Best Sand Timer vs Hourglass
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Best Sand Timer
A digital hourglass timer that visually represents the passage of time. It's designed to be kid-friendly, offers customizable alarm sounds, and allows users to personalize the timer's color. This universal app provides a stylish way to manage tasks and stay notified.
- Digital hourglass visualization
- Kid-friendly time perception
- Customizable alarm sounds (16 options)
- Notification even when inactive
- Color themes for timer customization
- Universal app for iPhone and iPad
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Digital sand timer with artistic design. Time flows and does it stylishly. This digitized hourglass can be used to time anything for up to 60 minutes. It's like having a nice looking visual indicator of how much time is left on your task. * KIDS FRIENDLY Timer visualizes time to kids and lets them feel the time. Without reading or even knowing the numbers one can look at the visualized time flow, feel it and understand how long to wait or whether to hurry up. * STAY NOTIFIED It lets you set the alarm sound that will play when the timer is finished. You can choose from 16 unique alarm sounds, melodies and loops. You’ll be notified when your time is up even if you’re using another app or your device is locked. It can also repeat the sound alarm (up to 3 times) at the given interval if it was missed/snoozed. * COLOR YOUR TIME You can easily change the timer color to fit your personal lifestyle. There are 5 color themes: turquoise, red, green, amber and pink. Just pick the one you like in the application settings. * UNIVERSAL APP Timer works both on your iPhone/iPod and iPad, contains HD graphics for retina and iPad displays and supports all screen orientations for all devices. [+Retina graphics for iPad 3rd generation] * SEE ALSO: Best Timer Beautifully designed sand timer, stylish kitchen timer, countdown/up and powerful stopwatch All in one creatively combined Best Timer application to suit all your timing needs. Search "Best Timer" on iTunes (http://itunes.apple.com/app/best-timer/id415656570) * There are plenty of things we really need to time, just do them the way you like! ***Important for iOS5+ devices: if there is no alarm played when the application is inactive please go to system Settings / Notifications, select the application name and configure the timer's alarms, whether they perform sound and if they're to appear on lock screen. VISIT US: smartphoneware.com
Hourglass
This app offers a simple and user-friendly hourglass experience. Set your desired time, pause it as needed, and enjoy the soothing visual of falling sand. It's designed for moments of calm and focused time management.
- User-friendly hourglass interface
- Set custom timer durations
- Pause and resume timer
- Soothing falling sand animation
- Comforting visual experience
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Simple and user-friendly hourglass app. You can set your desired time and also pause it. Watching the beautiful falling sand is soothing and comforting. standard Apple Terms of Use (EULA) https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Best Sand Timer at none against Hourglass's 2. Best Sand Timer also leads on ads (none vs shown) and review sentiment (46% vs 30%). Hourglass's advantage is update cadence (weekly vs every 14 months) and rating (4.6 vs 4.2). On price and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Hourglass sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Best Sand Timer asks for nothing beyond the download.
Hourglass holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.2. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Hourglass has 216 ratings behind it against 19, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 46% of Best Sand Timer's written reviews are positive against 30% of Hourglass's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Best Sand Timer ships an update every 14 months, Hourglass weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 14, 2026 and October 6, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Best Sand Timer | Hourglass |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.2 (19 ratings) | 4.6 (216 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 45.6% of reviews — better | 30.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 19 | 216 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 14 months | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 8.0 — better | 13.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 38 MB | 52 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Serhii Simkovskyi | Focaccia, Inc. |
Customer experience
Best Sand Timer
Hourglass
Bugs and requests
Best Sand Timer
Reported bugs
8 issues- No sound when timer reaches zero
- Sand not aligned with hourglass
- Graphics not aligned properly
- Buttons partially off screen
- App not configured for certain iPhone screens (e.g., XR)
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- App freezes when trying to change timer
- Alarm fails to go off if other notifications occur
- Force closes when timer ends
Requested features
10 requests- Display current time on screen
- Keypad for setting timer
- Option to hide digital timer
- Longer timer duration (beyond 1 hour)
- Vibrate function
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- More sound options
- Sound control on screen
- Option to view timer when phone is locked
- Sound while sand is pouring
- Start timer by turning the iPad
Hourglass
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Best Sand Timer
No in-app purchases
Hourglass
- Pro - Monthly7 Days trial$0.991 Month
- Hourglass Timer Pro$3.99
