Watchapp: Instant Timer by howeaj

[anne_droid]

Instant Timer by howeaj

There’s another cool watchapp on the Rebble App Store!

@howeaj says

A polished combination timer, alarm and stopwatch.

Designed for quick-launch to set everyday timers for cooking, reminders and alarms.
Packed with unique, detailed behaviour to optimise frequent use.

Give a heart if you like it!

Features:
- Unique to this app:
- One-press operation; starts counting immediately on launch.
- Single interface works simultaneously as an alarm, timer and/or stopwatch; no
switching between modes (nor running them separately)
- Modify the timer/alarm duration immediately anytime without a pause, restart or confirm.
- Timer modification controls optimised for speed
(skips smaller increments as duration grows; thresholds at 2m, 5m, 30m)
- Battery saving:
- Automatically switches between per-second and per-minute updates based on activity:
- Synchronised with system backlight (lit by button presses, tap/shake, battery charging).
- Keeps full-rate whenever alarm is ringing, first minute of stopwatch, and whenever
the timer/alarm duration is below 2 minutes.
- Zero power usage when running in background (no background worker, Wakeup API alarm)
- Automatically stops alarm vibe after 1 minute
- Other basics:
- Runs in background, auto-opens for alarm.
- Counts overtime after the timer/alarm elapses.
- Short vibe on start/stop for blind operation.
- Alarm time or start time shown in system app menu.
- Supports all pebble platforms.

Planned updates:
- Faster setting with touchscreen
(I’ll implement this as soon as a touch screen API is available)
- User configuration to set colours and other preferences

Controls:
- Select/Back to choose which timer digit(s) to modify.
Note the available digits change as the duration increases.
- Up/Down to increment/decrement. Hold to repeat. Press down at 0 to wrap up.
- Select Long-press (or press while action bar shows the play/pause symbol)
to toggle pause/resume and enter “control mode”:
- Up (rewind icon) to restart the timer (i.e. set elapsed time to 0)
while retaining the timer/alarm duration
- Up Long-press to reset the entire app to 0
- Select (play/pause icon) to pause/resume counting
- Down (X icon) to discard timer/alarm and exit the app
- Back to return to timer modification
- Back while at the largest digit to exit with options:
- Up/Back (save icon) to save and exit
- Down (X icon) to discard timer/alarm and exit the app
- Select (> icon) to return to timer modification
- Back Long-press to save and exit
- When alarm goes off, any button to dismiss it

This app is great if you want to:
- Instantly set a stopwatch/timer running without looking in the middle of cooking,
and then change it as you go along
- Often quickly set an alarm to remind you about something in the near future
- Quickly set a wakeup alarm at a varying time just before you go to sleep
- Do all of the above with a single app using one quick-launch slot

Use (a) different app(s) if you want:
- More than one alarm/timer/stopwatch at once
- To slowly set a timer/alarm to a long but precise time
- Automatically repeat alarms daily/weekly
- Millisecond precision
- Sports-stopwatch split times / lap times
- A history of previously set times
- Voice control

This is based on an unreleased app I made just for myself for an android smartwatch years ago, which ended up being the only thing I ever used it for, daily. Watches are primarily for dealing with time after all, and I just can’t find any other timer app that does what I want! Now redesigned and polished for release on pebble in the hope that I’m not an alien freak and this is useful for someone else too :P.

Suggestions for further improvements welcome.
Thanks for checking this out!

Go check it out in the App Store!

Aplite screenshots:

Basalt screenshots:

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Chalk screenshots:

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Diorite screenshots:

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Emery screenshots:

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Flint screenshots:

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Gabbro screenshots:

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P.S.: I’m just a helpful robot that posted this. But if you are the developer of this app, send a message on Discord to one of the humans that runs Rebble, and they’ll be happy to transfer this thread to you so you can edit this post as you please!

[anne_droid]

Update alert!

howeaj just released version 1.2 of Instant Timer!

Go check it out!

Release notes

Clarify display when update rate is reduced from seconds to minutes (“–s” instead of “…”)

[anne_droid]

Update alert!

howeaj just released version 1.3 of Instant Timer!

Go check it out!

Release notes

Always allow 1min increments, rather than forcing 5 beyond 30.
Shorten glance text to fit without scrolling on smaller screens.

[anne_droid]

Update alert!

howeaj just released version 1.4 of Instant Timer!

Go check it out!

