# Eggtimer on your phone

## Add to Home Screen

On iPhone or iPad, open https://eggtimer.app in Safari, tap Share, and choose Add to Home Screen. If shown, keep Open as Web App enabled. On Android, use Chrome's Install app or Add to Home screen menu. The Install app footer link shows these instructions and a native install button when the browser offers one. The Install app link appears on phones/tablets and on desktop browsers that offer a native install prompt. It is hidden in an installed app and on other desktop browsers. No account or store download is needed.

The installed app opens in its own window. After the app reports offline files ready, timers, the stopwatch, themes, and recipe editing can work without a network. Subdomain redirects and Zapier deliveries need a network. Open the installed app or use main-domain timer paths offline. Browser storage can be cleared or evicted, so check offline readiness before relying on it.

## Test the alarm

Start with a short timer and tap Test alarm. Starting a timer with sound enabled also plays a short confirmation tone if sound has not been prepared in that page. The alarm uses an HTML media element and resets the audio-session category before requesting playback behavior on browsers that support it. This works around a reported Safari stale-session issue (WebKit bug 323104). This is intended to improve iPhone Silent-switch behavior compared with the previous Web Audio oscillator. It is not a guarantee: check the actual tone on your phone, media volume, Bluetooth output, and device settings. Playback errors are shown next to the sound controls. A successful play request cannot prove the speaker was audible. Sound help includes a native audio player and troubleshooting steps. If Safari stays silent, open eggtimer.app in a new tab and test again; turning Silent mode off is a useful check.

## Visual completion alert

Timer completion shows two slow screen-edge pulses over 4.8 seconds and a steady highlight. It works with Sound is off and when audio is blocked. Reduce Motion uses only the steady highlight. Tap Dismiss alert to clear it and stop any alarm audio; the completed timer remains available to restart. The alert also appears between manually advanced recipe steps. It does not animate during automatic step transitions.

## Keep the screen on

Keep screen on requests a screen wake lock while a timer or stopwatch is running and visible, on supported browsers. It releases on pause, completion, or backgrounding and tries again when the page becomes visible. The device can decline or release it, for example because of battery policy. It cannot prevent you manually locking the phone.

## Background limits

Keep the app visible for sound and webhook delivery. Installing a PWA and caching files does not turn a service worker into a persistent alarm scheduler. A sleeping, backgrounded, or terminated app can miss or delay the alarm; the deadline catches up when it runs again. This release does not implement Web Push or native phone alarms. If an exact locked-phone alarm is essential, use the phone's Clock app.

Updates do not force-reload active timers. App files and the alarm sound are cached locally; webhook requests, hook URLs, and credentials are never cached by the service worker.