Knowledge base
Plain-language breakdowns of Hubstaff, Time Doctor, Upwork and every other tracker: how they score activity, what they see in screenshots, and how to stay in the green.
These trackers score activity the same way — keyboard and mouse input, the focused window, sometimes screenshots. The ones with quirks worth a paragraph are in the roundup; the rest need no separate guide.
How activity scoring works in general, and why jigglers get caught — whatever the tracker.
The input-pattern signatures monitoring software flags — and why the answer is about rhythm, not hardware.
Breakdown ~7 min
A dongle installs nothing, but that is not what gives it away — the giveaway is the pattern.
Breakdown ~7 min
A flag is usually an automated anomaly report, not a manager. What you can change and what you cannot.
Guide ~7 min
Keys, clicks, scrolls and window focus — the shared scoring model behind most trackers.
Breakdown ~7 min
One honest table of capture channels across the big trackers.
Comparison ~9 min
Time Champ, Jibble and six more: one measurement model underneath, and where each one differs.
Comparison ~8 min
Presence follows your keyboard, not your work — what really flips the dot to yellow and what keeps it green.
Guide ~7 min
Why presence follows device input, what fails, and what actually holds the green dot.
Guide ~7 min
Dongles, desktop jigglers, online movers and presence simulators — what each one does to the numbers a tracker records.
Comparison ~8 min
Where a jiggler holds up, where pattern analysis catches it, and what the difference actually is.
Breakdown ~6 min
A USB dongle installs nothing but repeats one path; software installs but can vary. What trackers really read.
Comparison ~8 min
Why caffeinate and Amphetamine hold the screen but not your activity, and what macOS asks for in return.
Guide ~7 min
Why the power sliders are greyed out on a work laptop, and what still works when Group Policy owns the timeout.
Guide ~7 min
The display server decides what is possible, not the distribution — and xdotool, ydotool and XWayland each stop at a different wall.
Guide ~8 min
It can keep a web app from marking you away; it cannot touch the system idle clock a desktop tracker reads — including on a Chromebook.
Breakdown ~7 min
Idle is a hole in your timeline, not a low number — and keeping the screen awake does nothing about it.
Guide ~6 min
The risk is not criminal but contractual — what company policy and platform terms actually govern.
Breakdown ~8 min
Four unattended ten-minute blocks with the engine verifiably running under live Hubstaff, 74–80% recorded activity — plus what a tracker update can and cannot break, and how to check your own setup.
Guide ~10 min
Four classes of presence tool with very different reach — prices, trial lengths and what a browser tab or a USB dongle simply cannot do.
Comparison ~9 min
The niche’s own reference site says to avoid software jigglers and plug a mechanical one into a wall charger. What that advice gets right, what it misses, and what we measured.
Breakdown ~10 min
From theory to practice
No timers, no fixed 100%. While you are away, a “person” keeps working at your computer — and the moment you touch the mouse, you are back in control.
See how it worksHeld steady while you are away from the desk.
Your activity percentage, in range
Smooth mouse motion and a living key rhythm hold the number in the band you choose — no jerks, no suspicious flat 100%.
Idle time never counts against you
Reaction runs only when the computer is truly idle, so the tracker never logs the gap. Touch the mouse and control returns to you instantly.
Behaves like a person, not a jiggler
The behavior is randomized, familiar apps get their own scenario — tabs, panels, scrolling — and the screen keeps changing, like real work.
Automate your presence
14-day free trial · no charge until day 14 · cancel anytime.
14 days free · $7/mo after
Reaction
