A timer that rings on a repeating schedule is a genuinely general-purpose tool — "interval timer" just happens to be the name that stuck because workouts were an early popular use. Here are a few other places the same idea applies.
Multi-step recipes often need a check-in more than once — stir the sauce every few minutes, rotate a tray halfway through, punch down dough at intervals while it proofs. A single countdown timer only covers the last step. A repeating bell set to the check-in interval means you can step away from the kitchen entirely and trust it'll call you back when needed.
Many breathing exercises are built around a repeating count — inhale for a count, hold, exhale, repeat. A timer with an audible cue lets you keep your eyes closed and follow the sound instead of watching a clock or checking a phone screen, which somewhat defeats the point of the exercise.
Rehearsing a timed speech or debate round benefits from the same repeating structure — a bell every minute (or every 30 seconds) gives you a live sense of pacing without breaking eye contact with an imagined audience to check a stopwatch. It's a small thing, but rehearsing with the same audible cues you'll have (or wish you had) on the actual day tends to translate better than silent rehearsal against a visual countdown.
A commonly cited guideline for eye strain during long screen sessions is the "20-20-20 rule": roughly every 20 minutes, look at something about 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds. It's easy to agree with and easy to forget in the moment — which is exactly the kind of thing a background timer is good for. The same applies to posture checks: a quiet, periodic reminder is more sustainable than trying to remember on your own during focused work.
In every case here, the value isn't really about counting down to zero — it's the repeat. A single alarm only ever fires once; a repeating bell keeps the cue going for as long as the activity does, without you having to reset it or think about it again.
LoopBell's Interval Timer plays a sound on any repeating gap you set — a few seconds or a few minutes — and keeps going until you stop it. No install, no account, works for whatever you're timing.