Smart Pomodoro Timer

Inspiration

We suck at time management. We have only two modes: either we'll procastinate the whole day or we'll spend hours working at one end.

We recently read in a study that pomodoro technique can be used to drastically increase productivity. The technique uses a timer to break down work into intervals, 15 minutes in length, separated by short breaks (5 minutes). We tried a few online pomodoro timers but then, we were spending most of our time checking how much time was left instead of doing actual work.

We knew that if we wanted to get some actual work done, we'd have to come up with a better solution.

So, we made a Smart visual pomodoro timer.

What it does

It's a circuit playground board fitted with the top half of an LED. It glows in different colors to show you how much time has elapsed/how much time is left.

It starts with a bright green color and transitions to yellow, orange, magenta and finally to a deep red shade when your 15 minutes are over.

You can set how many sessions you want using the +/- buttons on board. Then you start the timer by sliding the switch on the board. Once the timer has started, you can use +/- buttons to control the brightness of neopixels.

After your 15 minutes are up, it'll start a blinking rainbow pattern and will send a notification on your Google home as well as your phone letting you know that your work period has ended and that you should take a 5 minute break.