Google Search’s built-in timer seems to have stopped working – Times of India

Google introduced this feature for the Search engine in 2013 which had nothing to do with web browsing. The built-in feature in Google Search allowed users to set timers for a period (for example “set a timer for 14 minutes”) or until a specific time of the day (like “timer until 2 pm) when searched for. In doing this, Google used to create a widget and automatically started the countdown.
According to a report by AndroidPolice, the Google Search timer has stopped working entirely for desktop users and partially for mobile users. The report states that as users started “spending loads of time on Google,” the timer helped them “keep track” of the time spent surfing the internet.

What happened to the Google Search timer
The feature is not completely gone as users can give their smartphones a voice command (either through Search or Google Assistant) to set up a timer and it will work, partially. On Android devices, Google will create a notification widget using the phone’s Clock app and set the needed timer.
However, when users enter a text command on either mobile or desktop to set a timer it won’t work anymore. The report mentions that there’s some hope that Google Assistant might build the bridges to fill the gap and the company might reveal more about the feature in a Pixel Feature Drop very soon.

The tech giant has not shared any official information about removing this feature. However, the report suggests that the Google Search timer is “obsolete” and unnecessary as nowadays, there are multiple devices and software platforms available.
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