Facet is a menu bar app for macOS, and a system tray app for Linux, that pairs with a TimeFlip2 tracker. Give each of the device's twelve faces a category, then put the device down on the face you are working on. The timer follows the device, so there is no timer to remember to start and none to remember to stop.
The user guide is a page per tab of the Settings window: assigning the faces, making categories, reading the report, Facet's own preferences, and pairing the device.
How Facet is different
Most other trackers for this device treat a face as the thing you are working on: you name face 4, and face 4's time is reported under that name. That holds right up until the ticket you were on closes and the next one starts, which for anybody working out of JIRA, Linear or an issue tracker of any kind is roughly every other day.
Facet keeps the face and the activity apart. A face holds nothing but a pointer to a category, and the time is recorded against the category, never against the face. Starting the next ticket points face 4 at a different category instead of renaming anything: JIRA-1256 keeps its six hours, JIRA-1264 keeps its own six, and both totals are still right a year later. That is the decision the rest of the app is built around.
What it does
- Follows the device. Turning it ends one stretch of time and begins the next, over Bluetooth, without touching your computer.
- Sits in the menu bar or tray. The icon's colour says what mode Facet is in, and hovering over it says what is running and for how long, without a window open.
- Reports by day or range. Totals per category, and every individual stretch underneath, from your own daily reset time rather than from midnight.
- Keeps your history on your computer. A plain SQLite database in your own user folder (Application Support on a Mac,
~/.local/share/Faceton Linux), which you can read with any tool that opens one. - Optionally writes to Google Calendar. Off unless you turn it on, and covered in the privacy policy.
Where it is up to
Facet itself is finished, near enough. Everything on this page works and is meant for real use rather than for trying out, and what is left is the ordinary business of fixing whatever turns up.
It runs on macOS and on Linux. The same app on both: an icon in the menu bar on a Mac and in the tray on Linux (tested on Linux Mint with the MATE desktop), one Settings window, and the same recorded time.
Version 0.1.0 is ready to download. Both builds include the Google Calendar connection, which is off until you turn it on. The checksum for each is beside it: macOS and Linux.
macOS: Facet-0.1.0-macos.dmg, 26MB, one build for both Apple Silicon and Intel. It is built for macOS 11 or later and has been tested on macOS 26. Open the image and drag Facet onto the Applications shortcut beside it.
The first launch is refused, and that is expected. This build is not notarized by Apple, so macOS says it cannot check it for malicious software. Open System Settings > Privacy & Security, scroll to the bottom, and press Open Anyway beside Facet. That is once; every launch after it is normal. macOS will then ask whether Facet may use Bluetooth, which it needs to follow the device. The Read Me inside the image says the same, and also that Facet lives in the menu bar, with no window and no Dock icon until you open Settings.
Linux:
Facet-0.1.0-linux-x86_64.tar.gz, 16MB,
for 64-bit Linux with glibc 2.39 or newer, which is Ubuntu 24.04 and Linux Mint 22 and later.
It has been tested on Linux Mint 22.3 with the MATE desktop and no other. Unpack it and run
facet-linux. The README inside lists what it needs, which includes BlueZ and a
system tray that can show StatusNotifierItem icons.
To build Facet yourself instead, the FacetApp repository's README says how on each platform.
A central server is under active development too, one you host yourself, so a team's recorded time can be reported together instead of one computer at a time. It is at facet-server. Facet does not need it: nothing about the app changes if you never run one, and your time stays in the SQLite file on your own computer either way.
Support
Questions, faults and anything else: facet@tux.com.au.
Who makes it
Facet is built by Harry Phillips in Australia. It is an independent app: it is not made by, endorsed by, or affiliated with TimeFlip Sp. z o.o., who make the tracker, or with Google.