Great content hidden in a frustrating app As a lifetime subscriber and longtime evangelist, I hate giving Calm a low rating. To say it has changed my life would be an understatement. But as its content library has grown, the app layout has made it harder and harder to use.
Today I had a rough day at work. I had a few minutes between activities and thought it would be good to sit for 10-15 minutes meditation. Today’s Daily Calm topic didn’t fit the bill. So I went looking.
I tapped into the Anxiety tab and instantly felt anxious. The choices were overwhelming, not laid out in any pattern I could see, and some didn’t seem on topic (“Get Energized,” for example). It’s the same for all the other sections; a presentation that makes decisions difficult and puts barriers between Calm’s users and Calm’s amazing content. I closed the app and just went back to work.
It hit me then… the app was making it harder, not easier, for me to gain a sense of calm.
Which is a shame because I can see the care that went into this design. It’s clearly intended to surface sessions users might not have found on their own. Those design decisions themselves seem to acknowledge the app bloat, and are trying to help. Sadly, Calm needs more than care, good intentions and great content; it needs a ground-up redesign or it will just keep getting more and more difficult for users to find their calm.
Good… but lackingJoeyyyyyyy999111on2024-03-20 I love the app and the teachers on calm. Calm meditators have some of the most soothing and relatable voices out of all the meditation apps I used and I used almost all that’s out there.
However as a daily meditator, I quickly realized that the app’s library of meditations are very limited. The daily recommendations and series lasted for a few months before i breezed through all of the content and it seems like there aren’t much updates or new content being released often. Some of my favorite meditation series are winnie the pooh, 7 days series… but since i subscribed to the app almost a year ago i have not seen any new meditation series added, just sleep music here and there. As such I will not be renewing my subscription for another year and am glad i didn’t get the lifetime membership. Currently i have found other meditation apps which explains the techniques for meditation more and it’s helpful. Hopefully calm can step up their game more someday since its got a good baseline currently!
Worst Customer Service & INEPT Employees What a doozy Calm, Inc. pulled on me. So much for “meditation” or “calm.” Calm thought that a year’s subscription at no charge would placate the situation. Not with me, it won’t. One of their employees “accidentally” removed my 3-years long subscription and when they had me create another account, all of my saved data (playlists) vanished. Calm, Inc. apologized ad nauseam but at the end of the day, there went my @postmalone remix of Circles among numerous other go-to favorites. The antithesis of calming to me. It’s more inflammatory. And anticlimactic. And irresponsible. Never again. I’ve removed Calm from every device I own because I’m tired of gainfully employed messing things up for everyone else - with zero accountability. I don’t want $69. I want what I bought and paid for. A contract and agreements work both ways and serve both parties’ interests.
Nice app to have on phoneCollegeGurlFitnotFaton2024-03-25 I’ve had the calm app & subscription for almost 3 years.
2024: I appreciate the Calm app and its music / soundscapes features the most! I love using the calm app’s music / soundscapes after the work day, before I start cooking dinner, where I use the lofi or restorative music and brain waves at night while prepping for bed.
2023: Last year, I tried building the habit of medication using Calm, but couldn’t stick to it consistently. I like that calm would send me two reminders! One in the morning and the other in the afternoon, both times that I selected.
2022: checked out the sleep stories for bed . I was heaving a hard time sleeping during my wedding planning, so I would use calm onc or twice a week to put me to sleep or at the very least ease my stressed mind.
If you’re just starting out with meditation, this app is okay, but it’s not worth the money. You can get far better quality meditation videos on YouTube.
If you’ve “been around the block” with meditation and are familiar with many forms of meditation, this app is not for you. The content is very basic, boring, and sometimes a little jarring. There’s no useful prompts, the UX is kind of weird/hard to navigate (i.e., there’s a specific tab for sleep, but nothing else?) There’s something about this app that feels a little insulting to my intelligence, like the “Daily Jay” feature is really annoying. Who is Jay and why do I care about what he has to say?
Anyway, the one thing I will give the app credit for is the sleep stories, those are really nice. But that’s it.
Bogus Advertising AnticsAnfroint Behoneron2024-03-27 On Calm since 2016, until a few months back. Now in an attempt to get me back, they raise the sticker price to $179.88 so that they can sell it to me at their regular $70 price to look like they are providing a discount in a pathetic money grubbing grab. Not calming. Not indicative of a company concerned with wellbeing.
Good product. Dehumanizing use of people. One star for the immoral advertising antics. I deserve better. I was their very first person to hit 1000 days in a row. (They used to have a leader board. Good idea to remove it. But still.)
Sad to see these tactics. Down the toilet with the rest of the corporate world. I was about to upgrade to the $100 family plan. Not now.
I like Calm, but I think you should add a little more options that are not locked behind a pay wall because I have trouble sleeping, but I’m low on money so I can’t afford to become premium and I think I’ll get a lot better sleep if I had a couple more options like more soundscapes and green noise there are both things behind a pay wall and I would sleep better with both of those things but once again I can’t afford them so I would rate it five stars if there weren’t so many things that weren’t walked behind a pool wall other than that it’s a really great app and it helps me get a little bit better sleep😴😴😴
Audio issues on iPad version, great app overall The iPad version has several audio issues, particularly when in use with AirPods. Audio sometimes begins playing at max volume upon initial connection (despite volume showing a lower level), pause/play function is inconsistent or becomes unavailable after long pauses, and app/audio is glitchy when audio switches back to iPad or Calm app when AirPods temporarily switch to another device or app. These issues detract from the tranquility otherwise offered by the app. Apart from these persistent issues, I can only echo other reviewers praising this app generally. Would love to see a fix for the iPad audio issues.
After the recent update the app stutters when you scroll. This is causing me to avoid using it. The problem is nausea inducing. Calm has also gotten in the habit of over using celebrities to make content. When they used the first few celebrities to read stories it was novel and now it seems like they are just another promotional arm of Hollywood. Celebrities already permeate the news cycle and try to sell you every product under the sun ,I don’t like opening Calm to get some sleep having them in my face again. Enough of these attention seekers already! Get back to using your original staff members!
I wish fewer of the sleep stories told you how you supposedly think There’s nothing that wakes me up more than someone claiming I made a decision I would never make or have an opinion I would never have. I wish that more had a more ‘this happened’ or ‘that happened’ passive voice, instead of bothering to justify or explain how ‘you decided to not have a destination in mind’, it could just be written ‘there’s no destination for today so there’s no rush’ or something similar.
I also seriously don't understand how a part of a story being about how ‘I’ was apparently too cheap to buy an umbrella is supposed to be restful.
I like most of what the app offers though.