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04/11/2022
Article
AI-composed bedtime lullabies

Here’s hoping that today’s edition of the daily newsletter won’t put you to sleep the way this product aims to.

Berlin-based company Endel first launched in late 2018 as a sound wellness product that helps you relax, focus, and sleep through different sound environments. After raising $22M in capital over the past two years and working with artists like Grimes, the app is now collaborating with Grammy- and Mercury Prize-winning English singer, James Blake, to launch Endel × James Blake: Wind Down.

Endel’s approach to generative music is an interesting one. Its proprietary patented technology takes immediate inputs such as time of day, weather, user movements, and GPS location to create soundscapes. This also means that each track that you hear is uniquely composed for you, in real-time.

The app is available across iOS, macOS, Android, Amazon Alexa, and most recently, Apple TV. After Endel was awarded The Apple Watch App of The Year award in 2021, Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, called Endel co-founder and CEO Oleg Stavitsky. At the time, Stavitsky “thought it would be a quick call, where Cook says congratulations and doesn’t really know who we are,” Stavitsky shared in a recent Forbes interview. Turns out, the conversation kickstarted Endel’s latest expansion.

The Wind Down soundscape launch focuses primarily on improving sleep and is “scientifically designed to flow perfectly into a good night’s rest.” Endel’s Community Lead recommends turning it on two hours before bedtime and goes on to explain that this particular soundscape “utilizes specific tones to encourage relaxation in the body’s parasympathetic nervous system and prepare it for rest.”