Timing things is something you might not think much about but when you have to make the dinner and various dishes take different times to cook then juggling the time in your head can be a pain.
That’s where a smartphone timer app comes in handy.
For the longest time my wife and I used Kitchen Timer and it works great but it has one drawback. The screen has to be unlocked to reset the alarm. There’s nothing more annoying than a loud beeping noise and you’re waiting for the screen to unlock and hit the off button.
I’ve looked for alternatives in the past but couldn’t find any until last week when I found Chef’s Kitchen Timer. It’s an app that does much the same but also shows the timer controls on the lockscreen. The UI is radically different and I never bother changing the timer names but it works a treat.
I have recently updated my old Galaxy S phone with some of the new Android 4.2 features and I can say that the updated system clock has quite a striking and useful timer now. You can easily set timers, give labels (optional) and run multiple timers. It’s likely a little more avant garde looking than what typical people might expect a kitchen timer to be, but I can say that it seems pretty solid.
Ah yes, I tried that over the weekend and it was nice alright. Good to see that it pokes through the lockscreen so it can be reset just like the Chef’s one here as well.
I don’t have 4.2 on my phone (have it on a newly purchased Nexus 7, happy birthday to me!) or my wife’s SGS though. I’m eyeing up CM10 to put on her phone, she has an ancient CM nightly I put on there last year.
I am running SlimBean 2.8 on my SGS and it works quite nicely. Frees up a lot of ram and runs quite smoothly.
That looks rather nice! I might give that a go myself! 🙂
http://www.slimroms.net/index.php/slim-bean-features
I like this one as it lets you set up meals and ingredients that you can re-use later. It’s really easy to use, but if you can factor in things like preparation and resting time for each ingredient if you want:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ian.mealtimer