Wisdom Timer was created in 2024 by English Buddhist software developer Chris James. He felt that the meditation apps that existed at the time were missing many useful features.

Having come to a stage in his software development career where he felt like a change from his regular day-job, he decided to bring together his love of meditation with his enjoyment of software development and set out on a project to create a new meditation timer that would have all the features he would like to see in a meditation timer app.

Gradually the project took shape, and after several months and some positive feedback from friends and family who were testing the app, Chris decided to embark on a production version of Wisdom Timer.

One of the guiding principals that Chris wanted to bring to the development of Wisdom Timer was one of community and connection - he wanted to create a truly social meditation app, because of the joy he had felt when meditating with others and realising that not everyone can easily connect locally with like-minded meditation practitioners.

The app then needed to have a strong set of social features, and this added a lot of additional work. Eventually the app reached a point where a complete product was ready, so it was launched for Open Testing (Early Release) on the Google Play Store in April 2025.

Chris has produced a lot of the guided meditations available in Wisdom Timer himself. Chris is an experienced and active Buddhist practitioner who regularly goes on retreat and has a daily meditation practice of his own which generally focuses on traditional Buddhist practices such as cultivating mindfulness, loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity.

The future of Wisdom Timer is bright, and there are many plans for new features including live broadcasts, meditation schools, and content creation monetization to reward content creators as the Wisdom Timer community continues to grow.

We look forward to seeing you soon in the app or online in social media!

With love and kindness,

Chris James
Creator of Wisdom Timer