Where's the "Start Timer" button on the at-home covid test?

I used the timer on my phone.

Like @jca2, the ones I have done have an app for my phone that include timers.

I used the timer on my microwave.

I used the timer on my stove. The one I used did not say anything about having a start timer button.

There wasn’t anything on mine about a timer button either.

No, theres no timer included. The ubiquity of them in day to day life precluded the need to add that complexity to these life saving tools. Use whatever you have, cell phone, oven, microwave, siri, kitchen timer, etc.

Mine had a small sand hourglass of 15 minutes. Very kool keepsake.

I used my watch. Kind of old school, but effective

I used a kitchen timer. I probably have 40 timing or time-measuring devices in the house, so I don’t need help finding one. But the instructions said start the timer, without mentioning where it is.

A homeless person living in an encampment and given a self-test might not have an electronic device to substitute.

My question is really about the faulty instructions. If you didn’t have that instruction, I guess you had a different self-test, or an updated one.

Maybe it is on the app if you used that as @canidmajor did? I haven’t but that’s where it likely is.

I currently have 3 different brands of tests on hand; the ones I bought, the ones I had sent to me from the government, and the ones the pharmacy gave me when I got my second booster. I haven’t open all 3 brands, but I could only speak to the one I have used, which very obviously had an app. It was On/Go.

And mine were also negative, which leads me to wonder how the hell I caught a cold.

ETA, one of the brands is iHealth, and on two sides of the package there is QR code, and instructions on finding the app in the App Store. That must be to what they are referring.

I’m much more stubbornly retro than you two ^^^. I have never knowingly and voluntarily installed an app of any kind. I simply don’t trust those things. I don’t do QRCs or pay bills with my phone or deposit checks or anything else of the sort. So I didn’t even think of that. Luckily the test itself didn’t require it.

Someday no doubt I’ll be forced to capitulate, but not yet, not yet. I take a grim satisfaction in being a holdout. Paper and pencil will still work when all the lights go out.

@Jeruba: I didn’t use an app. I just used the regular timer on my phone.

Well, @Jeruba, at least now you know where the “Start Timer” button is! ;-)

@Jeruba I didn’t download the app either but I did figure out what they were referring to!

It doesn’t have to be exactly 15 minutes. I just look at a clock.

It doesn’t have to be exactly 15 minutes, so any timer will do really. Though you can get a false positive after 30 minutes. Had a mild heart attack yesterday before googling this.

@Forever_Free Which brand came with a little hourglass?

@raum Covid Sneer At Home