An hour on one screen
An hour is the length of many lessons, exam papers, workshop sessions and meetings. This page opens set to 1:00:00 with the Numbers only display, the largest digits the timer has, because an hour-long countdown is usually read from across a room. While a full hour is left the digits show hours; after the first second they switch to minutes and seconds (59:59), which are larger still.
A short ping plays when 10 minutes are left, then the alarm rings at 0:00 until you stop it (or for a minute). After that the status line counts the overtime, which tells you how far a session ran over.
Exams and timed tests
- Before the paper starts, press F to put the timer full screen on the projector, and type the paper’s name in the label box so it shows above the time.
- Press Start when you say “you may begin”. The status line shows the clock time the hour ends, handy for writing the finish time on the board.
- At the 10-minute ping, make your announcement. If your rules use a 5-minute warning instead, change Warning ping before you start.
- If the start was delayed, press +1 min for each minute lost; the minute is added to the running countdown.
While the timer runs, the page asks the browser to keep the screen awake, so a projector connected to a laptop shouldn’t go dark mid-exam. Plug the laptop in: battery saver can overrule the request.
A focus hour
An hour is also a common unit for deep work. Start the timer, close everything you don’t need, and work until the alarm. For a rhythm that repeats through the day, type 50 in the minutes box, tick Repeat and set Break between rounds to 10 minutes: every hour becomes 50 minutes of work and a 10-minute break, and the tab title shows Break or the time left while you work in another window.
Over a long hour
On a computer the countdown stays exact in a background tab and through sleep, because it compares the end time with the clock instead of counting seconds. Phones are stricter: they may pause a page behind a locked screen, so keep the timer on screen there. For shorter sessions, the 30 minute timer warns five minutes before the end.