SwissZen: Open the knife. A minute is enough.
Most mindfulness apps want a subscription before they let you breathe. I wanted one calm tool that does breathing, a mindfulness bell and short practices, offline and for free.
Most mindfulness apps want a commitment. SwissZen is a pocket knife: unfold the one tool that fits the moment, use it, fold it back.
Download the APK · Stillcraft page · Source on GitHub
What’s inside
Guided breathing
A calm sphere grows on the inhale and settles on the exhale. Box 4‑4‑4‑4, Calm 4‑7‑8, Coherent 5‑5, for 2, 5 or 10 minutes.
Wim Hof rounds
Power breaths, an open-ended hold on empty lungs with a stopwatch, a 15‑second recovery breath. Four levels.
Mindfulness bell
Rings with the app closed: at random every 15–90 minutes, at a fixed interval or at set times, with quiet hours.
Micro-practices
5‑4‑3‑2‑1 grounding, body scan, notice three things, start-of-day pause, gratitude minute.
Meditations
Five timed sits of 5–20 minutes: breath anchor, loving-kindness, mountain, walking, sleep wind-down.
One-line journal
One line a day against a rotating prompt, a week view, and an Echo: a line you wrote weeks ago, brought back.
Wim Hof levels
| Level | Rounds | Breaths / round | Pace in / out | Hold targets |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beginner | 3 | 30 | 2.0 s / 1.6 s | 0:30 → 1:00 → 1:30 |
| Medium | 3 | 30–35 | 1.6 s / 1.3 s | 1:00 → 1:30 → 1:30–2:00 |
| Advanced | 4 | 35–40 | 1.4 s / 1.0 s | 1:00 → 1:30 → 2:00 → 2:30 |
| Expert | 4–5 | 40–50 | 1.1 s / 0.8 s | 1:30 → 2:00 → 2:30 → 3:00+ |
Good to know
Does the bell ring when the app is closed?
Yes. It uses Android alarms, survives reboots and time changes, and needs no exact-alarm permission. Tap “I paused” on the notification to note what you noticed.
Where does the breathing sound come from?
It’s synthesised on the phone: white noise through a sweeping filter, so it always matches the tempo of your level.
Is anything collected?
No accounts, no network, no analytics. The journal, bell history and session log stay on the device.
Get it
- Requires: Android 8.0 (API 26) or newer
- License: MIT
- Download the APK on your phone.
- Open it and allow installs from this source when Android asks.
- Turn on the bell if you want the app to find you during the day.
Download the APK · Stillcraft page · Source on GitHub
SwissZen is part of Stillcraft, a shelf of small, free, open-source apps for everyday life: no ads, no accounts, and your data stays on your phone. A new one appears here every few days.
comments