Watching a certificate count down to expiry taught us that precise timing isn't just a feature - it's essential to understand precise expiry timings.
When we built Chill SSL, showing a certificate as "expires in X days" felt like a clean, helpful solution. It worked well in testing and gave users a simple way to plan ahead.
But once we watched a real certificate reach its final day, we uncovered a flaw in that thinking: our system flipped the status to “Expired” at midnight—even though the certificate remained valid for another 10 hours.
SSL certificates don’t expire at the start of a day—they expire at an exact hour, minute, and second. While our backend had always recorded expiry timestamps with full precision, that detail was never shown in the dashboard where users actually needed it.
Technically, calling a certificate “expired” after midnight was accurate. But it wasn’t useful—especially if a user still had hours left to act. Seeing “expired on 4th May” might prompt urgent action, even if there were several hours of valid coverage remaining.
This was one of those quietly critical gaps: the data was there, just not visible. So we fixed it...
The Solution: Progressive Precision Timing
To improve clarity around expiry, we built a smarter system that adapts the level of detail based on urgency. It’s made up of three parts:
Progressive Precision.
We now increase the display accuracy as expiry nears.
If your certificate has days left, we show days.
When it drops below a day, we switch to hours.
In the final hour, we show minutes.
This helps users instantly gauge how urgent a certificate is without needing to dig into details.
Reverse Progressive Precision.
Once a certificate expires, we flip the model.
Rather than just saying “Expired,” we now show how long ago a certificated expired—e.g. “Expired 4h 26m ago.”
I find that difference really matters. A recently expired cert may have been missed just moments ago. One that expired two weeks ago is a deeper issue. This helps with triaging and prioritising fixes more intelligently.
Smart Display Logic.
Rather than showing time down to the second at all times (which adds clutter), we surface precision only when it’s helpful. For example:
- More than 1 day left → Shows days remaining (e.g. "12 days")
- Less than a day but more than an hour → Shows hours (e.g. "5 hours")
- Less than an hour → Switch to minutes (e.g. "46 minutes")
- Recently expired → Shows precise elapsed time (e.g. "Expired 46 minutes ago")
- Expired longer → Shows contextual timing (e.g. "Expired today", "Expired 3 days ago")\
This helps keeps the dashboard clean, while still surfacing crucial details when they matter most.
Real World Impact
Before vs After
These small timing adjustments could really help teams make better decisions:
E-commerce Platform
- Before: "Certificate expires today" led to renewal during peak traffic
- After: "Certificate expires in 6 hours" enabled planned maintenance window renewal
API Service Provider
- Before: Multiple certificates showing "expires today" created confusion
- After: Clear hierarchy: "18 hours" → "5 hours" → "46 minutes" enables proper triage
SaaS Platform Recovery
- Before: Certificate showed "Expired" with unclear impact duration
- After: "Expired 4h 26m ago" provides immediate understanding of user impact
What's Next
Now that we’ve built second-level precision into our monitoring engine, this allows us to explore other features that require more detailed resolution around SSL monitoring such as:
- Real-time countdown timers
- Predictive analytics based on renewal habits
- Smart suggestions for ideal maintenance windows
- Automated reminders tuned to risk level
This foundation opens the door to even more helpful automation—without adding noise to your dashboard. We hope you like it and would love to hear your feedback.
Experience Precision Timing
See the new precision timing system in action. Check your dashboard to view hour and minute level expiry information for certificates approaching expiry.