ATU801 – CueTime with Eyal Simko

Hi, this is Eyal Simko and I’m the founder of CueTime. And this is your Assistive Technology Update.

Hello and welcome to your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs. I’m your host, Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to episode 801 of Assistive Technology Update, it is scheduled to be released on October 2nd, 2026.

On today’s show, we are super excited to welcome Eyal Simko to the show. He’s the founder of CueTime and he’s here to tell us how this tool is able to make presenting easier for the presenters and those that put on the presentations. As always, listeners, don’t forget, you can always reach us if you’ve got a question, a comment, or someone we should have on the show. Call our listener line at 317-721-7124 or send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org. Also, don’t forget, there’s lots of other great content and resources on our website at eastersealstech.com. You can find this show, our other podcast, tech tips, blog posts, as well as all of our services. Thank you so much for listening. Let’s go ahead and get on with the show.

Listeners, presenting in front of a crowd is stressful. Planning events with speakers is stressful. There’s a lot of things that go into this planning and putting everything together. When it’s executed well, participants really don’t notice any of it, but when it goes wrong, they notice every little bit of it. Presenting and presentation planning have added challenges for individuals with a range of disabilities from mobility, sensory needs, neurodivergence, just to name a few. Our guest today is the founder of CueTime, and they’re here to tell us how this tool can make the whole process a little less stressful for all involved. Eyal, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, I’m excited to get into talking about CueTime, but before we do that, could you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?

Yes, absolutely. So I’ve been in the events industry for the past 26 years now. I own another company called The One Up Group, which is an event production agency, and we produce large scale, small scale events, and we’ve sort of done everything from social and private to corporate to fundraisers and whatnot.

I always look for better ways to enhance the experience, and this is where we found a sort of gap for presentation technology, we call it confidence technology. And that’s really the birth of CueTime is we found a gap in between how can we make confidence technology a little bit more user-friendly, a little bit more intentional and more assistive in the sense. And so yeah, we developed CueTime. We’ve been around for a year and a half now on the CueTime side, and it’s just very, very exciting to bring a cohesive technology to the environments that we produce.

Nice. I guess the real reason we got you on is let’s talk about CueTime. What is it?

Yeah, so CueTime is the world’s first confidence monitor with a built-in stage timer. So traditionally, if you’re on stage and you’re a keynote speaker, productions will either bring a separate TV monitor just to put the time on there. There’ll be hand gestures, there’ll be some cues that they need to get your attention to. And so we found that it was just very clunky. There’s the legacy technologies that are strictly just timers themselves and they’re just kind of boxy and big and they take up space on stage, and it just really didn’t fit in terms of the aesthetics or design. And so we wanted to minimize the technology that you need to put on stage, but also enhance the confidence technology for the speakers, hence CueTime.

So CueTime really allows us to, the design that we sort of put together is an all-in-one. It’s a confidence monitor with a built-in stage timer. So it’s just easy to deploy super quick, actually within 26 seconds, it’s the fastest deployment confidence monitor and stage timer on the market. It’s clean, it’s sleek, and it really alleviates a lot of the workflow on the backend as well. So when we’re looking at the technology and the product that we’re bringing out into the market, it’s not just to support the speaker on stage, which that’s a huge part of what we’re trying to solve because that basically creates the experience, whether it’s a great one or not, but it also alleviates the workflow for the production team. So we’re looking at it from both sides.

Nice, nice. And I want to dig a little bit more into that. So let’s start with the presenters. What all information can be relayed using CueTime to help presenters?

Sure, absolutely. So most people see CueTime as a timer. We see it as a communication technology. CueTime quietly supports people during high pressure moments. So whether it’s a keynote speaker, an interpreter, teacher, student, someone with ADHD, someone with autism, someone with hearing loss, and we’ve done a lot of fundraisers in the disability space as well and assistive space, the features that we’ve built there is to take away the stress.

When you’re on stage, and you mentioned that you were speaking on stage as well, it could be a high stress moment as well. There’s just a lot of things happening there. There’s some technologies that we’ve taken from legacy items and put it into CueTime. So for example, we have different types of visual cues. We have something called Glow. Glow was the sign because flashing countdowns can be disruptive. Traditional timers often blink aggressively when time expires, they immediately pull the attention away from what you’re doing. We wanted a softer form of communication. So our Glow, for example, it’s a really, really slow pulsating movement and it’s intended to get your attention without really being disruptive.

Also, flashing timing when you’re up there and you already have cognitive load, for example, is not the best sort of tool to use to maybe get someone’s attention in the way you want to. So Glow is one of those features that we have. But people also respond better to maybe colors than the numbers themselves, and so we have progress bars and visual changes. We also have the ability to send messages to the actual speaker. So we have a one-way communication.

