Comparison

Heart Sit vs Tide

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Heart Sit

Features
Read full description

Did it actually work? The question every meditator secretly asks. Heart Sit answers it. Live heart rate from your AirPods Pro 3 or Apple Watch — captured every second, plotted around your timer, analyzed across weeks. Stop guessing. Start observing. LIVE HEART RATE Choose your sensor: AirPods Pro 3 (in-ear optical), Apple Watch, or Auto. Heart Sit shows which device is providing the reading in real time. No chest strap. No additional hardware. THE OBSERVED INSIGHT Every session ends with a one-line answer: "Your heart rate dropped 8 BPM." Or "Heart rate stayed steady — calm baseline." Compare this week to your 90-day baseline in Trends. Watch the line move. THE SETTLE SCORE Proprietary metric that measures how long it took your heart rate to reach its session minimum. Lower means you settled faster. Track it across weeks. Brag about it. APPLE WATCH AS REMOTE Open Heart Sit on your Watch — it becomes a control surface. Pause, resume, stop from your wrist. The Watch app stays alive for the full session via Extended Runtime Sessions. Your phone can sit screen-down across the room. PRACTICE TYPES Open, Zazen, Vipassana, Breath Focus. Each comes with appropriate defaults. Tag your sessions and see which practice settles you fastest. CONTEXT TAGS + MOOD Tag morning, evening, post-workout, stressed, calm. Capture your mood after each session. Heart Sit will show you which contexts produce your best practice. OVERTIME MODE The bell rings when your timer ends — but you don't have to stop. Continue as long as you want. Heart Sit counts the extra time and saves your full duration. EVERY DETAIL • Real-time BPM display + radial heart rate wave that shifts blue when calm, red when active • Optional haptic heartbeat — feel your pulse with every beat • Set an intention before sitting; recall it after • Session history with full per-second heart rate charts • Heart Rate Variability (HRV) reading per session • CSV export for power users • Beautiful share card — poster of your session • HealthKit integration: every session saved as a Mind & Body workout • Pure black, Georgia serif. No clutter. No animations to distract you. PRIVACY No accounts. No cloud. No analytics. No tracking. The app makes zero network requests. Everything stays on your device. NO SUBSCRIPTION. EVER. This isn't a wellness app trying to monetize your meditation. It's a measurement instrument for people who already have a practice. Download once. Use forever. REQUIREMENTS • AirPods Pro 3 (or AirPods Pro 2 with USB-C and HR-capable firmware) for live heart rate via earbuds • Apple Watch for live heart rate via wrist (any HR-capable model) • iPhone running iOS 18.0 or later Without either AirPods or Watch, Heart Sit works as a beautiful meditation timer with the same overtime mode and session journaling. For serious meditators who want evidence, not affirmation.

About

Tide

Features
Read full description

Tide is a breathing timer, built around your own rhythm. Build a pattern from scratch: set your own hold times, chain together repeatable step sets, and choose whether a session ends after a set number of rounds or after a fixed length of time. Once it's saved, it works exactly like any other pattern in the app. Not sure where to start? Three patterns are ready to go: Box breathing (4-4-4-4): used to reset under pressure. Equal parts inhale, hold, exhale, hold. 4-7-8: a technique for unwinding. A long exhale that signals to your nervous system that it's safe to slow down. Calm (3-2-5-2): a gentle everyday pattern. Slightly longer exhale than inhale, designed for quiet moments and transitions. Tide also runs on Apple Watch. Start a session from your wrist with quick-start presets and rounds mode. Chime and haptic settings sync automatically between your phone and watch. No narration. No scores. Just the rhythm you choose. Tide is made by Quiet Leaf LLC. See what else we're building at quietleaf.dev.

Screenshots

Heart Sit4 screens
Tide4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is iOS requirement: Tide at 17.0 against Heart Sit's 26.2. On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price Ā· Rating Ā· Positive reviews Ā· Number of ratings Ā· Update frequency Ā· Ads Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Monetization Ā· Best chart rank Ā· Devices Ā· Requires iOS

CostPrice Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Ads Ā· Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

Scorecard1 real difference Ā· 5 level
Heart Sit versus Tide: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHeart SitTide
PriceFreeFree
Update frequency—Every 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhone, Apple WatchiPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — better
Requires iOS26.217.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size7 MB17 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperAndrii GryshutkinQuiet Leaf LLC

In-app purchases

None

Heart Sit

No in-app purchases

None

Tide

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Heart Sit free?
Heart Sit is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Tide free?
Tide is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Heart Sit or Tide have ads?
Neither Heart Sit nor Tide shows ads.

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