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The core idea

How Timelee reaches you when a notification would not

A reminder is not a plan. It is a delivery. It only worked if it reached a conscious person who then did something. Most apps have one reminder delivery method — a notification — and when that fails, nothing else happens.

Start with GoogleSet your first Critical reminder
Someone answering a call on their mobile

One channel, four ways to fail

None of these is an edge case. Each one is a normal Tuesday, and in each one the app did exactly what it was built to do while you still missed the thing.

  • It arrived with thirty other things

    Your lock screen at 6pm is a stack. A delivery update, two group chats, a news alert, a game asking you to come back, and somewhere in there, take the tablet. One gesture clears all of it. Nothing about the tablet looked different from the game.

  • You dismissed it before you read it

    The swipe is faster than the reading. Anyone who has cleared a notification and then spent ten minutes trying to recall what it said knows this one. It was delivered. It was even seen. It still failed.

  • The phone was silent

    Silenced for the meeting, the ward round, the cinema, the sleeping baby. The 3pm reminder fired into an empty room, and there is no retry. The app considers its job finished.

  • The phone was not with you

    Charging in the hall, in a bag, in a locker, on the far side of a building site while you sat at a laptop. The notification fired correctly on a device nobody was holding.

Three rungs, and you choose how far up each reminder goes

Timelee does not try to make a notification louder. It gives a reminder three delivery methods to climb through instead of one. Three rungs, combined into five settings you pick from when you create the reminder.

  1. notif_type 1

    Regular

    Rung one. A real alarm rather than a badge: full screen, at the exact minute, with a tone you chose from a library of 33 across six groups. Right for the bins, the parking meter, the stretch break — anything where more would be obnoxious.

  2. notif_type 2

    App Call

    Rung two. The phone rings full screen, like an incoming call, inside Timelee. It borrows a habit you already have: you do not swipe away a call, you look at who it is. You still dismiss it in one tap, but you dismiss it knowingly. Marked Recommended in the app, and it costs nothing.

  3. notif_type 3Recommended

    Important

    Rungs one and two in order. The alarm fires. If you do not acknowledge it, the in-app call follows. Two chances at the same reminder, still with no credit spent.

  4. notif_type 4Premium · uses credits

    Phone Call Only

    Rung three on its own. Timelee's servers place an actual phone call to a number you verified. Not a push that looks like a call — a call on the phone network, from outside your phone. Nothing needs to be installed at the other end, which is why it also works for reminding somebody else.

  5. notif_type 5Premium · uses credits

    Critical

    All three rungs, in order, run for you: the alarm, then the in-app call, then a real phone call about ten minutes later if it is still unacknowledged. The one you set for the flight, the tribunal, the dose.

Why the last rung gets through when the others cannot

Rungs one and two are still your phone talking to you, and your phone has many ways to stay quiet. Silent mode. A focus schedule. A battery saver that closed the app overnight. A screen face-down in a bag in another room.

A phone call does not depend on any of that. The call is placed server-side and travels over the normal phone network rather than over data, so it rings with the handset locked, with Timelee closed, and loudly enough to be heard from the next room.

The call speaks in a fixed order: your own pre-text, then "This is your reminder", then the reminder's title, then your post-text. You pick a male or a female voice once and every call uses it. In your language, not the server's.

  • Reaches a phone that is locked, silent or three rooms away
  • Works with the Timelee app closed, or on a handset that never had it
  • Can be pointed at somebody else's number once they have verified it
Read how phone-call reminders work
Someone answering a phone call in a hallway

What Critical actually does, minute by minute

The app describes this preset in its own words: alarm, then in-app call, then a phone call 10 minutes later if missed. Here is the same thing spelled out.

  1. 18:00 — the alarm

    Full screen, your chosen tone. If you acknowledge it here, the reminder is done and nothing else is sent. This is the ordinary outcome and it costs nothing.

  2. Immediately after — the in-app call

    If the alarm went unanswered, your phone rings full screen inside Timelee. Still free, still on your own handset, and still dismissible in one tap once you have actually seen what it is.

  3. 18:10 — the phone call

    Only if both earlier rungs were ignored. Timelee's server dials your verified number and reads the reminder. This is the rung that spends a call credit, and it only happens because the cheap rungs failed.

  4. Any point — you acknowledge

    The ladder ends. Escalation is the app's answer to silence, not to you, so responding at any rung stops everything after it.

Nothing escalates by default. You decide, per reminder, how loud it is allowed to be.

This is what keeps escalating delivery from becoming a gimmick. An app that shouts at everything gets muted, and then you are back where you started with one channel that does not work. Spend the loud rungs on the two or three things a week that earn them.

Email is not a rung

A repeating reminder can be delivered by email instead of a ring, and the message carries the full detail. That is the whole of it. Email is an option on repeating reminders only — it is not the end of the ladder and it is not available on every reminder kind. Timelee also does not send browser or desktop notifications for reminders. The phone does the ringing.

Questions about delivery

How many delivery options are there?

Five on a standard reminder: Regular, App Call, Important, Phone Call Only and Critical. They are built from three underlying rungs — an alarm, an in-app call and a real phone call. Repeating reminders add email as a separate option.

Does the escalation happen even if I acknowledge the first alert?

No. Escalation is the response to no response. Deal with the alarm and nothing further is sent, and no call credit is spent.

What is the difference between Important and Critical?

Important is the alarm followed by the in-app call if you do not acknowledge it, and both are free. Critical adds a real phone call about ten minutes later if the reminder is still unacknowledged, and that last step uses credits.

Will Timelee ring through silent mode?

An alarm behaves like an alarm rather than a notification, and a real phone call rings on the phone network. Exactly how your handset treats silent and focus modes is decided by your phone's own settings, so test it once with a reminder set two minutes ahead.

Can I get reminders by email?

On repeating reminders, yes. Email is one of the delivery options there and the message carries the full detail. It is not available on every reminder kind, and it is not part of the escalation sequence.

Will Timelee send me desktop notifications in the browser?

No, not for reminders. A finished timer can raise a browser notification while the tab is open, and that is the only case. Reminders ring on your phone, including the ones you created on a laptop.

Pick the rung that matches what it costs you to forget

Sign in with Google and set one reminder to Critical this week. Free to start; only the real phone call uses credits.

Start with GoogleRead how phone-call reminders work

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