Just in time for finals and the holidays: CSE student creates calming apps

This is a screen shot of the Pulse app from the iTunes app store.

Pulse: Listen & Relax is an app designed by undergraduate students Anant Patni and Angad Minhas that provides soothing sounds to help users relax.

by Nicole Capozziello

Published December 4, 2019

With finals approaching, student workloads are at an all-time high – and so are stress levels.  

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“I saw my own classmates going through severe anxiety and depression, and so it just felt right to develop something that can calm anyone down instantly.”
Anant Patni, junior computer science major

Anant Patni, a junior computer science major, and Angad Minhas, a senior biostatistics major, were no strangers to the cycle of pressure and sleepless nights and, earlier this year, wondered how they could use their technical backgrounds to alleviate the problem.

“I saw my own classmates going through severe anxiety and depression, and so it just felt right to develop something that can calm anyone down instantly,” says Patni.

Patni and Minhas’ answer was to create Pulse: Listen & Relax, an app that features hand-picked soothing sounds to help users sleep, study, focus, and relax. The app was released in time for finals week this past spring and currently has a user rating a 4.7 out of 5 in the iTunes store. “I got amazing feedback on the design and saw reviews from people all around the world.”

Learning from the process and user feedback, this fall, Patni created Peaceful Sounds, a better designed and more user-friendly version of Pulse: Listen & Relax. “I want users to take a break, open the app, choose their favorite sound, and listen and relax,” says Patni, who made the apps free in hopes students will benefit from them during finals and beyond.

In both apps, users can select from a range of categories, including nature, sleep, study, and animals, with a handful of soothing sounds within each category. Under nature, for instance, users can choose from Amazon, waves, forest, deep sea, fireplace, stars, and light rain, among others. While he likes them all, his personal favorites are “aurora” and “stars,” both available in the Peaceful Sounds’ nature category.

Patni wants the apps to help as many of his fellow students as possible – and hopes that both apps will continue to be used far beyond UB.

“My aim is to see Pulse and Peaceful Sounds become personal companions for people all around the world.” Patni says that this usability is one of the reasons why he kept the app so small (25 MB) – so that storage space would not pose an issue for anyone. “Within UB, I really want it on every phone of every student, faculty and staff. UB is where all the design and development for the apps started, and I really hope that the community can benefit from them.”

Patni is the developer of nine apps, mostly pertaining to productivity, with more on the way. Pulse: Listen & Relax and Peaceful Sounds are available for both the iPhone and iPad and can be downloaded from the iTunes store here.

screenshot of Peaceful sounds app from iTunes.

Anant Patni developed the Peaceful Sounds: Sleep & Focus app, which is a collection of soothing sounds to alleviate stress.