Release notes

Return to per-second updates whenever the green or red ring is within 3 minutes of completion

[anne_droid]

Update alert!

howeaj just released version 1.5 of Instant Timer!

Go check it out!

Release notes

Clarify app exit status with trash/save screenwipe

[anne_droid]

Update alert!

howeaj just released version 1.6 of Instant Timer!

Go check it out!

Release notes

Fix save icon on black&white platforms.
Fix app launch icon on OG Pebble.

[anne_droid]

Update alert!

howeaj just released version 1.7 of Instant Timer!

Go check it out!

Release notes

Fix crash on Pebble Time 2!

[anne_droid]

Update alert!

howeaj just released version 2.0.0 of Instant Timer!

Go check it out!

Release notes

• Touch control!
  • Touch and drag to select hours then minutes; this clears all state and starts a new timer/alarm.
  • Start touching from the middle to set a timer duration, or from the edge to set an alarm time
  • To cancel, finish touching in the middle or don’t select any minutes
• Configuration options:
  • Colours / themes
  • Touch enable/disable and timeout

[anne_droid]

Update alert!

howeaj just released version 2.1.0 of Instant Timer!

Go check it out!

Release notes

• Ignore very short touches (configurable)
• Bugfix incorrect scheduling of wakeup timer on exit-and-delete
• Bugfix angle selection indicator updates while touching in the middle

[anne_droid]

Update alert!

howeaj just released version 2.2.0 of Timer - Instant Timer!

Go check it out!

Release notes

• Increase size of the central touch zone
• Touches reveal seconds if hidden (synced with backlight)
• New user-requested config options:
  • Swap duration vs alarms on the outer vs inner touch zone
  • Retain elapsed time when setting duration with touch

[anne_droid]

Update alert!

howeaj just released version 2.2.1 of Timer - Instant Timer!

Go check it out!

Release notes

• Change the default “Affected Values” touch config to “Set Duration, Keep Elapsed” to match button controls

[anne_droid]

Update alert!

howeaj just released version 2.3.0 of Timer - Instant Timer!

Go check it out!

Release notes

• Config alarm vibes: double, long or short
• Add missing start/stop vibe for exit-and-delete

[anne_droid]

Update alert!

howeaj just released version 2.3.1 of Timer - Instant Timer!

Go check it out!

Release notes

• Bugfix minutes touch input timeout after a touch below the minimum threshold
• Bugfix slow elapsed update for touch “clear elapsed” mode

[anne_droid]

Update alert!

howeaj just released version 2.4.0 of Timer - Instant Timer!

Go check it out!

Release notes

• Touch timer duration now set with a single touch; just select minutes and “wind up” (circle clockwise) to increase hours.
• Ignore very short finger lifts during touch hours selection
• New config options:
  • Revert to the two-touch hours-then-minutes method.
  • Turn off the touch screen while inactive; turns on for 3s after a button press or accel shake/tap, like the system backlight
  • Minimum finger lift duration

[m921]

i tried the other timer app, and it want intuitive and fast. didnt know how I would have fixed them though. tried this one - I love it. UI UX genius.

[anne_droid]

Update alert!

howeaj just released version 2.5.0 of Timer - Instant Timer!

Go check it out!

Release notes

• Touch timer seconds precision; enable by “winding down” anticlockwise from 0.

[anne_droid]

Update alert!

howeaj just released version 2.6.0 of Timer - Instant Timer!

Go check it out!

Release notes

• Pressing Up or Down while the alarm is ringing now Restarts or Delete&Exits the app, rather than just clearing the alarm.
• New config options for power saving (defaults to the previous hardcoded values). Can force always-seconds-updates.

[anne_droid]

Update alert!

howeaj just released version 2.6.1 of Timer - Instant Timer!

Go check it out!

Release notes

• Sync per-minute updates to timer/stopwatch minutes instead of wallclock minutes.
• Fix seconds still being shown on each timer loop when timer threshold is 0.

[anne_droid]

Update alert!

howeaj just released version 2.6.2 of Timer - Instant Timer!

Go check it out!

Release notes

• Fix touch-to-wake not enabling seconds display; all “backlight on” events now show seconds.

[anne_droid]

Update alert!

howeaj just released version 2.6.3 of Timer - Instant Timer!

Go check it out!

Release notes

• Fix app glance in launcher (workaround for suspected mobile app installer bug)