Backgrounds and kiosk mode

The stage of Focus Room shows a slowly moving picture. It is not a video: it is drawn on your device from a few numbers, and it repeats without a visible seam.

Pick a background

Open the Background tab. The gallery shows nine backgrounds:

• Drifting fog — soft clouds of light,
• Aurora ribbons — curtains of light over a starry sky,
• Ocean caustics — rippling light like sunlight on a sea floor,
• Rain on glass — drops running down a window in front of blurred city lights,
• Starfield and nebula — drifting stars and slow clouds of colour,
• Zen sand ripples — raked sand around stones with a slow sweep of light,
• Lava lamp — glowing blobs rising and sinking,
• Slow Lissajous — interlaced curves turning through their phases,
• Forest light rays — sun rays and floating dust between tree trunks.

Click one, or move through the gallery with the arrow keys. The key G switches to the next background from anywhere.

Seed, colours and speed

• Seed decides where every cloud, drop and stone is. The same seed always draws the same picture; New seed draws another one. The seed is saved with the room, so a shared room looks the same for everybody.
• Colours keeps the Background's own colours or applies one of eight themes, for example Ocean or Ember.
• Speed slows the motion down or speeds it up; Still image stops it.
• Frame rate limits how often the picture is redrawn. 15 frames per second (lowest power) is plenty for slow scenes and saves battery.

React gently to the sound lets the picture breathe a little with the loudness of the room. Show the clock and 24-hour clock control the large clock.

If your system asks for reduced motion, Focus Room does not animate the background. It shows still pictures that crossfade every 20 seconds instead.

Kiosk mode

Press Kiosk mode in the top bar, Start kiosk mode in the Background tab, or the key K. The stage fills the whole screen with the clock and, while a timer runs, the current phase. A row of buttons at the bottom lets you go to the previous or next scene, play or pause, start the timer, change the background or Leave kiosk mode.

After a few seconds without mouse or keyboard input the buttons and the mouse pointer fade away. Move the mouse or press any key to bring them back. Esc leaves kiosk mode.

While something plays in kiosk mode, Focus Room asks the browser to keep the screen awake. The request ends when you pause, leave kiosk mode or switch to another tab. Some browsers ignore it or ask first.

On a second monitor

Open Focus Room in its own browser window, drag it to the second monitor and press K. Use Space to pause and T to start the timer without leaving your work for long.