The best interval timer app: what actually separates them
Interval timers all claim the same features. The differences only appear mid-workout, when your hands are busy and the phone is on the floor. Here is what separates them, drawn from what people actually complain about, and where NanoTimer fits.
The market's real problem is not features
We read roughly 670 reviews across the four biggest Tabata and interval timers in the App Store. The dominant complaint is not a missing feature. It is money: subscriptions for a timer, limits that appear after a handful of workouts, ads that interrupt the audio you are training to.
The second theme is audio. Apps that pause your music instead of dipping it, cues that get lost under a track, an end signal you cannot hear. The third is reliability: timers that stop when the screen locks, which is exactly when you are running or lifting.
Those three, plus one about how you set the thing up, are the whole competition. Everything else on a feature list is noise.
1. Does the free version survive a real week
Install it and train with it four or five times before you judge it. The pattern in the reviews is consistent: two free workouts and then a wall, or a subscription prompt after the third session, or a limit of four workouts per week that appeared in an update.
Ads are the other half. In a workout timer, an ad is not just annoying: several reviews describe ads cutting the audio or requiring a connection mid-session. A timer that needs the internet to count to twenty is a strange object.
2. Does your own music survive
Start your playlist, then start a Tabata. The app should keep your music playing and dip it briefly for each cue. Pausing your music, or talking over it at full volume, both make the app unusable with headphones in.
This is worth checking before anything else, because it is the most common thing to be broken and it is often the thing hidden behind Pro. Our position: cues, beeps, haptics and ducking are free forever, written into the product contract rather than a promise on a marketing page.
3. Can you train without looking at it
The best-loved feature in the reviews, after "simple", is spoken cues. Not a beep: words. The phase name said out loud, a warning that you are halfway, the next round announced while your eyes are anywhere else.
One five-star review names the fatal flaw of the competition exactly: beeps instead of words. A beep tells you a thing happened. During a set you need to know which thing.
The visual side matters for the same reason: colour is the state. Work in one colour, rest in another, readable from the floor at a glance, with the number big enough to see from a plank.
4. Does it survive a locked screen and a pocket
Lock the phone and keep training. This fails constantly in running and HIIT reviews, and it fails in a specific way: the app is suspended and the timer quietly stops or drifts.
The fix is architectural, not a setting. Anchor the phases to the clock instead of counting ticks, and the timer is correct whatever iOS does to the app in the background. Test it once, on purpose, before you trust it in a session.
5. How fast is one tap to Tabata
Tabata is 20 seconds on, 10 off, eight rounds. If that takes more than one tap, the app has made a choice about itself. The same goes for the shape of the setup: dragging a number is faster than typing it with cold hands.
Beyond the presets, the question is whether you can build the thing you actually do: a warm-up, named steps that get spoken, a cooldown, or an EMOM, AMRAP or For Time if you train CrossFit.
Where NanoTimer lands, and where it does not
Tabata, HIIT and custom intervals are one tap. EMOM, AMRAP and For Time are there. Warm-up and cooldown, named sequences whose step names are spoken, colour as state, a big landscape counter for a phone on the mat, Live Activity and a quick-start widget. Building and running all of it is free, up to five saved per type. Pro is a one-time 6.99 euro for an unlimited library, deeper stats, benchmark WODs and personal records.
Where it does not fit: it is not a coaching app. There are no programmes to follow, no video demonstrations, no leaderboard and no social feed. It times what you already know you are doing. It is also not in the App Store yet, and Apple Watch is planned rather than shipped, so if you want to start a workout from your wrist today, another app fits you better.
Try it before you decide
Run a Tabata or a custom interval here in the browser, or open it on your phone. The app follows as soon as it is in the App Store.
Frequently asked questions
- What should a free interval timer include?
- Enough to train without paying: every interval type, spoken cues, ducking so your own music survives, and reliable background timing. If any of those four is the paid upgrade, the free version is a demo rather than a free app.
- Is a subscription ever reasonable for a timer?
- It is hard to justify. A countdown has no server behind it and no running cost, so a monthly fee is a pricing decision rather than a necessity. Paying once for extras you want is a different thing, and that is the model we picked.
- What is the difference between an interval timer and a workout timer?
- Mostly the word. Both mean phases that repeat: work, rest, rounds. "HIIT timer", "Tabata timer" and "gym timer" are the same machine with different presets, which is why one good interval timer replaces four apps.
- Do I need a separate app for CrossFit?
- Only if your timer lacks the modes. CrossFit needs EMOM, AMRAP and For Time, and For Time counts up rather than down, which a plain interval timer cannot do. If it has those three, it covers a CrossFit class.
- How do I test an interval timer app quickly?
- Three minutes: start your music and run one Tabata round with the phone locked in your pocket. If your music kept playing, the cues were words you could hear, and the timer was still correct when you looked, it passes. Then use it five times to see if it stays free.