A nap timer picks a length, counts it down on screen, and tells you the clock time you will wake up before you lie down. Five lengths are offered, from a 10-minute top-up to a full 90-minute cycle, and the whole thing starts with one button.
It is for the gap between lunch and the 2pm lecture, for the night shift nap before a drive home, and for anyone who has thought “twenty minutes” and woken up two hours later. The useful part is knowing the wake time before you lie down, so you can set a phone alarm as backup and still use this as the display.
One honest detail: it is a countdown on this page, not a ringtone. Phones that support vibration will buzz when the time is up, desktops will not, and nothing here has permission to make a sound.
Timer for power naps with optimal duration options. Choose a nap length and get a wake-up alert when it’s time.
How it works
The dropdown offers 10 minutes (Power Nap), 20 (Standard, selected by default), 30 (Deep), 60 (Full Cycle) and 90 (Complete Cycle). Press Start Nap Timer and the result area fills with the heading “Nap Timer Running”, the duration you chose, and the wake-up time worked out as now plus that duration, printed as a normal 12-hour clock time.
Underneath that a live countdown ticks every second in minutes and seconds: 19:59, 19:58, and so on. When it reaches zero the display changes to “Time’s up!” and a line is added saying your nap is over, with the length written back into the sentence. On a phone that supports it, the device buzzes in a short buzz-pause-buzz pattern. Reset stops the countdown and clears everything, and pressing Start while one is already running abandons the old countdown and begins a fresh one from the new length.
The wake-up time is fixed at the moment you press Start: the current time plus the minutes you picked, so what you see in the first second is what you get.
A worked example
It is 01:20 PM, you pick 20 minutes, and the page shows a wake-up time of 01:40 PM with the countdown starting at 20:00. Twenty minutes later the display reads “Time’s up!” and the alert line underneath says your 20-minute nap is over. On a phone, two short buzzes.
Switch to 90 minutes at 02:30 PM. The wake-up time becomes 04:00 PM, and because the countdown is written as plain minutes and seconds it starts at 90:00 rather than an hour and a half format. It runs all the way down through 01:00, 00:59, 00:01, 00:00. Ninety minutes is roughly a full sleep cycle, which is why the option is labelled that way: you wake near the end of a cycle rather than in the middle of one.
Shortest case: 10 minutes from 03:05 PM gives a 03:15 PM wake-up. That is the nap between two things, and it is the one most likely to end before you have actually fallen asleep, which is fine, because the timer does not know whether you slept and does not pretend to.
What this timer will not do
It makes no sound. The only alert is the vibration on devices that support it, so on a laptop you are relying on seeing the screen change. If you need audio, set a phone alarm for the same time and use this page as the visible countdown that makes the alarm feel optional.
It also stops if the page goes. Close the tab, navigate away, or let the laptop sleep and the countdown goes with it, because everything lives in this one tab with no notification permission behind it. Browsers also slow background timers down, so keep the tab in front of you rather than tucked behind four others if the exact second matters.
Naps do not replace sleep. The CDC’s recommendation for adults aged 18 to 60 is 7 or more hours a night, and a 20-minute nap at 2pm is a patch, not a substitute. The 60 and 90-minute options also run long enough that you may wake groggy, which is the usual cost of sleeping past the light stages.
Nothing is recorded either. No history of how long you napped, no streak, no reset of anything but the screen. Press Start again and you simply get a new countdown.
Other tools
- Phone-Free Timer — same countdown idea, aimed at putting the phone down instead of lying down
- Presentation Timer — keep a talk to its time without watching the clock the whole way
- Shower Routine Timer — break a shower into stages so the hot water lasts
Frequently asked questions
Does it make a sound when the time is up?
No sound at all. The countdown turns into “Time’s up!” on screen and the page adds an alert line, plus a vibration on phones that support it. On a laptop you will only notice it if the tab is still on screen.
What happens if I close the tab?
The timer stops with it. There is nothing stored and no notification scheduled, so a closed tab means a countdown that never finishes. Set a phone alarm too if there is any chance you will move the page or shut the laptop.
Which nap length should I pick?
10 to 20 minutes for a quick reset that is easy to wake from, 30 if you want more but can afford a bit of grogginess, 90 if you have time for a full cycle and will not be rushing straight into something. The default of 20 is the safe middle.
Can I change the length while it is running?
Yes. Choose a different duration and press Start again, and the running countdown is abandoned in favour of a new one from that length. Reset does the other thing: it stops the timer and clears the result entirely.