Show HN: Analog Watch

Technology Connections did a really great video on this a few years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeopkvAP-ag

Apparently being raised with analog clocks vs digital changes how one intuits the passage of time.

The classic example of this is when someone sees you check your watch, then they ask the time, and you have to check the watch again to see what time it actually is. A comment is almost always made about how the watch was just checked.

My 18 year old daughter is the same (and also can't read an analog clock). Despite me using "quarter to," "quarter past," and "half past" regularly throughout her life. And we having analog clocks in most communal spaces in our house. And we drilled her on analog clocks for two summers in a row...

Similarly, when I moved from the UK to Canada, people often didn't understand what I meant when I said it was "half ten", which is the common way of saying ten thirty, at least where I grew up.

Long ago I used KDE's "fuzzy clock." the fuzziness was adjustable to as high as "middle of the week," which is funny but not very practical. At a higher resolution it was fun for a while.

Analog clocks are still being taught in schools, at least partially, for their mathematical education purposes. The age at with kids learn to read analog clocks is the same age where kids are skip counting and starting to see numbers in different modes of representations, both of which analog clocks provide, forcing kids to think mathematically in their everyday lives. Further in their math education, it also becomes a helpful jumping off point for understanding modulo arithmetic and non-base 10 counting systems.

There are still analog clocks all over the place in public spaces. Sure, a person probably has their phone on them, but it seems strange that people wouldn't want to know how to read them instead of just seeing them as weird slowly moving art installations.

Analog clocks also have the benefit of being able to better visualize time. A lot of people with ADHD talk about time blindness. One common thing sold to them are analog countdown timers that look like a big pie chart. An analog watch effectively does the same thing, especially a dive watch. The user can see how much time they have instead of needing to calculate it and try to translate that into some kind of meaning. Rarely does anyone need to know the exact time, and the analog clock shines at giving an approximate time quickly, to see progress, without actually ever having to know what time it is. A progress bar for the day, if you will.

One of my favorite watches is one with a single hand and a 24-hour dial. I like it for weekends and vacation. I want a watch, I want to know roughly where I'm at in the day, but I don't want to stress about the minutes.

> Technology has advanced enough that analog clocks have joined polaroid cameras and vinyl records

assumption digital 'more advanced' than analog.

unclear. How digital more 'advanced'? Is regression, not advance.

Analog watch. See gap between minute hand and start of meeting. See gap get smaller. Instant.

Colleague in different time zone? See hour hand -3 steps, faster than "14 - 3 is 11". If digital even have 24 hr time, many no.

Teach kids. Analog visible, easy to read, child can see. Child can turn hands on wooden clock, manipulate. Now plus 1 hour, now plus 1.5 hours. Move long hand forward 1 rotation, 1.5 rotations.

Digital? Teach kids "now plus 90 minutes" digital? Hard math. now plus 90 is now (hour) plus 1 and now (minute) plus 30. Teach kids "now minus 10". Does hour change? Why hour change? why now hour different from now minute? daddy daddy what about now seconds? All abstract, cannot touch. Daddy why move hour number first?

Digital. 1 on microwave less than 99. Where else in world 1 < 99 makes sense? Digital time math crazy.

Watches and clocks just aren't ageing out as quickly as so much other tech. Analog watches also have the advantage of being able to so someone why our clocks are the way they are, by comparing them to solar clocks.

Also it would be a bit to close to Futurama to see e.g. Big Ben get a digital overhaul.

I did find it easier to do but that's because I wear analog watches everyday (I don't need distractions on my wrist).

The other comments did remind me that when asked for the time I always give an estimate quickly and then read the exact time a little later. I almost always round to the nearest minute or quarter of an hour, and almost never read the seconds hand.

Fun game!