Herotime Journal

Herotime returns: the single-button multi stopwatch, rebuilt

2026-07-05T00:00:00.000Z

The site you are reading is the first piece to land. The second is bigger: Herotime — the patented single-button multi stopwatch for coaches — is about to relaunch, rebuilt from the ground up for the latest iOS.

We first put Herotime on the App Store the better part of ten years ago, back when timing a whole squad still meant a fistful of stopwatches and an evening of transcribing. In 2021 the method behind it became a granted United States patent. And in between, quietly, something we did not fully expect happened: coaches kept using it. Not a crowd — a small, stubborn group of swim and track coaches around the world who found that timing many athletes with one thumb genuinely changed their sessions, and who never quite stopped asking when the next version would arrive.

This is that version.

What changed

The heart of Herotime is untouched, because it is the part that works: the patented Tap & Arrange™ method, where the mode of your tap assigns the time — a rapid double-tap for a group start, a short tap for the next athlete, a long press for everyone remaining, and circular assignment through the run phase so you never aim at a per-athlete button. What changed is everything around it:

Rebuilt for the latest iOS — modern from the frameworks up, so it stays fast and current on today's iPhones.
A cleaner, calmer interface — the same one-button speed under the whistle, with less between you and the times.
Timing history, groups, and cadence per split — every session stored on device, every squad organized, stroke and stride rates captured for each split.
Clean CSV export through the iOS Share Sheet — your data, in a form that opens straight in a spreadsheet.
Volume-button timing — tap by feel, eyes on the athletes, exactly as the patent describes.
Private by default — your athletes and times stay on your device. No account, no cloud, no sign-in.

A high-end instrument for manual timing — not a clock app with extra buttons. What Herotime is, and always was

The idea, restated

Herotime exists for the one job the built-in stopwatch cannot do: timing several athletes at once, by hand, without looking away. That is a small, specific, professional need — and it is worth doing properly. The relaunch is a chance to say it plainly: this is a serious tool for coaches who time real people against a real clock, and we would rather it be the best multi stopwatch for a few thousand coaches than a mediocre one for everyone.

It returns with a full month free, then an introductory relaunch price for the coaches who come on board now — our way of thanking the people who make the next decade of Herotime possible.

What comes next

A relaunch is a starting line, not a finish. The roadmap from here is deliberately shaped by the people holding the phone on the pool deck: the more feedback we get from coaches and timekeepers, the faster the right features arrive. If you have wanted Herotime to do one particular thing for years, now is the moment to tell us.

One honest note: the app itself needs a few more days while the final App Store assets come together. So consider this the first flare. If you time athletes for a living — or just want to retire your tangle of stopwatches — keep an eye on this space. It is almost here.

Good things take time: U.S. Patent 11,080,947, granted

2022-02-13T00:00:00.000Z

On December 19, 2021 — six years almost to the day after we filed, two days before Christmas 2015 — the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted patent 11,080,947 B2 for the method at the heart of Herotime.

The application was drafted and prosecuted with the patent attorneys Maikowski & Ninnemann in Berlin, and it survived examination with its core claims intact. That matters: what is protected is not a screen layout or a button color, but the method itself — timing many entities with a single primary actuator, where the mode of the tap decides the assignment.

A method for timing many athletes with one button — where the way you tap decides who gets the time. The claim set, in one sentence

What the patent covers, in plain language

Manual timing breaks down the moment one person has to time several others. The patent solves it with three start gestures and one run-phase rule:

Rapid tap — two or more quick taps record one shared group start, one athlete per tap. The gun for a heat.
Short tap — starts the next single athlete in the starting order. Stagger a lane at a time.
Long press — starts every athlete still waiting, in one gesture.
Circular assignment — in the run phase, every tap records the next split and assigns it automatically to the least-recently-timed athlete. You never aim at a per-athlete button; you just tap when someone crosses the line.
Drag to reassign — when one athlete overtakes another, you fix it by dragging one time record onto another. The circular order updates itself.
The volume button — claim 23 explicitly covers the phone's physical volume button as the actuator. Timing by feel, eyes on the athletes, is part of the invention.

What the patent replaces: one stopwatch per athlete, a notepad, and an evening of transcribing

What this means for Herotime

Herotime remains the only multi stopwatch built on this method — the reason a single coach can start a whole squad and catch every split without looking down. The patent is also a commitment: this is engineered, examined technology, not a clock app with extra buttons.

If you are building timing software and find yourself converging on tap-mode disambiguation or circular split assignment — talk to us before replicating the method.

