How to Read a Visual Timer: The Disk, the Scale and the Setup

What the disk shows

The colored disk is the time you have left. Set 10 minutes and the disk covers the part of the dial from 12 o’clock to the 10. As the minutes pass, its trailing edge sweeps back toward 12, and when the disk is gone, time is up.

That shape is the point of a visual timer. A row of digits has to be read and subtracted; a disk can be judged from the corner of your eye, the way you judge how full a glass is. The Texas Education Agency describes a visual timer as a tool that shows students the time remaining before a transition, and recommends explaining what will happen when it reaches zero so that the end is predictable.

Wontimer’s dial follows an ordinary clock face. Zero sits at 12 and the numbers increase clockwise, so the disk always runs from 12 clockwise to the time left and shrinks counterclockwise as time runs down.

The disk is blue unless you change it. Under Disk color in Sound and display you can pick red, blue, green, purple or orange; on a projector or a bright classroom screen, pick the one that stands out most against the background.

Reading the dial like a clock

On the standard dial, one turn is 60 minutes. A number sits every five minutes and each small tick is one minute, so the numbers fall where the minute marks of a wall clock would be: the 15 at 3 o’clock, the 30 at 6 and the 45 at 9.

Fractions are often quicker than numbers. A quarter of the dial is 15 minutes, half is 30 and three quarters is 45. If you set 45 minutes for a lesson, a disk that has shrunk to a quarter tells you the last 15 minutes have started.

1. Look at where the edge of the disk sits, not at the empty part of the dial.
2. Read the nearest number to get the minutes left.
3. For a quick check, compare the disk with a quarter, a half or three quarters of the circle.

Longer times use a wider dial

Set more than 60 minutes and the dial switches to a 120-minute scale, so a long block still fits on one face. The numbers then mark every 10 minutes and the full circle is two hours. Above two hours the dial switches again, to 180 minutes with a number every 15 minutes; three hours is the longest time the timer accepts.

Ninety minutes on the 120-minute dial fills three quarters of the circle, from 12 around to 9 o’clock. When the edge reaches the 45, half of a 90-minute block is gone.

If you would rather keep one scale for everything, choose 120 min under Dial scale in Sound and display. Short times then take up a smaller slice of the circle.

Setting the time

There are several ways to set the timer, and they all end in the same place: a disk waiting for Start. If you use the same length every day, bookmark the page for it, such as the 45 minute timer: it opens already set, so starting takes one tap.

While the timer runs, the disk is locked so that a stray touch cannot change the time; tap the center knob to pause. To give someone the same timer, use Share a link with this time under the presets. The link opens already set to that length.

1. Drag the disk with a mouse or a finger; it snaps to whole minutes.
2. Tap one of the common times (5, 10, 15, 25, 30, 45, 50 or 60 minutes), or enter any number from 1 to 180 in Custom and press Set.
3. Tap the digits under the dial and type the time directly.
4. With the dial focused, use the arrow keys to add or remove a minute, Page Up and Page Down for five minutes, and Home to go to zero.
5. Press Start, the spacebar or the center knob to begin.

Using a visual timer with a group

A timer that everyone can see works best when everyone also knows what it is counting down to. The Texas Education Agency’s visual timer guide suggests starting with short intervals, giving more frequent warnings as the timer nears its end, and saying clearly when the activity is over and the next one is starting.

The same habits help in a meeting or a study group. A shared disk ends arguments about how much time is left, because nobody has to ask.

1. Before you press Start, say what happens at zero: “When the disk is gone, we clean up.”
2. Put the timer where every seat can see it, in Focus mode on the projector or a large screen.
3. Turn on a 2-minute heads-up so the room gets a soft warning before the alarm.
4. When the alarm rings, name the end of the activity and the start of the next one.

Seeing it from across the room or beside your work

Press F, or the Focus mode button, to fill the screen with the disk. This is the view for a classroom projector, a meeting-room TV or a tablet propped up on a desk. Press Esc to leave it.

When you work in other windows, open the mini timer. It floats above everything else in Chrome and Edge on desktop, and since the update of October 28, 2026 it keeps shrinking even while the Wontimer tab is in the background.

Even with neither open, the browser tab helps: its title shows the time left and its icon draws a tiny version of the disk.

Sound, silence and heads-ups

When time is up, an alarm plays and the disk blinks three times. Choose Chime, Beep, Whistle or Silent under Alarm sound and set the volume; with Silent, the blinking disk is the only signal.

Wontimer does not tick unless you ask it to. Turn on Ticking sound in Sound and display, or press M to switch it on and off.

A heads-up warns you before the end. Pick 1, 2, 5 or 10 minutes before in Sound and display: a soft chime plays, a short notice appears and the edge of the disk pulses once. A heads-up longer than the timer itself is skipped.

If the tab might be in the background when time runs out, turn on Notify me when time’s up and allow notifications. Your system then shows a notification when the timer ends.

Questions about reading a visual timer