When you're wound tight, what you need usually isn't another technique — it's somewhere you can go back to. 478 Breath is that place. The whole app is one screen: a living nebula at its center, pulsing at your recent breathing rate, its color shifting with today's HRV. Inhale for 4, hold for 7, exhale for 8, and follow along. That's a session.
Why daily is the point
The hard part of breathwork was never learning it — it's coming back to it. How long you practise, and how often, is yours to decide — the app prescribes no schedule and keeps no streak. What it does instead is leave a trace: your heart-rate variability (HRV) before and after is recorded alongside each session. Any single reading fluctuates, and one number on its own says little. But once dozens, then hundreds of sessions form a curve, you start to see your own rhythm. What you can see is easier to return to — and return often enough, and calm stops being a moment you chase and becomes the ground you stand on.
Features
Breathe with the nebula
No rigid expanding circle. The nebula pulses at your recent breathing rate — swelling, floating, settling.
1–10 minutes, anytime
The classic 4-7-8 rhythm is free, voice guidance follows your system language, and it keeps going after the screen locks.
HRV recorded around each session
Every session ends with your heart-rate variability before and after it, giving the feeling a number to sit next to.
See where today stands
Measured against your 7-day HRV baseline, the background color tells you whether today calls for recovery or you're right on form.
Sessions become a curve
HRV trends across a month, six months, a year and beyond — the long view of your practice.
A nudge back to these minutes
A home-screen widget and HRV alerts fit practice into the day; sessions can be saved as Mindfulness.
Who it's for
The nights you can't settle, the moments stress takes your rhythm away — those are what it's for. No account, no network, nothing to learn first. And if you're willing to come back for a few minutes each day, an Apple Watch lets you watch calm accumulate into something ordinary.
Requirements
iOS 17 or later. The core breathing practice works without an Apple Watch; HRV records, the status background color and trend charts need an Apple Watch and Health authorization. The free tier covers the 4-7-8 rhythm and 1–10 minute sessions; a Premium subscription unlocks the other rhythms, longer sessions, all soundscapes and adaptive HRV alerts.