Swatch Internet Time (or ) is a

decimal time Decimal time is the representation of the time of day using units which are decimally related. This term is often used specifically to refer to the French Republican calendar time system used in #France, France from 1794 to 1800, during the Fre ...

system introduced in 1998 by the Swatch corporation as part of the marketing campaign for their line of ".beat" watches. Those without a watch could use the Internet to view the current time on the watchmaker's website, but now
dedicated wiki
serves the purpose. The concept of .beat time is similar to ''decimal minutes'' in French Revolutionary decimal time. Instead of hours and minutes, in Swatch Time the

mean solar day Solar time is a calculation of the passage of time based on the position of the Sun in the sky. The fundamental unit of solar time is the day, based on the synodic rotation period. Traditionally, there are three types of time reckoning based ...

is divided into 1,000 equal parts called 's, meaning each lasts in standard time, and an hour lasts for approximately 42 .beats. The time of day always references the amount of time that has passed since

midnight Midnight is the transition time from one day to the next – the moment when the date changes, on the local official clock time for any particular jurisdiction. By clock time, midnight is the opposite of noon, differing from it by 12 hours. ...

(standard time) in

Biel, Switzerland Biel/Bienne (official bilingual wording; German: ''Biel'' ; French: ''Bienne'' ; locally ; ; ; ) is a bilingual city in the canton of Bern in Switzerland. With over 55,000 residents, it is the country's tenth-largest city by population. The ...

, where Swatch's headquarters is located. For example, @248 BEATS indicates a time 248 after midnight, or of a day (just over 5 hours and 57 minutes; or 5:57 AM

UTC+1 +01:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +01:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2019-02-07T23:28:34+01:00. This time is used in: *Central European Time * West Africa Time * Western European Summer Time **Brit ...

). There are no

time zone A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, Commerce, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between Country, countries and their Administrative division, subdivisions instead of ...

s in Swatch Internet Time; it is a globally unified timekeeping system based on what Swatch calls "Biel Mean Time" (BMT), the time zone conventionally known as

Central European Time Central European Time (CET) is a standard time of Central, and parts of Western Europe, which is one hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The UTC offset, time offset from UTC can be written as UTC+01:00. It is used in most parts of Eur ...

West Africa Time West Africa Time, or WAT, is a time zone used in west-central Africa. West Africa Time is one hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time ( UTC+01:00), which aligns it with Central European Time (CET) during winter, and Western European Summer Tim ...

. Note that it is based on the time zone and not the actual

mean solar time Solar time is a calculation of the passage of time based on the position of the Sun in the sky. The fundamental unit of solar time is the day, based on the synodic rotation period. Traditionally, there are three types of time reckoning based ...

measured in Biel. Also, unlike

civil time In modern usage, civil time refers to statutory time as designated by civilian authorities. Modern civil time is generally national standard time in a time zone at a UTC offset, fixed offset from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), possibly adjusted ...

in Switzerland and many other countries, Swatch Internet Time has never observed

daylight saving time Daylight saving time (DST), also referred to as daylight savings time, daylight time (Daylight saving time in the United States, United States and Daylight saving time in Canada, Canada), or summer time (British Summer Time, United Kingdom, ...

(DST), even prior to more recent decisions to abandon DST in certain locales.

History

Swatch Internet Time was announced on 23 October 1998, in a ceremony at the Junior Summit '98, attended by Nicolas G. Hayek, president and CEO of the Swatch Group, G.N. Hayek, president of Swatch Ltd., and

Nicholas Negroponte Nicholas Negroponte (born December 1, 1943) is a Greek American architect. He is the founder and chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, and also founded the One Laptop per Child Association (OLPC). Negroponte ...

, founder and then director of the

MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fi ...

. During the summit, Swatch Internet Time became the official time system for Nation.1, an online country (supposedly) created and run by children.

Uses

During 1999, Swatch produced several models of watch, branded "Swatch ", that displayed Swatch Internet Time as well as standard time, and even convinced a few websites (such as CNN.com) to use the new format.

PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared towards web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by the PHP Group. ...

's idate() function has a format specifier, 'B', which returns the Swatch Internet Time notation for a given time stamp. It was also used as a time reference on ICQ, and the online

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, or abbreviated as RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out ...

