About this stopwatch
A stopwatch counts up, from zero, until you stop it. That is the whole idea, and this one does it without an app, an account or an install.
It shows hundredths of a second, so a sprint and a boiled egg are both measured properly. Press Start, press Pause when you want to hold it, press Start again to carry on, and Reset to go back to zero.
There is a countdown timer on the other tab if you find you wanted that instead.
Lap times
Lap records the time at the moment you press it, without stopping the clock. The list builds up under the buttons, newest at the top.
This is the part a phone's clock app makes awkward and a stopwatch makes easy:
- Running and swimming — one lap per length, compared afterwards
- Intervals — how long each round actually took, not how long it should have
- Work — how long each item in a queue took to deal with
- Cooking and processes — when each stage finished
- Testing anything — five attempts at the same task, side by side
The laps stay on screen until you press Reset, so you can read them all at the end instead of trying to remember.
It keeps real time
The display is drawn from the clock, not counted frame by frame. That matters because browsers slow down a tab that is not in front — a stopwatch that counted ticks would fall behind while you looked at something else.
This one does not. Come back to the tab after ten minutes and the number is right, because it works out the elapsed time rather than adding up.
Keep the tab open, though. Closing it ends the recording, and a browser has no way to keep counting after that.
What people use it for
- Training — reps, rounds, rest between sets, sprint times
- Studying — how long a past paper really takes
- Speaking — rehearsing a talk against the time slot
- Billing — how long a task took, before writing it down
- Cooking — steeping, proving, resting, resting again
- Games and classes — turns, rounds, challenges
- Debugging a habit — how long something actually takes, when you assumed you knew
Good to know
- Nothing is installed and nothing is saved to a server — it all runs in the page
- Works on a phone, tablet or computer, in any browser
- The display is large on purpose, so it can be read from the other side of a room or projected for a class
- The Countdown timer tab is the same tool the other way round — set a time and get an alarm at zero
- For repeating rounds of work and rest, Interval Timer is the better fit
- For a single fixed length of time, use the Timer
How to use it
- Press Start to begin counting from zero
- Press Lap while it runs to record a split — the clock keeps going
- Press Pause to hold the time, and Resume to carry on
- Press Reset to clear the clock and the lap list
- Keep the tab open while it runs
Related tools
- Timer & Stopwatch — the countdown side, with an alarm sound
- Interval Timer — repeating work and rest rounds
- Pomodoro Timer — 25 minutes of work, then a break
- Countdown to Date — days and hours to an event
- Time Duration Calculator — the time between two clock times
- Tally Counter — count things instead of seconds
