's the intended way to use it. The soundscape continues with the phone face down or locked, so you can close your eyes for the whole session.

Swipe to delete any individual session in History. Deleting the app removes everything it stored on your device.

Anything Stilla wrote to Apple Health — mindful minutes and session HRV — lives in the Health app and is deleted there: Health → your profile picture → Apps & Services → Stilla.

Everything is on-device. Stilla makes no internet connections at all — there is no account, no analytics, and no server to send anything to. It works identically in airplane mode.

The full details are in the privacy policy.

Not in this version. Your sessions live in Stilla's private database on the iPhone it was recorded on, and are included in an encrypted iPhone backup. iCloud sync is on the list for a future release.