New version live: groups and longer athlete codes

2017-02-09T00:00:00.000Z

Version 2.1 just went live on the App Store — make sure to grab the update soon. Even if you're not managing a team large enough to benefit from the new groups yet, the longer athlete codes alone should be a major everyday improvement. Both extensions exist because users asked for them; thanks to everyone who made clear how much these mattered.

Athlete codes: from 6 to 12 characters

Athlete codes previously maxed out at just 6 characters. That made it harder to assign meaningful names and then quickly recognize, mid-session, which code belonged to which athlete. We heard you. Athlete codes can now be up to 12 characters long, with international character sets fully supported as before — as long as a code doesn't go overboard in the screen space it takes.

As a general guideline: any code a bit shorter on screen than WWWWWW — six times the letter W — is fine. Since character widths vary, the add-athlete dialog now makes this concrete for you with detailed error and hint messages, so you'll know immediately whether a code fits.

Groups: tags for whole squads

Some heavy users pointed out that they time multiple groups of athletes — so many athletes, in fact, that selecting the next set meant a lot of scrolling. So version 2.1 adds tags you can assign to athletes to define and select groups — not unlike labels in a modern email app, if that's a comparison that helps.

Deliberately, there is just one added view, and it does double duty for assigning and filtering:

Assign tags: select a set of athletes, then tap the Athlete view's title to give those athletes new tags.
Filter by group: with no athletes selected, tap the title to choose the group tags the Athlete view should be limited to.

Tag your sprinters, your Tuesday lane, your U15 squad — then pull up exactly that group in two taps when the session starts. No scrolling past forty names to find the five you're timing.

Where to learn more

The in-app user guide has new "Managing Groups" sections covering all of this in place. There is also a growing online user guide with a dedicated part on managing groups. The online guide is a work in progress, by the way — it complements the in-app guide, and I'll keep adding to it over time. Feel free to help me prioritize what gets written next by sending your most pressing questions.

Looking forward to more feedback — and thanks for being with us!

World's best sports stopwatch app, finally launched?

2017-01-10T00:00:00.000Z

"The following app has been approved and the app status has changed to Ready for Sale: Herotime – Smart Multi Stopwatch, version 2.0." This is how Apple kindly alerts you, as an app maker, that a new version has gone public. It is certainly not the first time I've seen this email. It is probably the most exciting one so far. Why?

From stopwatch prototype to product

I launched the Herotime multi stopwatch quite a while back as, honestly, a prototype. It had two jobs: to serve as a proof of concept for a pending patent application, and to be genuinely usable by sports coaches, parents, and anyone else still relying on an old-school handheld stopwatch. Needless to say, version 1.0 wasn't perfect yet — as a surprising number of early users kindly pointed out to me, amongst a lot of positive feedback.

Version 2.0 changes that, I am sure. This is no longer the proof of concept; it is the product — the version where the patented timing core, the history, and the everyday handling finally feel like one finished instrument. The version I would hand to any coach on any deck without a caveat.

The best replacement for the stopwatch around your neck

There is still much work ahead — polishing the remaining edges in usability, and moving toward the larger vision of what a connected stopwatch can become. But the most immediate work is communication: making clearer who Herotime is best for and what Herotime is best at.

In particular: Herotime is meant as a better replacement for one or several traditional handheld stopwatches. That goes especially for professional timekeepers, but also for the occasional sports stopwatch user — who today buys a cheap handheld stopwatch that offers none of the capabilities of a modern, connected device. The effect, multiplied across every training session: user time wasted, and valuable timing data from developing athletes lost forever on a seven-segment display.

Several stopwatches vs. "multi" stopwatch

One clarification I want to make head-on, because some coaches have asked. Herotime is not meant to fully automate the parallel time collection of dozens of athletes running, swimming, or rowing their monthly test series at varying start times and speeds as part of a large team. That is a real scenario, and Herotime will do better in it than any traditional stopwatch — but even with Herotime you would still need some paper or computer notes on the side. Fully supporting it would take a dedicated tool, one I might build at some point.

The 'multi' in multi stopwatch really means 'several' — the handful of athletes one coach actually times at once. What Herotime is, precisely

So for now, the "multi" in multi stopwatch really means several: the handful of stopwatches you might otherwise have hanging around your neck. Smart Several Stopwatch just has an odd ring to it, don't you think? Herotime fully replaces those several stopwatches — and then does what none of them ever could: it remembers everything.

