Westminster Chimes Lite

MAR2026 The chimes are great, they help with time-awareness while I’m focused elsewhere. While I like the chimes, they do bother/distract some people in the vicinity. (Which is why I tried the voice version.) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There should be a couple of additional voice options, one with an introductory chime and one without a chime, both with a voice simply saying, “It’s 3 PM.” “It’s 3:15 PM.” “It’s 3:30 PM.” etc.. Example: Chime, then voice announcing “It’s 3 PM.” Simple, precise, quick. Personally, I don’t care for the imprecise phrase “It’s half past the hour.” Which hour?? I was outside of hearing range when it said “It’s top of the hour, 3 o’clock,” 30 minutes ago. Also, “It’s top of the hour” yeah, I’ve never heard anyone use that phrase IRL. Maybe it’s an old English idiom meant to match the chimes? Anyway I’m going back to the chimes and will create yet another Focus so I can turn them off occasionally. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Do I recommend this 99¢ app which does Not collect our personal information? Absolutely! Just bc I want a couple of new features, doesn’t mean I don’t like it.

The hourly chimes were sort of helping so I figured I may as well pay for the upgrades to make the app more customizable for my needs. It was worth the small fee! I am able to have it only run during the hours I want to be productive. Using the voice option to announce the time (rather than have to count the chimes) keeps me from spending an entire day down a rabbit hole. I would love more voice options if the creator ever has the urge to tinker with the app.

The Westminster Chimes app does what I want it to do. It keeps me apprised of the time of day audibly. I have not upgraded to the paid version because I'm happy with the Westminster melody. If there is some other feature the $0.99 would get me, please let me know. I gave the app 4 stars because there are two features I would like to see added: 1. Instead of the three volume settings relative to the system volume, I would prefer a slider that allows a continuous range from almost silent to boom-box loud. 2. I would like the chimes to mute themselves when music or podcasts are playing. Using the mute button is inconvenient because there may be other notifications I want to hear, or more commonly, I forget to unmute the phone after listening to the podcast and miss calls and texts. Overall, this is a great app if you want the time announced audibly or if you miss the grandfather clock in your parents living room.