Pomodoro

Why it exists

Because it is the simplest timer there is, and almost no version in a browser does the thing that counts: ringing on time when the tab is not the one you are looking at.

And that is the only use case. A pomodoro you have to watch is no use at all: watching the timer is exactly what the method exists to stop you doing.

About the long break

It comes every four work phases, not every four phases. Those are two different sums and one of them is wrong in a way you cannot see: counting phases — work, break, work, break — the fourth step lands on the second pomodoro, so the long break would arrive after fifty minutes instead of after two hours. No error on screen, no warning: just a timer behaving differently from what the page says, which nobody checks because checking means waiting two hours.

The pomodoro counter does not reset after the long break. At the end of the day that number is the only one you feel like looking at, and clearing it every two hours would mean throwing it away four times a day.

About time in the background

There are two problems here, and they are different.

The first is the number on screen. A counter ticking down by one a second loses everything the browser takes from it, and from a hidden tab Chrome takes a lot: as little as one tick a minute after five minutes. So it does not count down — it holds the instant the phase ends and subtracts from the clock on every tick. A missed tick changes nothing: come back and the number is already right.

The second is the sound, and it does not have the same fix: if the timer notices late that the phase is over, the chime arrives late — which is to say when it is no longer any use. The sound card, though, is not throttled. So the chime is scheduled ahead on its clock, at the moment the phase begins: from then on it arrives on time even if the number on screen updates a minute late. It is the same idea as this site’s metronome.

Notifications stay tied to the timer, so they can be as late as the number: they are a second alert, not the first one.

About the notification permission

It is asked by pressing a button that exists for that, never on its own. A site that asks to notify you the moment you open it is the reason that permission is denied by default by almost everybody — and asking before you have decided to use the tool is asking at the one moment when the answer is certainly no.

About your data

The four lengths stay in this browser session: reload and you find them, close the window and you do not.

The pomodoro count is not kept, and that is not an oversight. A record of how much you work is exactly what this site does not hold — and keeping it would need somewhere to put it, which does not exist here: the site is made of static files and has no server.