Timing work ahead

So let me get back to that communication work right away. You'll certainly hear more from me about it in the upcoming weeks and months. In the meantime, if you have ideas for spreading the news about the best stopwatch replacement app out there, please let me know — I appreciate any help. And as usual, add any other feedback too. I am listening.

RallyTime Pro: an interval-start stopwatch for spectators

2016-08-16T00:00:00.000Z

Only a few weeks ago, a motorsport rally fan got back to me saying: "I like your smart stopwatch, but I need something a little different." The resulting new rally timing app — RallyTime Pro — went live today.

The person, as it turns out, was a huge fan and industry insider of rally series like the World Rally Championship and the many smaller, local events. There is a great community behind the car rally sport — for some it's a rally, for others a rallye — particularly in Northern and Central Europe, but reaching all the way to Africa and Australia. And that community, I learned, has a timing problem all of its own.

The problem of a rally spectator

Unlike swimmers or runners, who start in heats together or — as in a marathon — in close time proximity, rally cars start one after the other, on a set interval of a minute or two. Sometimes that interval changes: two minutes for the most serious group of professionals, say, then one minute for the bulk of enthusiast participants. But otherwise it is fairly stable.

The track itself is more like a marathon course than a stadium: arbitrary roads in the wild, through open fields and woods. And that's just one section — insiders call it a "special stage," or just a stage. Each rally consists of multiple stages, potentially over several consecutive days.

So as a spectator, you pick a spot where you expect a good, long look at passing cars and some real action — sharp turns, jumps, and the like. And then you stand there, somewhere in the wild, with cars passing you one by one, most likely in start order, and you wonder: who's winning? At this point, at least?

After an hour or two the official results come in and everybody knows the answer. But standing right there at that needle turn — where's the fun in waiting an hour to learn that car #13, which is just passing you, actually was three seconds ahead of the competition at this very spot?

An interval-start stopwatch

Spectators have improvised for years. Some time the gaps between passing cars with traditional handheld stopwatches to get a feel for performances. Some use simple egg timers to estimate the next car's arrival — which is also a matter of safety, because guessing wrong about when the next car comes makes crossing the track a dangerous option. But these means are cumbersome, complicated, or deliver little insight. And they are boring.

What a rally spectator really needs is a different kind of instrument: an interval-start stopwatch. Because the cars start on a known, fixed interval, a single tap as each car passes is enough to compute how far ahead or behind it is against that schedule — live, on the spot, car by car. It is the same core idea as Herotime — one button, many timed entities, the app keeps the bookkeeping — applied to a start pattern that no swim coach ever sees.

So, after a number of discussions back and forth with the insider who contacted me, I built a special stopwatch just for rally fans. Early users tell me it's awesome and an absolute industry first. RallyTime Pro also carried over some favorite Herotime traits: physical-button support, a night color scheme for those dawn and dusk stages, and open timing of any rally beyond a set of predefined ones.

What this says about the technology

For me, the real story here is range. The method behind Herotime — timing many entities with one button and letting the app handle the assignment — was designed for coaches. But manual timing problems come in more shapes than heats and lanes: interval starts, staggered starts, one-after-the-other starts. The same foundation handled a completely different sport with a few weeks of focused work.

I am always asking for feedback and suggestions, including any other timing problems you face — and I am listening, and acting. So: what's on your mind when you use Herotime smart stopwatch? Maybe there is a special solution to your special timing problem, too.

Herotime launched in select countries

2016-04-02T00:00:00.000Z

Just a quick update, and a big one: Herotime smart stopwatch finally launched in select countries in late March. After the mailing list, the closed beta, and the patent filing, there is now a version 1 that anyone in a supported country can put in their pocket and take to the pool.

What's in version 1

This first public release already carries the essentials that make Herotime a real multi stopwatch rather than a clock app:

Multi-athlete timing — the fully functional, quite stable core of the app: start several athletes, catch every split, and let Herotime keep track of who owns which time.
Full history review — every timing session is saved and browsable in the app. No more times dying on a stopwatch display or on a wet piece of paper.
Selective sharing — as requested by many early users, sharing timing results can now be restricted to just the athletes you select. Hand a swimmer her times, and only her times.

We already have quite a few early users out there — in addition to our crowd of beta testers — and their feedback is shaping every build. Sorry it took me a moment to write this up; shipping came first.

