Idle, locks, and meetings

Idle timeout

If you don’t touch the keyboard, mouse, or trackpad for a while, Vetroscope stops counting active time until you’re back. The threshold is Settings → Activity Tracking → Idle timeout — Defaults to 5 minutes but can be configured to larger idle timeout thresholds.

While you’re idle:

• Active tracking pauses and no time accumulates.
• Passive tracking continues so music and background media are still recorded.

Meetings and calls

When you’re on a voice call that utilizes a microphone (Zoom, Discord, Mircosoft Teams) Vetroscope can tell you’re present even though your hands are off the keyboard, and keeps counting the time. A meeting where you only listen and speak won’t show up as a hole in your day. If this system fails, and there is a hole in tracking data from appearing inactive during a meeting, it may be possible to dispute that idle time in the Vetroscope timeline.

Locked screen

Locking your screen stops everything: no active time, no passive media, nothing. The same applies when the machine sleeps.

If idle detection is incorrect

Sometimes you were present but not touching the computer, reviewing a cut, or reading a document without actively using the device. If the same app/breakdown borders both sides of an idle gap, you can right-click the idle region on the Timeline and choose Dispute idle time to fill it. There’s a matching tool for the opposite mistake — Dispute time block which is for removing small timeblocks, like when your computer wakes up overnight. Both are covered in Timeline.