Learning Resources Time Tracker Mini Visual Timer, Classroom Timer, Hand Washing Timer, Auditory and Visual Cue, Ages 3+

I have a four-year old who loves to dally. When she wants to get a task done, it only takes her 3 minutes, but sometimes she can go for 3 hours and still not have it finished. Trying to set limits on her is difficult, because she doesn't really understand the concept of time yet. Using other timers, even cute ones, has always resulted in a major meltdown, because she feels as if her time is almost up from the moment we press start - even after repeated assurance that she has more than enough time to complete the task at hand. This timer has worked miracles in our house. . . she knows she's being timed, and that when her time is up there will be consequences, but as long as the light is green, she stays on task and doesn't freak out about it. Being able to set a warning bell/light is genius - she understands that now is the time to rush to get it done before it goes red, and though from time to time we do have orange-light meltdowns, they've been far less frequent than with our old timers or with no timer at all. It has made a huge difference. Having a concrete thing to mark the end leads to much less arguing and begging for a little bit more time. You might be able to sway mommy with tears, but a timer is a machine - when it turns red she can't plead with it for more time. Life has gone on much more smoothly for us since we got this awesome little timer! You'd think she'd hate it, but she actually really loves it, and ASKS us to set it for things that we wouldn't normally. I DO wish that it could be set for smaller increments - at least that the warning light could be set in single minutes instead of increments of 5 - so that we could use it to mark when it's time to give someone else a turn with a toy, but as it is, I love it and highly recommend it to anyone going through a similar problem. We use it mostly for room cleaning (it doesn't take 4 hours anymore!), getting ready to leave the house (be ready in 15 minutes, shoes and all!), to set limits on time spent on her computer, and to keep her in her room during quiet time - she doesn't come out every 3 minutes anymore, because she can see that it isn't time yet!

I have two daughters, ages 11.5 and 9.5. The older one has a plethora of behavioral challenges (Oppositional defiant disorder, ADHD, learning disabilities, etc). She is a CHALLENGING child. I think her brain is set on Groundhog Day mode because what she is told one day, she has completely and totally forgotten by the next day.My other daughter is a dreamer. She loves to look at the sun, the fuzz-ball on her pj's, how the water swishes down the drain, etc. As you can imagine, it takes her FOREVER to complete a task. In her case, it's not out of defiance or disobedience, it's just daydreaming. For her, this Time Tracker Mini has been a God-send. We set the timer to "remind" her after 10 minutes to get out of the shower and the second it goes off, she turns off the water. Then the second timer kicks and and she is dressed and downstairs eating breakfast before the second 10 minutes. It used to take her nearly an hour to do this with constant yelling and reminding. She loves having the visual and audible reminder to keep her on track and feels good about beating the timer. For her it's wonderful.For my other daughter, she bucks authority so it doesn't work as well for her. She will just ignore the timer and say she didn't hear it, will turn it off and claim it's broken, etc. The child has to be motivated to want to do the right thing in order for devices like these to be helpful. So, if your child is like my younger daughter, I think you will get a great deal of use out of this amazing and easy to use little device. We use it every day and haven't had to change the batteries yet. The alarm sound is loud but not startling, even at the highest volume. It's easy to set and easy to use. I would definitely recommend this for anyone who has a little dreamer on their hands.

First, Its simple to use imo - it has two circular bands which you can twist to set timer, the upper band is for the total time of tracking say, T (e.g 20 minutes), and lower band is the time remaining when you want the warning alarm/siren to start sound, say e.g you set the lower band to 5 minutes. So you will get a warning sounds (like a quick horn) at, T - 5 = 15 minutes later. That isn’t so hard , is it ? After T = 20 minutes you get another sounds/siren to indicate time off. It starts to blink with yellow light after warning time, i.e at T = 15 minutes in this example. The light is green when you set the alarm, and its red before you start the timer ( just turned on mode but not in use). You can adjust the sound volume.Also want to mentioned it takes 3 small batteries ( AAA I think, just confirm)My use case - Its not only for kids, I am an adult and I am using it everyday, I will mention my example how it is helping break one of my bad habits. So I used to spend a lot of time in restroom in morning, mostly browsing quora, Facebook and other news apps while doing big job and then pondering what I read during shower, wasting almost an hour and eventually missing my trains and not be in office at time I wanted to be. I deleted bunch of apps like Facebook which helped for a while but eventually I found something else to waste time. I carried phone with me as an excuse to be aware of time, check my schedule for the day etc. I tried using phone timers, alarms etc none of which actually worked because none had a way to warm me. So solution really was to not carry my phone with me but still get my time tracked and something with a warning so I can be time bound and rush up when warning sounds. I looked for a solution and luckily I found this.Now I don’t take my phone with me, just this mini tracker, set it to 20 mins with a 10 minutes warning and to my surprise I am all ready before 20 mins most of the times lately and able to shut it off before the final warning kicks in (after 20 minutes).The only concern some might have is this that the minimum unit of time is 5 minutes and you can't be more granular than that. This company has some more digital time tracker products which you can set at minutes/seconds level but I really wanted something very simple to not distract myself and it really fits my use case.As some of reviewers mentioned it to be a cheap quality, its actually not for the price.Overall I am very happy with this product and will highly recommend it. I have just started to use it so will update how it turns out in long run in terms of product lifecycle.