Shimmr vs Expand: an honest look at the Monroe Institute app and an alternative

Monroe Institute Expand app vs Shimmr: the short answer

The Monroe Institute’s Expand app is the place to go for the Institute’s own guided sessions and courses, while Shimmr is a smaller app built around binaural beats you can adjust and build yourself. Many people find Expand after hearing about the Gateway tapes, the Monroe Institute’s famous audio course. Here is how the two compare, based on each App Store listing as of November 2026.

	Expand	Shimmr
Who makes it	The Monroe Institute, a US nonprofit	An independent developer in Stockholm
Platforms	iPhone, iPad, Mac (Apple silicon), Apple Vision, Android	iPhone and iPad
What’s inside	100+ guided meditations, mini-courses, journaling, soundscapes	Guided Journeys, Shifts, binaural, isochronic, noise and nature sounds
Guided sessions	Yes, the core of the app	Yes, Journeys
Sessions with no voice	Yes, Timer Soundscapes	Yes, Shifts and the sound library
Adjust the voice level	Not listed	Soft, Balanced, Clear or Off
Voice language	English, some meditations also in Danish, French, German, Italian and Spanish	English
Mix or build your own sound	Not listed	Mixer and Sound Canvas
Gateway course	Separate in-app purchase	No
Offline	Yes, downloads	Yes
Timer	Timer up to 2 hours	Plays as long as you like, or set a sleep timer that fades out
Apple Health	Not listed	Mindful minutes
Privacy label	Data Used to Track You (identifiers); Data Linked to You (contact info, user content, identifiers, usage data, diagnostics)	Data Not Collected
Price model	Free download, Expand Plus subscription	Free download, Premium subscription

“Not listed” means we didn’t find it on the listing or the support site. It may still exist.

What is in the Expand app?

Expand’s App Store listing says it offers “100+ guided meditations”, multi-day mini-courses, guided reflection and journaling, and “custom-generated soundscapes” aimed at specific brainwave states. Topics include Sleep & Dreaming, Relaxation & Healing and Beyond the Physical. The sound is called Monroe Sound Science, the Institute’s own audio method. Its Timer plays soundscapes with no voice for up to 2 hours, and its release notes say these include Focus Level signals, in a newer Monroe Sound Science version or the original Hemi-Sync tracks.

That is Expand’s real strength. It is the Monroe Institute speaking in its own voice, with far more guided content than Shimmr, and it runs on Android, Apple silicon Macs and Apple Vision as well as iPhone and iPad. If you want the Institute’s own sessions, no other app has them.

Does the Expand app include the Gateway tapes?

The Gateway course is not part of the Expand subscription. The Monroe Institute’s support article explains that Gateway Voyage Online, its online Gateway course, is bought separately inside the app: you find the offer on the Home screen and tap Buy the Course. Nothing official we found says the original Gateway Experience albums come with an Expand Plus subscription.

So if the Gateway tapes are the reason you are looking, plan on two purchases: the subscription, if you want the rest of the library, and the course. You can read more about how Hemi-Sync works, the sound the Monroe Institute built the course on.

How is Shimmr different from Expand?

Shimmr is smaller and puts you in control of the sound. It began with the Gateway tapes. Its developer, a former audio engineer in Stockholm who has meditated for many years, found the tapes through a book years ago and made Journeys as a modern take on guided sessions like them, with a new voice and new sound. Shimmr is not affiliated with the Monroe Institute and contains none of its recordings.

A journey moves through weight, breath and sound, and the tones, soundscape and voice change together. You choose how loud the voice is: Soft, Balanced, Clear or Off. Outside Journeys, Shifts like Tense → At Ease (beta to theta, 15 minutes) play with no voice at all, and the beat glides to its target and holds it. The mixer lets you layer noise, nature ambience or your own music under a session, and Sound Canvas lets you drag tones around a space and change the beat live.

Shimmr makes its sound live on your phone, works offline, logs mindful minutes to Apple Health and has a privacy label of Data Not Collected. It has no Android or Mac app, no courses and no journaling. If you are new to all this, our guide to choosing a binaural beats app explains what to check before you download.

Do binaural beats actually work?

The evidence is real but modest. A binaural beat is what you hear when each ear gets a slightly different tone, say 200 Hz and 204 Hz, and your brain hears a slow 4 Hz pulse. A 2018 meta-analysis of 22 studies found a medium effect (g = 0.45) of binaural beats on memory, attention, anxiety and pain, with longer listening working better.

No study shows that any app takes you out of your body or to a numbered Focus level. Those ideas come from the Gateway course and from people’s own reports. Both apps need stereo headphones for binaural beats. Keep the volume low, never listen while driving, and talk to your doctor first if you have epilepsy or a history of seizures.

Which should you choose?

Choose by what you want from your sessions.

• You want the Monroe Institute’s own sessions or the Gateway course: choose Expand. It is the only app with the Institute’s own sessions, and the course is sold inside it.
• You want lots of guided content, courses or journaling: Expand has far more of all three.
• You use Android or a Mac: Expand runs on Android, and on Macs with Apple silicon. Shimmr is iPhone and iPad only.
• You want guided sessions and a sound you can shape: choose Shimmr. You can turn the voice down or off, mix your own layers and build sounds in Sound Canvas.
• You care most about privacy: Shimmr’s App Store label is Data Not Collected.

Both are free to download, so you can try each before you subscribe. If the Gateway tapes brought you here, our page on Shimmr as a Gateway tapes alternative explains how Shimmr’s Journeys compare with the tapes.