Egg timer, hand wash and can be cooled on the counter. Placed in pan with eggs, timer darkens as eggs cook, not to set a timer or guess when the eggs are in. Calculates cooking stages precisely by temperature, not loosely by time reacts to heat just as an egg does and eggs come out just right. Great for soft boiled eggs and the timing was right as the color changed for those who have problems with timing eggs Easy to see colour change when submerged as the pic shown as the timer heats up the red face changes colour, indicating soft, medium, hard and stages in between.