# A red-yellow-green timer for speakers and sessions The traffic-light timer pattern: green while time is safe, a staged warning as it runs low, and an unmistakable final signal — set up in the browser. 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: 1. Create a room, add a timer for the talk, and set its duration. 2. Add the first wrap-up threshold — the "yellow" moment. For a 20-minute talk, three to five minutes before the end is typical. 3. Add the second threshold — the "red" moment, usually the final minute. 4. 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](https://maestrotimer.com/articles/classroom-visual-timer) 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. [Try MaestroTimer](https://maestrotimer.com)