PiZeroTimer

I made this timer application to help me keep track of how much I'm working. I lose track of time too much when I'm working from home. This helps me.

How To Use The Tool

Startup

sudo ./pizerotimer.py

• Upon startup, it will create a sqlite DB file pizerotimer.db in the current working directory to store the time ranges that you're working.
• It will initialize and turn on the display to start showing your counter.
• After 10 seconds, the backlight will go off if no buttons are pressed. It will come back on every time a button is pressed.

Interaction

• Press the top-right button to just see the current elapsed time for this week.
• Press the bottom-right button to start/stop the timer. If you're in a work period that hasn't been stopped, it will stop it. If you're not in a unstopped work period, it will start a new one, and the timer will start counting up.
• The time shown on the screen will be the number of hours:minutes:seconds that have accumulated of work time since 00:00 midnight on Monday of the current week.
• When the time exceeds 40 hours, the screen background will turn red, and the backlight will turn on so you see it.
• Ctrl-C (or sending a KILL or TERM signal) will close the database, stop any outstanding timers, turn off the backlight, and exit.
• Sending a HUP signal to the application will start/stop the timer, just like hitting the bottom-right button.
• Press-and-hold the top button for 4-5 seconds, and it will shut down the Pi Zero.

Hardware

I run it on a Raspberry Pi Zero WH with a Mini PiTFT screen attached with Python3. It'll probably run on any Pi and the GPIO headers (optional on the Pi Zero) are necessary to attach the screen that I chose. You can add headers to a Pi Zero without them with simple soldering skills.

Installation

Use raspi-config to enable both the SPI and I2C interfaces via the raspi-config tool and reboot.

sudo apt-get install python3 pip3 sqlite3
sudo pip3 install -r requirements.txt
sudo cp pizerotimer.py /usr/local/bin/
sudo cp pizerotimer.service /etc/systemd/system
sudo systemctl enable pizerotimer.service
sudo systemctl start pizerotimer.service

Put the pizerotimer.yml file at /etc/pizerotimer.yml and create the directory that your SQLite database will be kept in.

FIXMEs an Improvements

• After shutting down, the backlight comes back on. No idea why. It's a bug, but it's convenient, so I don't think I'll fix it.
• Support screen sizes that aren't 240x240?
• Provide some simple web UI to see/edit the database time range entries
• Clean up old database time range entries automatically
• If it crashes for some reason, any existing timers won't get stopped. Should they?
  • I could have another SQL table that is just a timestamp updated as the program runs. If power to the Pi goes away, it will be roughly the last time it was running. If the service starts up and sees an "open-ended" time log entry, it could use this value to end it.
• Make sure to report something to logging if a thread dies off, and maybe start it up again or handle it somehow.