H3: yes I know, scary. It's what's known as a "red-neck" timer- so that tells you something about my husband. We are definitely replacing it with something like the PF1103T as soon as we can get one. This one is about 15 years old, but it was what we had on hand for a short term solution.
Unfortunately, as nice as the programmable one is, we are on rural electric, which cuts in and out, up and down. So every programmable device in the house has to have a surge protector AND a power conditioner on it to survive- we found that out the hard way with a computer- twice.
We have to use mechanical switches on everything, so that is why I am looking at the mechanical models. We don't have a spa, water features, heater, or anything like that. May possibly go with a heat pump some day, but that is probably several years down the line. Starting with solar first- no power requirements there. Lights and speakers will be on the other side of the pool from the pump on a separate circuit and will only be on when we are in the pool.
Is there anything else that I should be considering as a possible need for timer?