Awakening Bell

Mindfulness bell timers inspired by the teaching of Thich Nhat Hanh. Periodic, random, scheduled, or hourly bells

A gentle bell that rings on the rhythm you choose, calling you back to the present throughout your day at the computer. Awakening Bell is a quiet timer for mindfulness practice. Pick an interval, a random rhythm, or specific times of day, and a soft chime will sound to invite you to pause — to breathe in and out three times — before carrying on. Inspired by the teaching of Thich Nhat Hanh, the bell is not a notification. It's an invitation. WHY YOU MIGHT INSTALL IT - You spend long hours at a computer and want a calmer, more present way through the day. - You meditate and would like a soft cue to come back to your breath at intervals. - You build in deliberate pauses — between meetings, between tasks, between coding sessions. - You're recovering from burnout, chronic stress, or focus fatigue and want a gentle nudge rather than another noisy notification. - You're studying or doing deep work and want a structured rhythm of breaks. - You just like the sound of a real bell every now and then. WHAT YOU GET Click the bell icon in your toolbar to open the popup and pick one (or more) of four modes: ▸ Periodic — a small bell every N minutes, a big bell every M minutes. The classic mindfulness rhythm. ▸ Random — a bell at an unpredictable interval between two values you set. Many people's favorite — it keeps the bell from fading into background noise. ▸ Scheduled — add as many specific reminder times as you'd like (e.g. 9:00 am to begin, 12:30 pm before lunch, 5:00 pm to close). They repeat daily. ▸ Hourly — a single chime on the top of every hour. All four modes can run at once. The popup shows a live clock and a live countdown to the next bell, so you always know when to expect it. The bells keep ringing in the background even when the popup is closed and you've moved on to other tabs — for as long as Chrome is open. THE SOUNDS Real recordings of a temple-style bell. A deep, sustained chime for the big bell, and a brighter, shorter one for the small. The same sounds used at awakeningbell.org for many years. PRIVACY Zero network calls. Zero analytics. Zero tracking — ever. Your bell preferences live only on your own machine via chrome.storage.local. The extension cannot read web pages, see your tabs, or access your browsing history. It asks for only three permissions: alarms (to schedule bells), offscreen (a Manifest V3 requirement for playing audio from the background), and storage (to remember your preferences). A small thing, used often, can change a day. With gratitude to the teaching of Thich Nhat Hanh.