A professional competition timer for €0: how tuarco.com's Timer works
The official system costs €3,000. Ours costs exactly €0. If you're a director of shooting, judge, club secretary, or simply the volunteer who ends up organising competitions, this article is for you.
The problem nobody talks about out loud
Most archery clubs in Spain don't have a competition timer. What they have is a phone with a stopwatch, a volunteer shouting out the seconds, and the hope that nobody complains.
Professional systems — the ones you see at major competitions with synchronised screens, regulation beeps and automatic group changes — start at €2,500–3,000 for the basic hardware. A budget that's out of reach for the vast majority of federated clubs.
So I built one.
What is the tuarco.com Timer?
It's a timing system for archery competitions that runs entirely in the browser. No installation, no account creation, no proprietary hardware.
What you need:
- A phone (any one that opens a browser) → field director's control panel
- One or two WiFi-enabled TVs → countdown screen for the archers
- WiFi connection in the venue
That's it.
How it works in 30 seconds
- The field director goes to
tuarco.com/timerand taps "New session". They receive a 4-letter code. - The TVs open the same URL and enter the code. The clock syncs instantly.
- The director sets the prep time and shooting time, the round name, and the competition mode.
- They tap "Start" and the prep countdown begins on all devices simultaneously, with the regulation beep.
End to end, without reconfiguring anything. The session lasts 24 hours.
Three competition modes
Normal mode
The classic: a single group shooting at the same time. The screen shows the countdown, changes colour in the final seconds, and plays a triple beep at the end.
AB/CD mode
Two groups (A+B and C+D) alternate within the same end. The system automatically manages the second group's prep time while the first group finishes. When the changeover moment arrives, the regulation signal sounds and the clock starts for the next group without any intervention from the director. Group order reverses automatically with each new end.
Individual mode (alternate shooting)
For play-offs and elimination rounds. Each archer has their own independent time. The director passes the turn with a tap and the system saves each competitor's remaining time.
Regulation beeps included
The system uses the browser's Web Audio API, with no external audio files:
| Moment | Signal |
|---|---|
| Start of prep | 2 short beeps |
| Start of shooting | 1 long beep |
| Group change (AB/CD) | 2 short beeps |
| End of end | 3 short beeps |
Languages
Available in 8 languages: Spanish, English, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Korean and Japanese.
Why it's free
My name is Joaquín, I'm from Ibiza, and I'm an archery practitioner. A couple of years ago I started building tuarco.com as a digital toolset for the sport: training diary, athlete tracking, club scoring... The timer is one more tool in the set.
A grassroots club shouldn't have to pay €3,000 to have the same clock as the National Championship. Now they don't have to.
Try it now
No registration needed. Go to tuarco.com/timer, create a test session and open the display in another tab. In 30 seconds you'll understand how it works.
If you use it at your next competition and have feedback, reply to joaquin@tuarco.com or on Instagram at @tu.arco.