Originally Posted by
CargoDane
Watches - even electronic ones - drift. And since most of our phones are connected to the internet anyway, it would be "dumb architecture" to not make it synchronise with an atomic clock over the internet. And most people don't turn off their phone every day either, nor feel like setting it every day.
I have a front light for the bike (a Trelock LS760 Vision) which has an integrated clock (in addition to showing how many hours is left on the chosen brightness setting). The clock is absolutely useless, as after a day or two of non-use, it is already more than half an hour wrong. After a week, it's hours wrong. A fortnight, and it's inching in on having day as night and vice versa.
I don't actually see the point of having a clock in your headlight, but when they do, it should be somewhat accurate.
Of course, not all clocks are that effed up. I had a small Mp3 player which lost about 10 minutes/month. That was extremely good in my book. I could actually use it and was happy to adjust it a little once in a while. I used my internet-connected phone to set the clock on the mp3 player accurately.
We're talking about appliance clocks, not phones or computers.
Modern electronic clocks will not "drift" that much. Computer-grade crystals will typically offset about .6 seconds per week. So you'd be off by 30 seconds after a year.
If you'll check back, you'll notice that is said it's silly if *the only reason* to be connected constantly is to sync the clock. Regarding your headlight's design, it would be a dumb fix to give it internet connectivity instead of simply a higher-quality crystal.