Some of us (but not all) remember a world where clocks didn’t always tell the right time.
That world is disappearing into the rear-view mirror. With fewer and fewer exceptions, our timepieces connect to the internet and are set by a distant atomic clock.
This goes doubly for our mobile devices: cell phones, smart watches, WiFi tablets.
We’ve already got one or two generations who won’t grok the concept of “synchronizing our watches”. They’ll figure telling time — meaning the precisely correct time — is the very definition of a timepiece.
Pretty soon, this mindset will start distorting historical fiction. Young writers of, say, World War II drama will describe a split-second commando raid where the leader, in preparing, doesn’t order his unit to sync watches. Because the writer won’t know this used to be essential! (Any oversight of this nature is an anachronism.)
Cheri and I still have to reset the clocks on our stove and microwave oven, any time we have a power outage. And a few still need tweaking for Daylight Saving Time. But these outliers are on their way out!
3 responses to “Clocks That Don’t Always Tell the Right Time”
I wear a totally disconnected analog watch. I had another one that was ruined by whoever changed the battery on it last time–didn’t close the back properly and water got in. It was supposed to be a diver’s watch (although I don’t dive) so I didn’t think much of it when getting in the sea or the pool but later it fogged up and stopped working. Now, I have another similar but not so fancy watch. I am tempted by that Apple Watch, but we have discussed this before. I am a late adopter, so maybe in a few years, I will revisit.
We have a wall clock–battery operated, although I would have preferred a wind-up kind–that is also disconnected. And we have several other clocks around the house that are not connected, just like the microwave and the oven. The only clock that automatically sets itself is an alarm clock we have by the bed. It sets itself by simply being plugged in. It doesn’t access the internet in any way, but somehow calculates the time from the electricity itself. I find it quite fascinating. Other than our phones and computers that one is the only self-syncing clock.
Honestly, I prefer that clocks sync themselves. Time is, in many ways, a shared concept. It’s like that joke about fax machines. They are only useful when others have them too. But I also like analog clocks and old-fashioned timepieces.
Fascinating observations, Dev. I didn’t know a clock might set itself from the electricity. There exist, however, broadcast signals that come directly from various atomic clock stations, and which emit time signals. My wife has a clock that accesses such a signal — there’s no Internet connection. Is it possible your self-syncing clock is checking that broadcast signal, rather than one incorporated into the electric current? (Not that a time-stamp could not be carried in the current; I think it very much could. Household wifing can carry Ethernet signals, so why not?)
Mostly, I like not having to worry about the correct time. But on some level, I miss winding my watch, as I once did: One develops a certain awareness of time, and intimacy with the time-piece, that you don’t get with a phone. Even though I’m clearly over-bonded to my phone in hundreds of other ways! ≧◔◡◔≦
Yeah, I have seen the ones that access the sync broadcast to set their time. The one we have isn’t like that. It mentioned in the product literature that it uses some signal embedded in the A/C phase that lets it set the time. And I have seen devices you mention that can connect to the internet simply by plugging in: ethernet signals via electrical wiring. I was quite impressed by that too.