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I haven't used a clock in years that I need to manually reset. Older people don't seem to realize clocks on phones and other devices reset automatically.

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[–] [email protected] 119 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Had to reset the clock on my stove, microwave, coffee maker, and cars.

It’s no where near obsolete as you seem to imply.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago

Stove, microwave, and two battery-operated dial clocks here. I didn't go anywhere today, so I'll find out in the morning if the car needs it. I honestly don't remember. The Rice cooker just cycled back to correct. :-)

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Here in germany i think there's a radio signal being transmitted on a dedicated frequency that does nothing but distribute the current time information to digital devices. It's really useful!

[–] rc__buggy 16 points 1 month ago

It's everywhere, but not all devices have the radio

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

That's existed since at least the 60's, maybe even earlier.

And electric clocks used to get their timing from the frequency of the electrical system, and power companies would compensate for any daily variations by changing the frequency over night so any timing systems would be back in sync.

Commercial buildings often used these kinds of clocks.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Are you sure you're talking about the same thing as me? Sounds like devices use the 50/60 Hz grid frequency instead of an internal resonator/frequency generator to count forward the seconds. But it doesn't tell the device "what time is it now" when you first switch it on.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Huh. That does sound pretty damn useful.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DCF77

Id never even heard of it in Canada.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Most of us don't bother with that. The only clock I manually change is the one on my car. The other appliances are always blinking 00:00 from whenever the last power outage was.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Mostly all of those too, except my cars. My cars grab their time info from GPS and update automatically. Have for the past few cars I’ve had, but they’ve all been German.

[–] anomnom 2 points 1 month ago

My stove did need setting, but my 84 yo father in law’s car did set itself.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

You don't have a car, oven, or microwave that isn't internet connected?

This is the worst timeline

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Some devices doesn't need internet.

If they can count the days of the years, its possible the DST fuction is already built in.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 month ago

Older people don’t seem to realize clocks on phones and other devices reset automatically.

That's not it.

In times before there were things like cell phones and auto updating clocks, people would use the upcoming change as a conversational item to interact with each other socially about.

Kind of like how people sometimes talk about the upcoming weather.

~This~ ~comment~ ~is~ ~licensed~ ~under~ ~CC~ ~BY-NC-SA~ ~4.0~

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I remember back when clocks were essentially sticks in the ground, you had to manually drag the sun across the sky by a few degrees to change the time. Those were the days, twice a year.

pepperidge farm remembers

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago (7 children)

The real conversation is why the fucking fuck are we still doing the time change shit??? Push your local representative to get their head out of their ass and vote to stop day light savings bullshit. I thought it was passed already and waiting to be instilled but apparently I was wrong and the fucking bill is still stuck in congress.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago

My cellphone changes automatically and so does the alarm clock that we never use. But the stove, microwave, decorative clock, and thermostat all need to be changed manually. And I still have a VCR and know how to set the time on it but it doesn't update automatically.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

All the clocks in my house became correct today. You think I'm changing them twice a year when I can just subtract one??

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

my only manually-set clock is correct again. well, it's off 12 hours and flashes but the numbers are right.

power went out for a few seconds a number of years ago at exactly 12noon (they switched over some equipment or something; a planned event). never bothered to 'set' the time since i don't use its alarm anymore anyway.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

clocks on phones and other devices reset automatically.

Fun fact, once my country decided to end daylight savings abruptly, and apparently propagating this info to phones isn't exactly trivial?
So on the day they would start, some phones jumped 1 hour forward, some didn't, seemingly randomly. That was a fun one.
I've stopped trusting automatic time adjustments since then.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Most likely a software update should've arrived from your phone's OS vendor, to update the machanism that automatically changes the hour per a specific country/region. My guess is those phones that continued to switch to DST never got the update.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah, I suppose the issue lies with the fact that something like this shouldn't be tied to OS updates, specially in Android land where most manufacturers stop offering them long before the devices become obsolete.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Indeed, but it is a bit hard to disable DST without some sort of "intervention" from the manufacturer. The code to change DST is already in the phone, at the time when you buy. And let's assume at a later time, a country decides to abandon DST. The code in your phone needs to be altered by the manufacturer to disable this. Which happens via updates

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (2 children)

My “smart” microwave lets me sync time from my phone on demand, but can’t support ntp. Thanks, LG.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

it will truly be a great day for humanity when our smart microwave can display accurate time derived from literally differences in things travelling the speed of light and atomic decay with redundant backups and systems designed to withstand nuclear war

a great day indeed

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

The best feature from my new microwave was the ability to turn off both the standby clock and the beeping. Revolutionary.

Sidenote: I hope someone manages to work out what protocol LG uses, so you can have your microwave continuously display time 13:37 or something else dumb lol

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

i do similarly, i remind people this is nonsense and we shouldn't be changing ours clocks automatically or otherwise twice a year

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

I have a digital watch and a stove clock and microwave clock.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

Haha I almost 100% agree. Alas I do have a stove and microwave clock that requires resetting but it’s kind of hilariously obvious that I need to update them each time. I come into the kitchen and think “oh yeah…” :D

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

I'm 42 years old, and I have a fairly new watch, a Casio WS-1300H. Made in like 2022 I think. It's not smart, if anything it's just as dumb as a watch from 30 years ago.

But it runs on a button cell battery, said to have a battery life of like 10 years, as long as you don't use the backlight too often.

Yes, I had to manually change the option for Daylight Savings Time, but they make it really easy to do, it's all in the manual.

https://www.casio.com/za/watches/casio/product.WS-1300H-8AV/

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Sure, most of my clocks auto set, but not everything does. I had to manually set the clock on my stove, coffee pot, microwave, etc.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I just let them stay silly until they're correct again

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That's no way to live, son

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Time is just an illusion we created to fool ourselves into thinking is important.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

There was a period of time when some devices did the change automatically, while others needed you to manually do it. Given that you could be late for something important, it makes sense to check whether your devices are up to date. For example, my phone will change it on its own, but my fitness tracker needs to sync with my phone to do it, so it would be easy to forget and find myself running to a late appointment.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

My doctor is younger than me, and she wouldn't shut up about needing to change the clocks.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

My car has two clocks and one automatically changes (I assume CarPlay) and the other has a setting that turn dst on or off.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (5 children)

My car clock needs moving still, and it's slower because it's analogue for some reason

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Even Doc Brown had to change the clock in his car.

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[–] Mouselemming 4 points 1 month ago (3 children)

My car's clock needs manual resetting, so does my old radio alarm that turns on NPR in the morning. Coffeemaker, microwave, and oven all have clocks, and the wall clock of course. Most of these, I never use as a precise time reference, because they run slow or fast. They're more for timing food or laundry, or counting the seconds while I grind coffee.... Except one day I will glance and think I have a lot more time than I really do, so best to make sure they are at least close to correct.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

They also spend five minutes explaining driving directions.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I'm actually glad I didn't notice to change my mechanical watch, it helped me understand which way the time shifted - even after a day of post-incident investigation and report writing where I had to convert PST to UTC and back..

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