What timer is remotely-controlled and has custom intervals?

August 26, 2023 3:10 PM

What timer should I buy? I need a programmable timer to use on stage, and I'm a bit flummoxed by the variety of gym timers and tablet apps out there. Our goal is something that can give us a countdown timer for each of the five or six segments of our show (each of which is a different length) and be controlled from the wings.

Here are the qualifications:
* Must be big enough to see from 10-20 feet away
* Must be programmable with multiple custom countdown times in sequence (eg: 5m then 12m then 17m then 8m)
* Must be able to skip to the next countdown time or back to the beginning of the current one, plus pause and resume.
* Must be remotely controllable
* Ideally it can be powered either by battery or a wall plug, and the battery should last at least three hours.

I bought a GymNext gym timer for $150... and you can only program in one length of time. There are twenty trillion generic ones on Amazon and I'm guessing it may be the same for all of them? There are also innumerable timer apps I could run from an iPad or Android tablet, but I have no idea if I would be able to control them remotely (maybe with a bluetooth presentation or multimedia remote?).

posted by YoungAmerican to Technology (2 answers total)

This is not the most direct answer in any way but Chris Gethard uses a timer on stage to count down time during live recordings of Beautiful Anonymous. I don’t know if it’s exactly what you need but if you can find out what he uses maybe it could work? Could be worth a shot!
posted by smirkyfodder at 6:11 PM on August 26, 2023

I use an Android app called Impetus that does all the timer stuff except return to the beginning of the current step. The solution I was thinking of off the top of my head was to use a Chromecast to display the phone controlling the timer at a distance on a larger tablet.
posted by rhizome at 9:58 PM on August 26, 2023