Google gives Search's built-in timer and stopwatch a functional makeover

Google “Search” may be one of this biggest misnomers in tech, and while Search does actually find stuff for you, it’s evolved to do a whole heck of a lot more over the years. We’re not talking about all the controversy around AI-generated summaries or concerns over it dominating local results, either — right from the Search bar, you can use Google as a tool for a number of basic tasks, like functioning as a calculator. Now we’re checking out the latest progress in that vein, with a fresh look for Search’s timer and stopwatch.

To access either of these, all you need to do is type “timer” or “stopwatch” in the search bar — on either desktop or mobile. While Search already had these time-keeping tools, 9to5Google spotted the recent addition of a splash of color that really helps the tools stand out as something distinct from your regular Search results.

Just like before, your timer defaults to five minutes, but this time the display is cleanly centered. Google also adds a few new buttons, letting you quickly add another 30 seconds, a minute, or five to the count. We also get a circular ring around the timer once started, that slowly fills as time elapses.

This is a nice tweak, but there’s still room for improvement here — probably our biggest complaint is that it’s awkward to edit the timer. You can’t just highlight the hours and type in a new figure, for instance. For that reason, it’s still easiest to just start with the time you actually want, by entering something like “timer for one hour and twenty-five minutes” in the first place.

The stopwatch UI gets the same sort of makeover as the timer, and the ring it displays around the time as it counts up finally sort of resembles an actual stopwatch — just like we’re used to from Clock on Android. Oddly, though, the indicator that spins around the ring completes a rotation once every four seconds. Once every second might be a little fast, but why four rather than ten, or another nice, round number?

Both the timer and the stopwatch also change color when paused, going from blue to orange, which is a nice way to subtly warn you if you accidentally left things paused too long. None of these changes are huge, but it’s still nice to see Google giving a little usability attention to a tool that was already working just fine.