'' Phantasy Star Online'' used it since its launch on the

Dreamcast The is the final home video game console manufactured by Sega. It was released in Japan on November 27, 1998, in North America on September 9, 1999 and in Europe on October 14, 1999. It was the first sixth-generation video game console, prec ...

in 2000 to try to facilitate cross-continent gaming (as the game allowed Japanese, American and European players to mingle on the same servers). In March 2001,

Ericsson (), commonly known as Ericsson (), is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Ericsson has been a major contributor to the development of the telecommunications industry and is one ...

released the T20e, a

mobile phone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This rad ...

which gave the user the option of displaying Internet Time. Outside these areas, it is infrequently used. While Swatch still offers the concept on its website, it no longer markets Beat watches. In July 2016, Swatch released Touch Zero Two, its second wirelessly connected watch, with Swatch Internet Time function.

Beatnik satellite controversy

In early 1999, Swatch began a marketing campaign about the launch of their Beatnik satellite, intended to service a set of Internet Time watches. They were criticized for planning to use an

amateur radio Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is the use of the radio frequency radio spectrum, spectrum for purposes of non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, private recreation, radiosport, contesting, and emer ...

frequency for broadcasting a commercial message (an act banned by international treaties). The satellite was intended to be deployed by hand from the ''

Mir ''Mir'' (, ; ) was a space station operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, first by the Soviet Union and later by the Russia, Russian Federation. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to ...

'' space station. Swatch instead donated the transmitter batteries for use in normal ''Mir'' functions, and the satellite never broadcast.

Description

The concept was touted as an alternative, decimal measure of time. One of the supposed goals was to simplify the way people in different

s communicate about time, mostly by eliminating time zones altogether. It also does away with the division of the day into 12 or 24 parts (hours), then 60 parts (minutes), then 60 parts (seconds), then 1000 parts (milliseconds). Furthermore, there is no confusion between the AM/PM system and 24-hour time.

Beats

Instead of hours and minutes, the

is divided into 1,000 parts called '. Each lasts 1 minute and 26.4 seconds. One is equal to one decimal minute in French decimal time. Although Swatch does not specify units smaller than one ,

third party Third party may refer to: Business * Third-party source, a supplier company not owned by the buyer or seller * Third-party beneficiary, a person who could sue on a contract, despite not being an active party * Third-party insurance, such as a veh ...

implementations have extended the standard by adding "centibeats" or "sub-beats", for extended precision: @248.00. Each "centibeat" is a hundredth of a and is therefore equal to one French decimal second (0.864 seconds).

Time zones

There are no time zones; instead, the new time scale of Biel Mean Time (BMT) is used, based on the company's headquarters in

. Despite the name, BMT does not refer to mean

solar time Solar time is a calculation of the passage of time based on the position of the Sun in the sky. The fundamental unit of solar time is the day, based on the synodic rotation period. Traditionally, there are three types of time reckoning based ...

at the Biel meridian (7°15′E), but to the standard time there. It is equivalent to

and

, or

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

+1. Like UTC, Swatch Internet Time is the same throughout the world. For example, when the time is 875 , or @875, in New York, it is also @875 in Tokyo. Unlike civil time in most European countries, Internet Time does not observe

, and thus it matches Central European Time during (European) winter and

Western European Summer Time Western European Summer Time (WEST, UTC+01:00) is a summer daylight saving time scheme, 1 hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time and Coordinated Universal Time. It is used in: * the Canary Islands * Portugal (including Madeira but not the Azores) * th ...

, which is observed by the United Kingdom, Ireland, Portugal and Spain's

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; ) or Canaries are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean and the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, Autonomous Community of Spain. They are located in the northwest of Africa, with the closest point to the cont ...

during summer.

Notation

The most distinctive aspect of Swatch Internet Time is its notation; as an example, "@248" would indicate a time 248 after midnight, equivalent to a fractional day of 0.248 CET, or 04:57:07.2 UTC. No explicit format was provided for dates, although the Swatch website formerly displayed the Gregorian calendar date in the order day-month-year, separated by periods and prefixed by the letter ''d'' (e.g. d31.01.99).

Calculation from UTC+1

The formula for calculating the time in from UTC+1 is:

\left\lfloor\frac\right\rfloor,

Where ''h'' is UTC+1 hours and ''m'' is UTC+1 minutes. The result is rounded down.

Start of the day

Example cities across the globe @000 BEATS midnight:

Notes

References

External links

* {{official website
A short description of Internet time

Swatch Internet Time
Time measurement systems Internet properties established in 1998 Units of time Decimal time Swiss inventions 1998 in Switzerland