And the beautiful part about it is it’s accessibility through design, right? So the way that we design this is everything is in one area. So we’re not overlaying messages above your notes. We’re not taking away your notes to send over a message to you. So we want to keep a speaker in check, and by doing so, we created something that is all in line of sight. And so you have one consistent sight line that allows you to not only see your notes, but also have your confidence technology to understand where you are in your actual presentation.

Nice. No, I love it. I love the accessibility because yeah, you’re right, if you’re presenting and hopefully you’re kind of on a roll and then suddenly something starts flashing… I know for myself, I mean even here doing interviews, my cell phone’s off to a different area, there’s nothing else on the computer because even if you and I are having a great engaging conversation, the minute I see that phone pop up something, I’m going to look over and it’s over. I’m completely lost. So I love that you’re offering those other kinds of ways to be able to assist folks, but still be able to keep them on track and take away… Well, I love the way that you just keep using the word confidence because I know that’s such a big thing.

Oh, absolutely. And it’s like what you just mentioned right now about having multiple screens and just maybe you don’t have ADHD, but your focus kind of changes something else because something else is flashing on a different screen. So to us, we wanted to have a single visual reference point. And when you have that, you get better peripheral awareness, you get a cleaner stage environment, and you basically have more non-disruptive operations. So it just works better.

Oh, most definitely. So how can CueTime help producers, those that put on events, those that plan events, and all those folks that make the things happen that no one ever really seems to notice?

Oh, man. So that’s definitely where it all sort of started. Because I own another company and we produce, I’m the creative director and founder of The One Up Group, we’ve always needed to have this confidence technology. We had multiple monitors, we had the timers, it was messy, it was a lot of cables, took a lot of time to set all of those things up. And so I knew that there was a better way to do that. And in fact, I never wanted to start CueTime, if I’m being really honest with you. I was just on the market looking for a better solution and I just simply couldn’t find it. And so I said, “You know what? Let me design it.” And so I designed it from experience.

This is not a tech company that thinks they found a gap in the market and then they want to capitalize and make some money on it, this really came out of a passion project for me to how do we make our lives from the production standpoint a little bit easier, a little bit better, the workflow is smoother, more seamless? And so what it does is right now production companies will spend on average 15 to 25 minutes setting up the confidence technology in front of the stage, and then they’ll need to start running a bunch of different cables to different monitors, a cable dedicated to your timer, and then you have more patchwork to do in the front of the house.

CueTime solves all of that. As I mentioned, it’s the fastest deployment on the market, that means while it’s in the flight case to being operational in its place in front of the stage is 26 seconds. So there’s nothing that beats that. So for production companies who are doing 10, 15, 20 breakout rooms at a conference, for example, think about the amount of time you’re shaving, spending 20 to 25 minutes per room versus 26 seconds. It also, it declutters your system, and so it’s one singular cable that runs to your confidence monitor, and now you have both your notes or your next slides or whatever it is that you want to see on the confidence monitor, and you have an extremely advanced stage timer with one-way communication messaging all in one.

And so that just from the setup aspect of it obviously is a huge, huge bonus. But legacy timers, for example, I won’t name the names, but legacy timers, there’s an industry standard with a legacy timer where if you’re a keynote speaker, for example, and you’re 45 minutes, I’ll have to tap the module that it comes with 45 times to get to 45 minutes and then hit start. And then the next speaker may be 30 minutes, I’ll have to tap it 30 times to get to 30 minutes and then hit start. I have worked in this industry for 25 years. I have a lot of colleagues and a lot of friends, and the biggest pain point is, is there’s no precision because what happens is as a show director, for example, you have so many cues, audio cues, video cues, lighting queues, backstage, are they ready? Is the next speaker ready?

There’s so many things that you’re counting that a hundred percent of people who are using legacy timers, this is a fact, 100% of show directors or producers or any people that are using legacy timers have missed their cue to start the presenting timer. 100%. And so what this allows us to do is, it allows you to pre-program your entire show before you even get to the venue. So now all you have to do is you’re basically automating your workflow, and so you just have to press next, next, next. You’re not counting how many minutes you need to do and then hit start and whatnot and then estimating, oh, I forgot to start the timer. Why don’t I shave five minutes off because I think that’s about how long it’s been. There’s no precision. And so that’s sort of how it helps on the production side.

But let’s bring it back to the assistive side. Okay, well great, you’ve helped the production side from being quicker, you’ve helped the production side by potentially not forgetting their cues, but what is the assistive methodology behind that or what’s the philosophy behind that? So I talked about Glow, which is one feature that allows you to, for the speaker, how can we sort of non-disruptively get the attention of the presenter while making sure they’re still checked into their presentation?

