There are hundreds of spring wound timers but 99% are made for bathroom fart fans where you want something to turn on for a short time. This one lets you turn something off for a set time as well. Why you ask would someone need that? Well first off, all off-grid solar cabins can maximize their system by shutting off their refrigerator when everyone goes to bed. The fridge is the only thing sucking power at night when the solar isn't generating. This timer rocks for that and the almost 7 hour range is perfect as you want the fridge to come back on before people start wake up. In our case, we have an annoying machine, a commercial ice maker, that chooses to make a horrific noise of crashing ice against metal right when the wedding nuptials are spoke or a speaker is trying to address the audience. We have yet to find one smart human who can remember to plug back in the ice maker after the event, resulting in a melted ice disaster every time. This timer even fixes another stupid human problem by NOT having the hold feature available. Humans would randomly spin the knob and magically land on the hold feature with other timers, thus defeating the entire purpose of the timer. Lastly, the range of 6-7 hours is perfect for machine off operation. 24 hour timers are way too long. 1 hour timers are way too short. Someone really thought this product out and the look is nice too. Bravo !!