Transcend Timer

Twenty minutes, twice a day. No voices, no bells, nothing to choose. The screen brightens when meditation ends, so you can keep your eyes closed until it does.

Transcend Timer is a timer for Transcendental Meditation. It does one thing: it holds the length of your practice so you do not have to.

Three phases. Warm Up to settle in, Meditation, then Rest. Set each one once and press play — the home screen shows the plan, so starting is never a decision.

WHAT IT DOES NOT DO

No guided voices. No courses, no narrators, no daily episode, no library to look through. Nothing plays unless you turn it on: the start and end sounds and the haptics are all off by default, because in TM the mantra is the technique and a bell is an interruption.

THE SCREEN TELLS YOU WHERE YOU ARE

Each phase has its own background, ordered by brightness rather than colour. Warm Up steps down toward meditation, meditation is nearly black, and rest lifts sharply. That lift is the largest change in light in the whole session and it happens the moment meditation ends — perceptible through a closed eyelid, so you can stay where you are until it comes.

If you do open your eyes to check the time, the timer is large, centred, and set in figures that do not shift as they count down.

PROGRESS

Two counters: days you meditated, and days you meditated twice. A monthly calendar shows the shape of your practice — missed, once, twice — and pages back through every month you have kept. Completed sessions are written to Apple Health as Mindful Sessions.

APPLE WATCH

Run a full session from your wrist and leave the phone in another room. The Digital Crown sets the durations. The Smart Stack shows which phase you are in and how long is left.

IF YOU WANT IT

Curated sounds for the start and end of meditation, with their own volume so a cue can carry through twenty minutes of closed eyes. Ambiance: one looping sound that fades in as the session begins and out across the rest phase, at a volume set deliberately lower. Eight themes, each changing all four phases together and keeping the same order of light. Night dimming for sessions in the dark. Pause and resume, counting active time only. A daily reminder, if you set one.

PRIVACY

No account, no sign-in, no analytics, no advertising, no network requests. Your preferences stay on your device. Health data is read only to calculate your streaks and never leaves the phone.

Transcend Timer is an independent app. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by any Transcendental Meditation organisation, and it does not teach the technique.