Okay, so I got this mechanical watch a while back. Not super fancy, but I really liked it. After wearing it for a few weeks, I started wondering, you know, how accurate is this thing really? Is it gaining time? Losing time? I just got curious.
So, the first thing I did was figure out how to even check it properly. I needed a really accurate time source to compare against. My phone seemed like the easiest bet. Most phones sync their time automatically, right? Good enough for me. I also found one of those time dot is websites, the ones that show the super precise atomic time. Decided I’d use both, just to be sure.
Then came the actual process. It wasn’t rocket science. I decided I’d check it once a day, around the same time each morning. Consistency seemed important. So, every morning, right after my coffee, I’d pull up the time dot is website on my computer or just glance at my phone’s clock.
Here’s what I did:
- I’d ‘hack’ the second hand on my watch. That just means pulling the crown out so the second hand stops exactly at the 12 o’clock position.
- Then, I waited for the reference time (on my phone or the website) to hit the next full minute, like 08:15:00 exactly.
- The moment it hit the zero seconds mark, I pushed the crown back in. Boom, my watch was synced, at least for that moment.
Now, the tracking part. I grabbed an old notebook I had lying around. Didn’t need anything fancy. Each day, around that same morning coffee time, I’d compare my watch time to the reference time again. I noted down the date, and how many seconds my watch was off – was it fast (+) or slow (-)?
Keeping the Records
My notebook looked pretty basic:
- Date: [MM/DD]
- Difference: [+X seconds] or [-Y seconds]
- Notes: (Sometimes I’d add if I wore it all day, or if it sat on the nightstand)
I did this pretty religiously for about a month. Just making that little note each day. It only took like, a minute.
What I found was pretty interesting. My watch tended to run a bit fast, maybe like +5 to +7 seconds a day on average when I wore it constantly. If I left it sitting dial-up on my desk overnight, it seemed to slow down just a tiny bit compared to wearing it. Left it crown-up once, and it slowed down even more. Didn’t expect the resting position to make such a noticeable difference, but there it was in my notes.
After that month, I had a pretty good picture. It wasn’t a certified chronometer or anything, but knowing it consistently gained just a few seconds a day was kinda cool. It meant I just had to reset it maybe once a week or every two weeks to keep it reasonably close.
Honestly, tracking it daily got a bit tedious after the first couple of weeks. But doing it for that initial month gave me a good feel for the watch’s personality, if that makes sense. Now, I don’t track it daily anymore. I just know its pattern. It was a neat little experiment, glad I did it. Gave me a bit more appreciation for the little machine ticking away on my wrist.