What a 3 minute timer is for
Three minutes is the steeping time for most green and white teas, the length of a boxing round, and about as long as a short song. It is the shortest interval that feels like a genuine pause.
What people set it for
- Steeping green or white tea before it turns bitter
- A boxing or interval round
- A three-minute egg, firm white and soft yolk
- A breathing or grounding exercise
How this timer behaves
The countdown is stored as the moment it should finish, not as a number being decremented, so switching tabs or minimising the window cannot make it run late, and pausing and resuming is exact. Through the final minute the readout and its ring turn red and pulse, giving you a warning before the alert rather than only at it.
It does not start on its own. The alarm is generated in your browser, and browsers keep audio silent until you interact with the page — so a timer that started by itself would be a timer that finished in silence. One tap on start is what makes the sound work.