PawPrint.net Forum

Just a curiousity... but it seems WT does a better job of calculating and displaying the SWATCH .beat time than a genuine SWATCH watch does.

I was comparing WorldTime to my genuine SWATCH. Noticed a difference of almost 30 seconds between when WT counted up to the next ´Beat´ versus when the SWATCH watch did. For example, WT went from Beat 835 to 836 at 19:03:50 Z. But my SWATCH went from Beat 835 to 836 at 19:04:20 Z-- 30 seconds later.

The interesting point is that I checked the math and WORLDTIME IS RIGHT, the genuine SWATCH is wrong.

Appears to be due to an irregularity in the way you set the correct .beat time on a SWATCH. Instead of precisely setting the difference from UTC, the SWATCH merely lets you set the current .beat off of an independent source -- like their website. So the rounding error occurs at the time of the user input of the .beat time on the watch.

This was done using one of the early generation .beat watches from the year 2000. Not sure if SWATCH has changed the way they set the .beat time or not on newer versions.

Just thought you´d be interested to know. Especially if someone else writes in mistakenly believing that WT is at fault.

Granted, this whole .beat concept is a pretty much useless novelty. UTC is still a far more useful universal time reference. But for those who are curious, the .beat calculation is:
1. Take UTC time [19:03:50].
2. Add one hour, since the .beat meridian in in Beil, Switzerland, 1 time zone east of UTC [20:03:50].
3. Convert to seconds [ ((20*60)+03)*60+50 = 72230].
4. Divide by 86.4, which is the number of seconds in a day divided by one thousand [= .beat 836].