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Hand-tracking microgesture thumb swipes rotate you and change the time of day on a photoreal beach.
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Hybrid 360° + 3D capture lets waves wash around you; move, breathe, and feel grounded on a real coastline.
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Point and pinch to browse environments and choose a meditation, story, or music with your hands.
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AI voice guidance: double-thumb-tap and say “Tell me story” for a personalized bedtime journey.
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Paint stars across the sky as you breathe - biofeedback turns calm breaths into music and constellations.
Inspiration
I founded music software company Camel Audio, sold it to Apple, then spent ten years there as a product designer. It looked like a dream job, but long hours and pressure took a toll on my health. I saw the same pattern in others: people know they should meditate, yet when life gets busy, the meditation app is the first thing to go.
VR offers something phones can’t: stepping out of your room into calming, realistic nature. Soul Retreat combines that with slow “resonance” breathing to turn “I should meditate” into a simple daily ritual.
What it does
Soul Retreat is a hands-first VR nature sanctuary for stressed people who want a daily self-care ritual, not another app they “should” use.
GroundedPresence™ photoreal nature – Hybrid 360° video + 3D ground mesh + spatial audio from real locations across Europe. You get the movement and atmosphere of live video, but can still stand and move around with your feet “on the ground.”
AI-crafted stories and meditations – Adaptive guidance uses AI to tailor sessions to your goal (calm, sleep, focus), mood, and environment, and responds to natural voice commands like “take me to the beach” or “make it sunset.” Your personal mindfulness guide will support your mindfulness practice and celebrate consistency.
Hands-first with microgestures – Natural hand tracking and Quest Microgestures let you choose content, shift time of day, or start the AI guide listening without picking up controllers. A simple hand-on-stomach pose powers breathing biofeedback.
Breathing, sleep and lifestyle-friendly design – Each slow breath becomes stars and music, and evening sessions gently fade toward sunset to support wind-down before sleep.
How we built it
Soul Retreat is built in Unity for Quest 3/3S, using Meta’s Hand Tracking and Microgestures SDKs. From the earliest prototypes we iterated closely with testers, refining based on their feedback. We were informed by scientific research and worked with a PhD psychologist to set clear guardrails for AI-generated stories and meditations.
For voice input, we use an LLM-based command system combined with lightweight on-device keyword heuristics to keep voice navigation robust and responsive. We also built a privacy-by-design architecture that keeps preferences on-device.
We collaborated with a professional 360° videographer (with National Geographic experience) to capture high-quality scenes across real European locations.
Challenges we ran into
GroundedPresence™ needed extensive iteration - mismatches between 360° video and the 3D ground quickly broke immersion - and filming in Scotland’s fast-changing weather made capturing calm, sunny scenes hard.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We’re most proud of the impact we’ve seen in our private beta. In a ~100-person private test, most testers were still actively using Soul Retreat more than a month after joining, and 85% of users report feeling more relaxed after sessions. Several testers say it’s the first meditation app they’ve stuck with, using it several times a week for over four months.
"I’m an avid VR user, but before Soul Retreat I’d never meditated and was pretty sceptical it would help. Now I use it every day after work to properly wind down. It’s become the perfect way to shift from my “work headspace” into my “relaxed headspace.”, Anthony, 41 – UK
What we learned
Reliable, simple gestures and bedtime-friendly flows matter more than flashy mechanics, and Meta’s Microgestures proved ideal for reliable control. AI-personalised stories and meditations, delivered by a guide that remembers you and celebrates consistency, clearly encourage people to return. Users also told us they really value being in real locations.
What's next for Soul Retreat
We plan to launch in early 2026 with a generous free version (two environments) alongside a subscription for deeper personalisation and a larger library. Post-launch, we’ll keep building Soul Retreat with the community through regular new environments, weekly badge events, Mixed Reality, and more.
More info: soulretreat.app
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