We have other things like OnCue that we’ve developed. So OnCue, that’s one feature that connects strongly to accessibility. It allows the production team to preload the cues, reminders, messages, and timing points for the entire show. So traditionally, a show director may be expected to hold all the information in their head and remain in the director’s seat for hours without interruption, and so everything sort of relies on this one individual. But that creates a tremendous amount of cognitive pressure and can make the role less accommodating for someone who needs more frequent breaks, experience fatigue, has a medical requirement, or I don’t know, maybe simply needs another team member to provide relief.

So with OnCue, the structure of the show lives inside the system, not inside the human. So any qualified team member can step in, see what has happened, understand what is coming up next, and continue executing the established plan with confidence. So for us, that’s another form of accessibility. It’s not just accessibility for the speaker, we’re also looking at the production side. If somebody has any medical condition or disability that may require them to step aside, it’s about designing a workflow that does not depend entirely on that one individual’s memory or endurance or uninterrupted presence, it allows people to participate in high pressure production roles in a more sustainable and supported way.

So to us, it’s a lower handoff anxiety. It’s like workplace inclusion, flexible participation, reduced cognitive load. I spoke about reduced cognitive load a couple of times. The operator does not need to memorize every cue, time mark, messages or transitions, for example. The system allows the support of a lot of these elements to make sure that there’s just less stress involved from both this presenter or the production.

So another interesting feature that we built is the sharing capability. So a lot of people may prefer to use their own screens, their own phones, their own tablets, maybe it’s preset with settings that allow them to just have better visibility or just a better experience, and so CueTime has something where we’re able to generate these URL links and share it with virtually anybody. And if you get this link, you’ll be able to click it and now the timer is going to live on your device. And so you’re not married or attached to our physical screens, if you wanted to use your iPad or your tablet or your phone or your laptop, however it is that you want, we can share the timer via a URL link and you can simply click it and now experience CueTime on your own device.

And I think that’s very, very helpful to keep obviously production teams in check. So for example, a use case for this would be if my stage manager backstage wanted to track how much time is left, I can simply text him a link, he can click it, and now his phone is tracking the timer. And so you can put your entire production crew in sync in that manner and they can use their own devices and set however they feel is optimized for themselves to stay on track.

Oh, most definitely. Yeah. And all the things you mentioned, I mean as well as just, and I’m sure the listener’s got this, just the anxiety of staying on all those cues, all those different pieces-

My God, yeah.

… all those different parts and everything. And even just from the setup standpoint of, because we do full day trainings here and I mean, they’re not big, they’re not huge, they’re kind of in a little conference room, but I mean, in order to stream them online to keep everybody on pace, yeah, there are, I don’t want to think about how many different cords you have to set up and everything else and wire all these pieces together and make sure. And then the next presenter wants to use their own laptop and it’s like, no, no, no, the presentation’s over here. This is all set up. This all works. No, no, no, no, no, we can’t do that.

And then someone plays a video and, oh my gosh, the sound isn’t coming through or something else isn’t coming through. How do we change that? So just being able to take those pieces off just saves so much, even without a disability, saves so much anxiety, so much work. But then yeah, like you said, between the cognitive load, if I’m neurodivergent, anything like that, being able to have those things all streamlined, know they’re taken care of, is just a huge help to where if other issues probably come up, they’re much easier to deal with because you’re not worrying about everything else, you’re not worrying… And I mean by someone showing up late, other things that can come up that aren’t related to everything else.

Yeah. Look, I think the biggest thing that I probably see is accessibility isn’t only about disability. When someone hears accessibility, they’re like, “Oh, there’s some disability involved and there’s additional technology and whatnot.” To us, it’s more about reducing friction for everyone. So technology shouldn’t demand attention, it should give the attention back. And there’s so many ways that you can do that. To me, the best technology isn’t technology that people notice, it’s technology that quality helps someone perform at their best. Technology should actually disappear in the production process and just feel more organic and more harmonious, more cohesive for both, speakers and production teams. And so that’s sort of our philosophy and how we look at that.

Awesome. And I know there’s a few different versions of CueTime. What are maybe just quickly the differences between them or are some more appropriate for maybe different kinds of events or anything like that?

Absolutely. So we’ve designed them for various environments. And so we have CueTime Elite, which is an enclosure again, and it comes in 43-inch TV monitors and 55-inch TV monitors. And those are meant to live off-stage. It’s perfectly angled. And so if you’re on stage, it’s got the perfect angle for visibility. And again, it’s designed with line of sight. So you’ll have your stage timer built right above your confidence monitor. So it’s just one singular line of sight.

