6:40 on a Tuesday. The gym floor is empty except for you and a mat, and the plan is four Tabata blocks back to back: twenty seconds hard, ten easy, eight rounds, four times over. That is 960 seconds, which is exactly what this page counts. It opens at 16:00, needs no setup, and starts on a single tap. The same 960 seconds hold a talk rehearsal, a fillet in the oven, or a child's reading before bed. Nothing you do here leaves your device, and at zero the alarm loops until you stop it — or for a minute, if you have already walked off.
What a 16 Minute Timer Is Good For
Four Tabata blocks, no gap
The protocol Izumi Tabata tested in 1996 was 20 seconds of near-maximal work and 10 seconds of rest, seven to eight rounds — a full eight is four minutes to the second. Stack four blocks with a different movement each and no rest between, and the session closes at 16:00. Purists take a minute off between blocks, which lands the whole thing at 19:00 and spills past this clock, so run it as the continuous version and let the alarm call time.
Rehearsing under TED's ceiling
TED caps its talks at 18 minutes, and most conference slots that copy the format run 15 to 20. Rehearse at 16:00 and you build in a margin: the laugh you did not plan for, the slide that sticks, the question you answer on the way out. Run the talk with the countdown facing away, then look. Land before the alarm and you are inside TED's ceiling with two minutes still in hand.
The salmon goes in as you tap start
A 2.5 cm centre-cut fillet at 200°C (400°F) wants roughly 12 to 15 minutes; a thicker piece, skin on and straight from a cold fridge, uses all 16. Slide the tray in as you press start. When the alarm goes, check the thickest part: 52°C (125°F) is where most cooks pull it for medium, while the FDA's official figure is 63°C (145°F). Carryover heat adds a degree or two as it rests.
Sixteen minutes of reading, no negotiation
Most primary reading logs ask for 15 to 20 minutes a night, and 16:00 lands in the middle without looking like a round number a seven-year-old can argue with. Put the phone on the table face up, let them watch the digits fall, and read alongside them. The countdown, not you, becomes the thing that says when it is over — which takes the haggling out of bedtime.
Practice split four ways
Sixteen minutes divides cleanly into four four-minute jobs, which is how a practice session stops being a vague hour and starts being work: scales, sight-reading a new page, the two bars that keep collapsing, then one uninterrupted run-through. Watch the clock in your peripheral vision and move on when the quarter mark passes, even mid-phrase. The bar you cannot play does not get to eat the whole session.
The sprint you can actually agree to
A 25-minute pomodoro is a big ask when the task is the one you have been walking past all week. Sixteen is small enough to say yes to and long enough to get past the opening paragraph, the first failing test, the form you keep closing. Set it running in a browser tab, leave the phone in another room, and do the one thing. Most times the alarm arrives as an interruption rather than a rescue — which is the point.
Closing the kitchen for the night
Sixteen minutes takes a kitchen from the state you would rather not meet at 7am to done: dishwasher loaded and running, counters wiped, one pan hand-washed, coffee ground for morning. Start the countdown before you talk yourself out of it. A fixed end is what makes it work — you are not cleaning until the kitchen is clean, you are cleaning until 00:00, and whatever is left is tomorrow's problem, honestly labelled.
How This Timer Works
There is nothing to configure. The page loads at 16:00 and the only decision left is when to press start. Under the hood the countdown is not counting ticks — it works out an end time from your device's clock and measures against it, so switching tabs, locking the phone, or burying the window behind twenty others cannot pull it off course. A wake lock keeps the screen awake while the timer runs. At 00:00 the alarm loops until you dismiss it, and stops itself after 60 seconds if nobody is there.
Keyboard shortcuts: Space starts or pauses, R resets, F toggles fullscreen. The countdown is anchored to your device's clock, so it stays accurate even if the browser throttles the tab in the background.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the timer keep running if my screen locks or I switch tabs?
Yes. While the page is open it holds a wake lock, so on most phones the screen simply stays lit for the full 16 minutes. If the display does go dark, or you move to another tab, the count is unaffected: the finish time is fixed against your device's clock the moment you press start, so the alarm fires at the same real-world second either way.
How loud is the alarm, and how long will it ring?
It plays through your device at whatever volume the device is set to, so if the phone is on silent or turned down, fix that before you rely on hearing it from across the gym. When the countdown hits zero the alarm loops rather than chiming once, which is what you want if you are mid-set with your back to the screen. Left alone, it stops itself after 60 seconds.
Can I fit four Tabata rounds inside 16 minutes?
Yes, if you run them continuously. One Tabata block is eight rounds of 20 seconds work and 10 seconds rest — 4:00 exactly — so four blocks back to back fill 960 seconds with nothing left over. The catch: the standard class format inserts about a minute of recovery between blocks, and three of those gaps put the session at 19:00. Use this timer for the version without gaps, or as a hard cap on the whole thing.
Is 16 minutes long enough to bake a salmon fillet?
For most fillets, yes. At 200°C (400°F) a 2.5 cm centre-cut piece is usually done in 12 to 15 minutes, and 16 covers a thicker or fridge-cold one. Judge by temperature rather than the clock: many cooks pull salmon at about 52°C (125°F) for medium, while the FDA's stated safe figure is 63°C (145°F). Treat the alarm as the moment to check, not the moment to serve.
Why 16 minutes and not 15?
Because a few things land there and nowhere else. Four continuous Tabata blocks are 960 seconds to the second. A talk rehearsed at 16:00 sits two minutes under TED's 18-minute ceiling. And a nightly reading target of 15 to 20 minutes is easier to hold at 16 than at a round number that invites rounding down. If you want a different length, the same engine runs at other durations on sibling pages.
Do I need an account, and is anything recorded?
No account, no email, no install. The page is a fixed 16-minute countdown and nothing else — press start and it runs. The timer state lives in the browser tab in front of you, so there is no history of your sessions to keep, share, or leak, and closing the tab ends it. Come back tomorrow and the display reads 16:00 again, exactly as it did the first time.