The gif is set to only update for 2 minutes. That ends up being around 470KB.

If the size or "page never loading" is an issue you have the option to turn of animations when creating the countdown.

The use case for it is things like forums, where you are limited in what you can embed.

I added a check so now it only sends the first frame to iOS devices.

I asked on Kickstarter and Phil Bosua responded:

"When you launch the app for the first time it guides you through a simple configuration process. You enter your network password and then the device and all lights are paired."

Another alternative, https://github.com/esnme/ultrajson

"Ultra fast JSON decoder and encoder written in C with Python bindings"

From the people that built the Battlefield 3 web portal.

Medium complex object:

ujson encode : 18757.01101 calls/sec

yajl encode : 6315.14030 calls/sec

simplejson encode : 5542.03928 calls/sec

cjson encode : 4651.59072 calls/sec

---------

ujson decode : 10759.69649 calls/sec

simplejson decode : 8148.35221 calls/sec

cjson decode : 7931.04387 calls/sec

yajl decode : 5887.38201 calls/sec

The code will be MIT licensed, just need to get everything worked out. I'll give a shout at @mape on twitter when it is released as well as leave a comment here.