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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[–] 120 points 1 year 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.

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  • [–] 25 points 1 year 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. :-)

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year 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!

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    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.

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  • 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.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Huh. That does sound pretty damn useful.

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

    Id never even heard of it in Canada.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year 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.

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    [+] 42 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)
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    [–] 35 points 1 year 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

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  • [–] 29 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    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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    [+] 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)
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    [–] 20 points 1 year 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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    [–] 17 points 1 year 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.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year 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.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year 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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  • [+] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 child)
  • [–] 6 points 1 year 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.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year 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

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    [–] 10 points 1 year ago

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

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago

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

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    You don't have any clocks in your house or your car? Not even on your microwave?

    I guess I don't have any self control. I'm horrible for scrolling on my phone all day. If I needed it to know what time it is, or had to keep it in the bedroom to use as an alarm clock, I'd be toast.

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    [–] 8 points 1 year 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/

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year 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

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    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.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year 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.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

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

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year 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.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (12 children)

    For older people it was seen as friendly and polite to remind others to change their clocks for daylight savings time. Alot of them probably dont have phones. I grew up pre-internet and the world was a much better place.

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    [–] 4 points 1 year ago (5 children)

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

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    [–] 4 points 1 year 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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    [–] 3 points 1 year 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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    [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    They also spend five minutes explaining driving directions.

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