Swatch Internet Time (@Beats)

[Yaya]

Internet Time/Beat Time is SO COOL! I just can't get over how it causes you to have to reframe the concept of "time" in your mind. Suddenly everyone is on the same page without time zones, etc...I think it would be confusing in a couple scenarios but for the purpose of connecting with others online it would be great.

Also here for the watch if it happens I would totally buy one! It makes me feel like those spy watches from Spy Kids but instead much simpler and they'd just show beat time lol

[xXStarBrite02Xx]

Has anyone tried to make a .beat time widget for KDE? I see links to ones for cinnamon and gnome on the wiki... I would step up to the plate and be the first, but I'm used to HTML and CSS, Qt is entirely out of my realm of expertise

[Nova]

Funny that.

While Melon recommends swatch .beat clock from F-Droid, I found this on Google Play.



I'm hesitant to try it since it's relatively new, created in September 2024 AFAIK, but from the looks of things it's a very basic app.

I'm wanting to try it solely to see if it has widgets...

[Melooon]

Melon recommends swatch .beat clock from F-Droid,

I do not recommend it; its a wiki someone else added it; you cant prove who; aaaaa don't put your android app blame on me (Feel free to add this alternative to the wiki too!)

I did actually try putting an app on Google Play recently and its EXTREMELY complicated; you have to get 20 different people to actively test your app on unique phones before they even allow it to go to google for review. So I would have reasonably high confidence in the safety of new Play apps ^^

[IndigoGolem]

I don't suppose anyone knows of an applet for this for Linux Mint MATE? I have seen the Cinnamon one but switching desktops seems like a lot of work just for this.

[hikatamika]

I was changing the way I internally date files for my website… (file-wise, dates are still rendered out YYYY-MM-DD style and Month, DD YYYY – HH:MM AM Z in text to reflect me currently living in the States) and…

I really wish Swatch Time, or, at least a metric time based in 1000, took off.

• A time-of-day measurement with one unit of measurement that stays the same is really attractive for filenaming. The beat time "960" suffixed onto a filename, looks, and makes sense as, Nine-Hundred and Sixty. It makes sense as 96% of a day. Even if it's a Swiss person's day and not mine.
• Comparatively, when I suffix files with "140840" it looks like One-Hundred-and-Fourty-Thousand Eight-Hundred and Fourty, even though it means 14:08:40.

I reckon it wasn't marketed very well, and, making the meridian in Switzerland all because it's the Swiss watch company didn't really help with adoption. I think if the concept was introduced with both local and internet beats, as in, "how far out of 1000 are you in a day YOUR timezone? That's your Local Beat." and "also Switzerland is now the internet timezone of the world! That is the standard beat. :3" It woulda prolly seen more adoption.

I am currently suffixing YYYYMMDD changelog and microblog files in my website source repository with their official, HikaTamika™-coined Local Beats, as they make more sense to me than a -HHMMSS suffix.

Edit: (Thought of more!)
All that to say, I think where Swatch Internet Time, or rather, Swatch Beats fumbled with regard to cultural adoption, was the focus on trying to be/replace UTC as the base timezone. UTC is UTC. UTC is good. I like UTC, even though its influence has colonialism to thank.

To me, where beats really shines is the units!! Not the starting point/timezone! 

[ABlueRose]

The thought of the internet having it's own time zone is such a cool one! It could be really useful for setting up meeting times with other people online, it's a shame it never took off  I ought to put some effort into using it

[syrupnx]

hii everybody

i've been recently toying around with the idea of an Internet Time alarm clock to display on a desk, likely powered by a Raspberry Pi.
I have no engineering skills to actually make a device like this, and my initial drawing was made a few months ago so I want to toy around with other designs first.
But a key thing that I realized would need to be included was a display for the DATE.

the wikipedia page for internet time mentions a date format used on the Swatch website. I can't confirm that the website ever showed the date, but I CAN confirm that my .beat watch shows the internet time date as follows:

@dDD.MM.YYYY, so right now would be @d06.09.2026

and i couldn't find any .beat script that included the date... so i made one myself! 

Code

// Returns the date in Swatch format
function GetSwatchDate() {
  // get date in UTC+1 (Biel Mean Time)
  let date = new Date();
  const dateFormatter = new Intl.DateTimeFormat('en', {
    timeZone: 'Etc/GMT-1',
    year: 'numeric',
    month: '2-digit',
    day: '2-digit',
    hour12: false
  });
  
  // extract { year, month, day }
  let parts = dateFormatter.formatToParts(date);
  let values = {};
  
  // pad single digit month and day with 0
  // prevent comma from showing in year
  const numberFormatter = new Intl.NumberFormat('en', {
    minimumIntegerDigits: 2,
    useGrouping: false
  });
  
  // format each part of the date
  parts.forEach(part => {
    values[part.type] = numberFormatter.format(part.value);
  });
  
  // join them together in period-separated string
  // DD.MM.YYYY
  return `${values.day}.${values.month}.${values.year}`;
}

// GetSwatchTime() remains unchanged

function UpdateClock() {
  swatchClock.innerHTML = '@' + GetSwatchTime() + '@d' + GetSwatchDate();
}

setInterval(UpdateClock, 864);
// example output: @d06.09.2026

i'm not sure if this is the best way to do this, but it seems to work just fine. i hope this is something people can find use for! cheers