Building a Custom Time Tracker
I needed a physical time tracker that could sync with a custom web system. Apps on the phone or the computer never stuck; I wanted something dedicated on the desk that I could press.
2025 Soldering Table
Tactile inputs for focused work
The case
It should look a little futuristic, after the consoles on the bridge of Star Trek TNG: clean lines, nothing fussy, every button where a hand expects it. The case had to take all the parts and still look like one object.
Inside
An ESP32 with WiFi talks to my time tracking system in the cloud and handles everything on the device: a row of buttons to pick the project and start or stop the timer, a small black-and-white OLED that shows the current project and the elapsed time, a buzzer for a short confirmation, and a 3D-printed case around it all.
Twenty cases later
The case was the hard part. The first prints tried to be one perfect piece, and every one failed somewhere: a button out of line, the display not quite sitting right, tolerances too tight or too loose. The twentieth print finally fit.
What broke the streak was giving up on the one piece. The button cluster, the display mount and the ESP32 holder each became a small module I could print and test on its own, and only then did I build the case around them.
What stayed with me
Design the parts first, then the case around them. Reprinting a small module takes twenty minutes; reprinting the whole case takes an evening.
The tracker sits on my desk now, logging the hours per project and syncing them to the cloud for later.
