Easy for everyone who uses your headsets
For residents in care homes and senior living, patients and hospital staff, veterans, university students, and people in demanding training or frontline work such as nursing, policing and firefighting. If you already have headsets for teaching, training or therapy, Soul Retreat adds a ten-minute reset on the same devices.
Works fully offline
Every place and guided session is stored on the headset, so it runs on headsets that never go online. No Wi-Fi, no sign-in, no personal data.
No controllers, no training
If someone can wear a Quest, they can use it. Hand tracking throughout, so there is nothing to hold or lose, and controllers work too. Sitting, standing or lying down.
Visitor Mode
Staff choose the place and kind of session. Let people explore, or lock the menus so it starts by itself: just put it on and sit back. Each person starts fresh.
Deploys through ArborXR
Add Soul Retreat to ArborXR as a shared app and install it like any other. Updates arrive the same way, and we can share usage reports.
Real places, in real 3D
Every place is filmed on location, not computer-generated, from Scottish beaches and Highland glens to Pyrenean waterfalls and the Swiss Alps. A 360 video moves with your head, like a picture pinned in front of you. In Soul Retreat every place has real depth: lean or shift in your seat and the scene responds as the real place would, with the ground right where your feet expect it.
Seven of our places, including all the newest, go further: they are rebuilt from LiDAR scans, so cliffs, waterfalls and mountains have their true shape and scale, while the water flows and the leaves move just as they did on the day.
This matters because presence is what makes VR nature work: studies find stronger effects the more immersed people feel (Frontiers in Psychology, 2023).
The standard install for organisations holds 10 of our best places, hand-picked, in about 10 GB, or you can choose every place from the store app, at about 1 GB each.
What the evidence shows
1 Nature immersion in VR
Immersive nature in VR lowers stress and improves mood in controlled studies (Frontiers in Psychology, 2023; JMIR Mental Health, 2024).
2 Slow, paced breathing
Breathing at around six breaths a minute raises heart rate variability and reduces stress and anxiety (Psychological Medicine, 2017; Applied Psychophysiology & Biofeedback, 2020).
How people felt, before and after a session
- Very tense
- Tense
- Neutral
- Relaxed
- Very relaxed
Of people who arrived feeling tense, 94% left no longer feeling tense, and none left feeling worse. Across everyone, the average improvement was +1.0 point.
From 655 check-ins by 99 users in 2026, each user counted once. Not a controlled trial. Check-ins are anonymous. How we measure
"Time in nature, even in VR, and slow, paced breathing are both well-supported ways to ease everyday stress. Soul Retreat brings them together in a way that is simple to follow, and I've helped keep its guidance safe, supportive and grounded in evidence-based techniques."
Dr Sonia Madrid Cuevas, Clinical Psychology Advisor. PhD, University of Edinburgh.
We're working with researchers at the University of Glasgow on an independent controlled study comparing Soul Retreat's 3D nature with 360° video, measuring how restorative people find each and other wellbeing outcomes.
Average rating on the Meta Horizon Store, from over 28,000 Quest installs since February 2026, almost all through word of mouth or the store itself. Some users have used it on more than 100 days.
Soul Retreat is a relaxation and wellbeing app. It is not a medical device and does not diagnose or treat any condition. Safety and suitability guidance
In their own words
"I just had a really bad day at work (abusive patient)… I was able to be on my own in a room with my headset and get away… Thanks again, for making it possible for me to get away and breathe."
Eveekayzzi, June 2026
"I have been having mobility issues for some years now, and it is so wonderful to feel like I’m on the beach and looking at the stars in the horizon."
Sunnyethan, July 2026
"The environments feel incredibly real — from the subtle movement of nature to the immersive design, it genuinely feels like stepping into a peaceful place rather than just putting on a headset. The sense of presence is amazing."
svalurthor, March 2026
20+ hours of guided VR meditation, all offline
Guided by what's around you
Every session is written for its place, so the voice talks about what is really in front of you: the stream, the peaks, the waves. That makes it more engaging and immersive than guidance that could play anywhere. Or people can simply sit with the sounds of nature.
What's covered
12 ten-minute sessions for every place, easy to string together: guided nature meditation, progressive muscle relaxation and paced breathing, plus stories of each place's history and legends. For stress relief, sleep, mindfulness and resilience, with themes such as grounding, letting thoughts pass and being kind to yourself.
The best way to judge it is ten minutes in a headset
Soul Retreat is free on the Meta Horizon Store. Put on any Quest 3 or 3S, install it, and sit by a Scottish beach or a Highland loch. Then imagine your residents, patients or team doing the same.
The store app is our version for individuals. The version for organisations has its best places, or all of them, with the same guided sessions, preloaded on the headset and fully offline: no AI chat, no microphone, no sign-in and no subscription prompts.
Want your team to try the full experience? Email us from your organisation's address and we'll unlock everything in the store app.
What we recommend
- Meta Quest 3 or 3S. Both run Soul Retreat fully. Quest 3 has sharper pancake lenses that stay clear to the edges, so the scenes look most real; choose it where realism matters most. Quest 3S costs less and suits larger fleets. Pico 4 Ultra can be added for a significant deployment.
- A rigid head strap with a dial. It takes the weight off the face and cheeks, and staff can refit it for each person in seconds. This matters most for older users and for sessions over ten minutes.
- A charging dock. Headsets go back on the dock after each use, so they are always charged and ready for the next person.
First 20 headsets free, permanently
For healthcare organisations, care organisations, charities and universities. Organisations that join while this offer is open keep their 20 free headsets for good. Beyond that, annual licences, with flexible options for larger deployments and partners.
Just tell us roughly how many headsets you have, and we'll get back to you personally.
Add Soul Retreat to your library
If you provide VR to care communities, hospitals, veterans' programmes, universities or training teams, Soul Retreat can sit alongside your other titles. Most libraries already have a meditation app; Soul Retreat adds real places that feel like being there, and a calm that people want to come back to. It runs offline through your own device management, needs no accounts, and comes with licensing that fits how your platform works.
Soul Retreat is made by Soul Retreat Labs in Edinburgh. Our founder, Ben Gillett, sold his previous company to Apple and spent ten years there in product design. Our guidance reflects current psychological research, with advice from clinical psychologist Dr Sonia Madrid Cuevas. We film and scan every location ourselves, led by our Environment Capture Director, Ignacio Ferrando Margeli, an award-winning cinematographer whose 360° work includes projects for National Geographic.