A name that says who it's for

You'll find the app on Apple's App Store as "Herotime – Smart Multi Stopwatch for Sports Coaches." That name is doing deliberate work: this is a multi stopwatch, and it is built for the people who time other people — coaches, timekeepers, and the parents drafted into the job at every meet. I hope it communicates that well enough. What do you think? If you find the time, do also let me know what you think of the description, the screenshots, and the video intro on the store page.

Not in a supported country yet?

The launch is deliberately rolling out country by country, so I can watch closely how the first cohorts use the app and fix what needs fixing before going wider. If your country isn't supported yet and you'd still like to get your hands on a — the first? — practical multi stopwatch app, get in touch at marco@bluemedialabs.com and tell me a little about your background as a timekeeper. I'll gladly follow up.

Any comments or suggestions are highly welcome, as usual. This is a milestone, but it is very much the first one.

Multi stopwatch app patent finally filed

2015-12-22T00:00:00.000Z

Yay! Just today — two days before Christmas — the patent application for the stopwatch core of Herotime smart stopwatch was finally filed, after quite a few more months and quite a bit more work than anticipated. My thanks go to the patent attorneys Maikowski & Ninnemann in Berlin for a job (hopefully!) well done.

What the application protects

It feels good to secure some rights on the hard work that went into conceiving and prototyping the simplest way to time multiple athletes — or, really, entities of any kind — with just one digital stopwatch. That includes the hard cases: athletes starting in complex configurations of multiple groups, one after the other, the way real training sessions and real meets actually unfold.

No worries if your sessions are simpler than that. The resulting stopwatch app will serve you better than any existing sports stopwatch even if you are timing just one or two athletes — not least because every timing session lands in a reviewable history you can share instantly with anyone interested, including, of course, the person being timed.

Timing many athletes with one stopwatch — even when they start in complex configurations of multiple groups. The invention, in one sentence

The silver lining of a slow patent

The extra months on the patent had an unplanned upside: more time to build. Functionality that I never expected to make the first version is already in — most notably a fully functional cadence module. Anyone who has ever taken occasional stride or stroke rates with a handheld counter and painfully noted them down on paper, split by split, should love this one: Herotime records the rate right alongside each split, digitally, where it belongs.

Of course, added functionality also means added potential for leftover bugs, which is exactly what the next phase is for.

What's next

Now it's time to finalize a first complete version of the app and put it through serious testing with real coaches and timekeepers before it reaches the App Store. Filing the patent closes one long chapter; shipping the stopwatch opens the one I've actually been waiting for.

Merry Christmas — and here's to a well-timed 2016.

Almost ready: why I built a better stopwatch

2015-10-15T00:00:00.000Z

It has taken me quite a while to perfect what I believe will be the last replacement of your professional handheld stopwatch collection that you'll ever need. That replacement — Herotime smart stopwatch — is now in its final polish, and it launches very soon.

Why a coder builds a stopwatch

I write software for a living. I have also spent more hours than I can count standing at the edge of a pool or a track with a stopwatch in each hand, timing athletes the way it has been done for decades: one watch per athlete, eyes flicking between the water and the display, times scribbled onto damp paper and typed up later — if they survive that long.

At some point the coder in me refused to accept that this was the state of the art. The device in my pocket has a precise clock, a big screen, storage for every time I will ever take, and a physical button I can press without looking. All that was missing was the right method for timing many athletes with it — a real multi stopwatch, not a clock app with a lap button.

The collection you can stop buying

Look at the handheld stopwatch market and you find the same tiers everywhere: the throwaway model for $10, the standard model for $20, a more decent one for $50, and the high-end model for around $150 with stride- and stroke-rate measurement built in. They differ in casing and button feel, but they all share the same fundamental limits:

One watch times one athlete. More athletes means more watches around your neck.
Times die on the display. Everything ends up transcribed by hand, or lost.
Extras cost a fortune. Something as simple as a stroke-rate counter is reserved for the top of the price list.

Whichever of those models you use today, my promise is simple: once you have timed a training session with Herotime, you won't want to hold on to any of them.

Where things stand

The iPhone and iPod app is getting its last polish right now. Dozens of coaches and timekeepers have already signed up on the mailing list on the front page — join them if you want to be first to know when Herotime ships, or if you want to influence the final product through early feedback. That feedback matters to me more than you might think: this app is being shaped session by session, around how timekeepers actually work.

Not a mailing-list person? Also fine. Drop me a note at marco@bluemedialabs.com — I would love to hear from you, or even have a quick chat about your needs in handheld timing in sports, schools, and beyond.

More soon. It's nearly time.