Salubrion enso pearl clock

I was delighted with this timer although it was expensive. After a year of constant use the batteries became tired and instead of the beautiful bell or other tone a loud crackle sounded.I though it was a fault but referred to the instuction leaflet. The battery-low sign was not showing but I changed the batteries and everything functioned properly again. I practice meditation regularly in various combinations of timed intervals, depending on the particular practice I am doing. This timer was exactly what I needed. It is very versatile with three sets of interval timings, each of which can be set up in many specific ways. At the end of each interval a sound is made, the choice again is vary variable. My favourite is the Tibetan bell, a very authentic mellow sound. At the very end of the session, the sound repeats twice. I took this timer away on a solitary retreat and found it invaluable. I set the timer up before a practice and did not have to interrupt the flow of my meditation at all, ending gently with the two rings of the bell. The timer also served as my alarm clock which was avery pleasant way to wake up if necessary in the morning. The numbers are very clear,easily visible from some distance. The timer has an arm at the back to stand it up and comes in a sturdy padded travelling case.Setting up the timer initially requires careful reading of the instruction booklet, but it did not take me long to master it. Keep your instructions! You will need them if you change the battery and have to reset the clock.

Surprised to realize I've only had this timer for a couple of weeks. Feels like it's always been there. The instructions are a little sketchy, but the architecture of the chip is intuitively obvious and I've had no difficulty setting it up for my various practices. I dreamed of my perfect meditation timer and did a search. This is it... almost! The only one on the market that came close. The enso circle is a feature I hadn't thought of, but find it particularly useful in qigong posting.The sounds are superb. The appearance is aesthetically appealing, reminiscent of Lyra's Alethiometer in 'His Dark Materials', which could be a problem if you have children around, as the flip out stand seems a little flimsy and produces a very satisfying 'click'. Shame that the back of the unit is plastic rather than a metal casting and, at this price, it does rather seem to be cutting corners on what is otherwise a superb instrument. A potential heirloom.Only other niggle is the setting buttons, holding them down the display goes slow... slow... very very fast! And you overshoot. Go back, slow... slow... very very fast and overshoot the other way! Minor point but it could be improved.Couple more improvements would add to my delight. The alarm clock function is a standard travel alarm, set it for when you want to wake up. My cheap talk and text mobile phone allows five alarms. Pity this doesn't do something similar, if I were a Muslim I could set it for call to prayer. I'm not, though I'd have other uses for such a function. But there you go... and the back light button, though marked with a small bump, I find difficult to locate in pitch darkness when I'm half asleep. Better if that were linked up to the display face I think.But these are quibbles and I give it five stars as a well designed, functional thing of beauty.

Bought one of these a couple of weeks ago as part of my renewed commitment to meditate on a regular basis. I figured that an audible indication of elapsed time would be useful, both in terms of tracking where I was in the session, and also bringing me back 'into the moment' if I happened to be wandering at that point. This clock fulfills those requirements perfectly.I particularly like the circular design, with the all the key functions immediately visible and the circular progress indicator. The clock functions well as a standard desk clock and alarm clock in addition to its countdown functionality. There are 3 configurable countdown timer buttons (labeled T,T2,T3 on the clock) which should, I would imagine, be sufficient for most peoples' needs. Although pre-set with factory set functionality, each of these buttons can be changed to your preferred mode (very easily once you've read the instructions).The fact that you can set up three different timer 'sequences' and store them under their own button means that you're not forever changing things. For instance for my main meditation sessions I have the T1 button set up to start with a 3 minute period, followed by three further periods of 10 minutes. This gives me the opportunity to get myself settled during the first 3 mins, then indicates when each of the next 10 mins sessions have finished. So, I get a single chime at 3 mins, then another 10 mins later and so on, until the end of the third 10 mins period at which I get a double chime telling me my sitting session has finished. I've also a repeating countdown timer set under T3 which gives a single chime every 15 mins which I use if I'm trying to remind myself to be 'mindful' whilst working. I think you can set this to repeat up to 99 times.The sound quality of the chimes is excellent, the one I use is just like what you'd expect from a real 'singing bowl'. Perhaps the only criticism I would have is that once you've selected a chime and the volume (I think there are two metallic chimes, a wood block sound, and a regular alarm clock type sound), that sound plays for ALL notifications, including the alarm clock. Not sure a temple bell chime would wake me, and I sure as heck wouldn't want an alarm clock sound between meditation periods!! If anyone knows how to get around this I'd be very interested to hear from them.All in all it's a great little gadget, although I do think that at £60 or there abouts it's a bit pricey. Just need to make sure that I make full use of it now!!