For version 1.5 · Last updated 13 October 2026
Driftwaver plays and generates ambient audio with binaural tones — two slightly different frequencies, one per ear, which is why the app keeps mentioning headphones. Without stereo headphones the music still plays, but the effect the app is built around does not happen.
Everything lives under three tabs along the bottom.
| Tab | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Play | Listening. The player, the queue, the binaural switch, the sleep timer, the alarm, and the animated background. |
| Create | Making a new track — either on your phone for free, or with AI in the cloud. |
| My Media (My Media-tation) | Your collection: the built-in library, tracks you have added, and sessions you have played. |
The card at the top shows what is playing and the queue beneath it. Tap any row to switch to it. If something is already playing and has not been exported, the app asks before replacing it, and offers Export first — that prompt exists because a mix you have not saved is gone once you load something else.
The + button adds a track: from the built-in Library, from your Exported tracks, or as a File from device. The three-dot button on each row removes that row or clears the list. Clearing the list deletes nothing — every track stays in My Media-tation, and choosing it there brings it back.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Sound settings (gear with a note) | Opens the binaural settings — frequencies, volumes, pink noise. See Sound settings. |
| Play / Pause | The round button in the middle. |
| Headphones | The binaural switch. It has four states — see below. |
This is the control most worth understanding, because it looks different depending on what the track already has.
| Appearance | Meaning | What tapping does |
|---|---|---|
| Grey headphones, no label | Tones are off. The music plays plain. | Turns tones on. |
| Gold headphones with arcs, “Binaural on” | Tones are playing over the music. | Turns them off. |
| Faded, “Tap to generate” | You added this file yourself and nothing has been computed for it yet. | Asks first, then generates. Takes about half a minute and restarts the track. |
| Locked, “Already in this track” | The tones are already inside the audio — usually an export you re-imported. | Nothing. Adding a second set would beat against the first. |
When the switch says Tap to generate, Export mix is greyed out too. That is deliberate: until the waves exist there is no mix to export, and exporting anyway would produce a file with a flat tone that ignores the music. Generating re-opens both.
The animated space below the player is not decoration you are stuck with.
In full screen the animation fills the display with nothing on top of it. Tap once and the controls fade in: previous track, play/pause, next track, and the exit button at the lower right. They fade out again on their own, so the view returns to being just the animation. The two swipe areas work here as well.
The clock-and-gear icon. Choose 5, 10, 15, 30, 45 or 60 minutes and playback stops when it runs out. It reads Off when nothing is set, and shows the remaining time while it counts down.
The alarm icon opens a full screen with four parts:
Android requires its own permission for exact alarms. The app asks once; without it an alarm would be saved but never ring.
Reached from the gear on the Play tab, or from the three-dot menu.
| Setting | What it means |
|---|---|
| Entrainment goal | A preset such as Fall Asleep: Theta → Delta (6 → 2 Hz). This is the beat frequency and the direction it moves in over the session. Direction underneath restates it in plain numbers. |
| Save current as preset | Keeps your own combination under a name. |
| Tone volume (start / end) | How loud the binaural tone is at the beginning and at the end. Two values, because the session moves between them. |
| Music volume (start / end) | The same for the music underneath. |
| Pink noise | Adds a soft wash of noise. |
| Show advanced settings | Carrier frequency, semitone jump threshold, ramp smoothing and similar. Safe to ignore. |
Two methods, chosen by the toggle at the top.
Runs entirely on your phone. Nothing is sent anywhere and it costs nothing. Two modes:
The app estimates how long it will take on your phone, and learns from how long previous renders actually took. Replaying a session you have made before is immediate — it is kept, not rebuilt.
Sends your description to a cloud service that runs the music models. Choose a voice — AI-Aster, AI-Elmi or AI-Lika — write a description, set a duration, and press Generate Music. The line underneath shows what is left of your monthly allowance, for example 99 tracks or 117 min left this period.
Generated files are saved to Downloads/Driftwaver on your phone.
The built-in catalogue. Each track shows its style and length, and whether it is on your phone:
What you have played, newest first, each labelled with where it came from — Library, From device — and when. This is also where files you add from your phone live.
Export mix appears on the Play tab once a track is loaded. It renders the music
and the binaural tones together into one .m4a file you can keep, share or use
elsewhere, with your current sound settings baked in. A different entrainment goal gives a
genuinely different file, so exporting the same track twice is a reasonable thing to do.
The button is greyed out when there is no mix to make: a track that already contains tones, or one whose waves have not been generated yet.
Most of the app is free and stays free: the whole library, binaural tones, local synthesis, your own files, the alarm and the sleep timer.
Free use includes a limited number of exports and of binaural analyses for your own tracks, and a selection of the animated objects and backgrounds. Driftwaver Pro is a monthly subscription that adds AI generation — up to 120 minutes and 100 generations a month — and the rest of the artwork. It renews automatically until cancelled, and you cancel in Google Play.
Restore subscription on the Pro screen recovers an existing subscription on a new phone or after reinstalling.
Driftwaver is a relaxation and focus aid. It is not a medical device, and it does not diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any condition. If you have epilepsy, a seizure disorder or a pacemaker, or you are pregnant, speak to a doctor before using rhythmic audio. Do not listen while driving or operating machinery. Stop if you feel unwell.
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