About
Walkadia turns your walk into music.
Open the app, put in your headphones, and start walking. Walkadia listens to your pace and generates ambient tones around it, live. A soundscape that belongs to that walk and no other. Slow down and the music settles. Pick up your stride and it opens up. There are no tracks and no playlists; the music is made from the walk itself.
It runs on iPhone and Apple Watch, and if you want, it can draw on your heart rate to shape the soundscape. Everything happens on your device: your walks, your routes, and your health data stay with you. You can read the details in our privacy policy.
Where the music comes from
The music is not AI generated. Instead, we've built on the generative ambient sequencer algorithms we created for Condukt. You can even make your own music generator in Condukt and bring it over to Walkadia (coming Soon™).
Why we're building it
A walk is the oldest way to clear your head, but it doesn't work very well if you bury it under podcasts and playlists. We wanted something more like breath: sound that keeps you company without demanding attention, making you aware of your own rhythm instead of drowning it out.
Let's back up a bit: why should you spend time walking at all? A Stanford study found that walking helps creativity, and not just because you're enjoying the great outdoors. The study found that even walking inside, facing a blank wall, inspired participants.¹
So just slap on a podcast and start walking, no? Well, that's good for health but not necessarily for ideation. As other studies found, the brain needs idle time to start the creative process.² A podcast, engaging music, even random chatter keeps your mind occupied, and the default mode network never gets to run its consolidation work and give you new insights.
Walking in silence is the answer, if you can stomach it. Another study found that many people preferred giving themselves electric shocks rather than spend 15 minutes alone with their thoughts.³
Walkadia sits in between. It generates a soundscape from your steps, giving your brain something to hold onto, but nothing for it to follow. No words, no story, no track you've heard before. And if you turn on sound isolation (when it's safe!), the rich stereo field provides a calming, all-encompassing bubble.
How it's coming
Walkadia is in development, and we're getting close. You can try the beta or hear when it launches by signing up for updates.
Contact us
We'd love to hear from you: questions, ideas, or just where you like to walk. Write to us hello@walkadia.app.
¹ Stanford, creativity (Oppezzo & Schwartz, 2014): creative output rose ~60% while walking vs sitting; treadmill facing a blank wall worked nearly as well as walking outdoors. J. Experimental Psychology: LMC, doi 10.1037/a0036577.
² Baird et al. 2012, "Inspired by Distraction": creative incubation is best served by an undemanding task. Mind-wandering is the mediator. Psychological Science 23(10).
³ Wilson et al. 2014, "Just Think": across 11 studies, people disliked 6–15 minutes alone with their thoughts; many preferred self-administered electric shocks (67% of men, 25% of women who'd earlier said they'd pay to avoid shocks). Science, July 2014.