The red-yellow-green timer is the traffic-light convention of speaker timing: the display stays calm while time is safe, changes once as the end approaches, and changes again for the final stretch. Speakers read it peripherally, mid-sentence, without processing a single digit — which is why conference hardware has used the pattern for decades.
MaestroTimer reproduces the pattern in the browser with wrap-up thresholds: you choose the warning times, and the display changes appearance at each. Here is the setup and how to choose the stages.
Set up the stages
The pattern is two thresholds on one timer.
The steps:
- Create a room, add a timer for the talk, and set its duration.
- Add the first wrap-up threshold — the "yellow" moment. For a 20-minute talk, three to five minutes before the end is typical.
- Add the second threshold — the "red" moment, usually the final minute.
- Open the viewer link on the speaker-facing screen. The display changes at each threshold on its own; nobody operates the warnings.
Choosing the warning times
The stages should map to actions, not just to urgency. The first warning means "begin your landing" — it needs to arrive while a graceful close is still possible, so scale it to the talk: three minutes on a twenty-minute slot, ninety seconds on a five-minute pitch.
The final warning means "finish the sentence and close". Keep it short enough to be unambiguous — a signal that lasts five minutes stops being a signal. And tell speakers the times in their briefing: a warning they expect is guidance; one they discover live is an interruption.
The same pattern beyond the stage
Anywhere a room shares a deadline, the staged pattern outperforms a bare countdown: classrooms wrapping group work, timed exams entering their final phase, workshop exercises, board meetings with a hard stop. The stoplight convention needs no explanation and no shared language — green, yellow, red mean the same thing to an international panel as to a local classroom.
Because the display is a browser page, the pattern goes wherever a screen exists — and when a warning needs words, a message appears next to the countdown: bold, colored, or flashing, matching the urgency to the moment.
FAQ
What is a red-yellow-green timer?
A timer using the traffic-light convention: a calm display while time is safe, a staged change as the end approaches, and a final unmistakable signal — readable at a glance without digits.
When should the yellow warning appear?
When a graceful close is still possible: roughly three to five minutes before the end of a standard talk, scaled down for shorter slots. It should mean "begin your landing", not "panic".
Does someone have to trigger the color changes?
No. Wrap-up thresholds fire automatically at the times you set — the operator runs the show, not the warnings.
Can the speaker and the operator see different views?
Yes. The speaker watches the viewer with its staged warnings; the operator holds the controller on another device, with messages available when words are needed.
Give speakers the traffic light
MaestroTimer runs in the browser: staged wrap-up warnings at times you choose, on any speaker-facing screen, with messages for everything the colors cannot say.