And then we also have the Elite LP. The LP stands for low pro, and so some people may want the actual confidence monitors to live on stage. You may not have a lot of room and space in front of the stage, and so the Elite LP solves that problem. You can place that on the stage. It’s super low pro. It’s about 13 point something inches off the ground, so if you’re doing IMAG and if you’re presenting, you don’t have this really bulky piece of item in front of you. And by the way, the Elite LP also comes in 43 inches and 55-inch TV monitors.

And then we also have the Pro, and the Pro is just a standalone timer. And so some legacy timers, and a lot of people still like to use that legacy timer, this sort of solves that problem as well. We have a 24-inch, just a stage timer, and we have a 16.5 inch, so for smaller, more compact places. And then on all of our stage timers, you have the ability to send messages to the screen and flash them or Glow them. You also have different visual cues, as I mentioned, so progress bars and colors, and green is counting down, and red is counting up. And as we’re getting closer, you see the progress bar heading towards yellow. And so it allows you to visually pinpoint where you’re at in the program as well.

That’s awesome. Can you maybe tell us a story?

Yeah, sure. Absolutely. So actually, I go back to this one example always because it was just such an interesting way to send a communicational cue to a speaker. So we were working with a company, it’s a Fortune 100 company, and we do all of their events. And their CEO is phenomenal, he is truly a phenomenal speaker and commands the room, speaks very loudly into the microphone. It’s one of those things where you never have to say, “Oh man, what is he going to do next?” He really just knows how to present.

And so we’re in New York and we’re presenting, and he’s rehearsing, and again, he’s commanding the stage and roaming around and everything, and as soon as the event started, he just froze and was just on the side of the stage speaking, did not move, didn’t do anything, and it felt a little bit awkward. And so the communication director from the company ran over to the front house and said, “Hey, we really need this guy to start roaming around the stage. It’s really uncomfortable.” And so within five seconds, we threw up a message on the timer saying, “Roam the stage.” And in the most natural way possible, he stayed into his presentation and began roaming the stage and just everything just took shape.

Nice.

And that’s the beauty of having this one-way communication built in a way where it’s strictly line of sight, where we never took him out of his element, we just gave them a quick little nudge in terms of how can we enhance the experience for both the audience and himself to own that stage. So that’s sort of one of those things where, and it was really early on when we introduced CueTime, and that was the final moment where like, wow, before this, we would have to overlay some message over his notes, and speakers really hate that because if he’s really into his notes and he’s reading something and now I’m overlaying something and I’m covering something, that creates stress, that could throw you off.

And so it was such a seamless way to get something to be done on stage in such a fast, easy manner was just really, really… What’s the word I’m looking for? It really validated. It validated the whole concept philosophy and design behind CueTime. And I love that moment because it was so easy to do and create, and the client was just so happy and astonished like, “Oh my God, how did you do that?” And, “Well, CueTime.” And so now this Fortune 100 company, for example, has it in their offices so when they’re training and rehearsing for these shows, they’re using our technology now too. So it’s a beautiful sort of moment.

That is awesome. Whenever our listeners want to find out more about CueTime and check it out for themselves, what’s a good way for them to do that?

Absolutely. So if you check out our website, it’s cuetime.io, C-U-E-T-I-M-E.io. There you’ll be able to see a lot of the videos of how it works and the integrations and whatnot. And so for the people that are in production that are listening, CueTime is much more than just a stage timer. It’s integrated with Crestron and Q-Sys and Bitfocus Companion, which actually is another thing. Some people are very more tactical. They need buttons. And so our screens are touchscreens, but we also integrate with stream decks where it’s more tactical and has buttons and it has fields, and so you can run your entire show that way as well. So yeah, cuetime.io, that’s where you can find a lot more information and you can order directly or even just speak with one of our techs and get more information, set up a demo. We’re always here and we’re very excited to introduce this.

Perfect. Well, thank you so much for coming on today for telling us about CueTime, how it can help really anyone. And I love something important that I just want to stress that you said there, when accessibility really works, it just works for everybody. So thank you so much for coming on, for telling us about it. And listeners, we’ll put links down in the show notes so that you can easily go and check it out for yourselves.

Awesome. Thank you so much. Really, really appreciate the opportunity to talk to you guys today.

Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on an assistive technology update? If so, call our listener line at 317-721-7124. Send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or shoot us a note on Twitter @INDATAProject. Our captions and transcripts for the show are sponsored by the Indiana Telephone Relay Access Corporation or INTRAC. You can find out more about INTRAC at relayindiana.com.

A special thanks to Nikol Prieto for scheduling our amazing guest and making a mess of my schedule. Today’s show was produced, edited, hosted, and fraught over by yours truly. The opinions expressed by our guest are their own and may or may not reflect those of the INDATA Project, Easterseals Crossroads, our supporting partners or this host.

This was your Assistive Technology Update, and I’m Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. We look forward to seeing you next time.

Bye-bye.