The dreaded time change Featured

All you need now is a Wi-Fi enabled microwave.

My friend has a beach home and that is where I stay with her. Next week is the first visit since time change so I will reset the oven and microwave. I did that last visit in May. I'm thinking that may be the only reason she invites me.

I'm not a fan of "smart" home appliances. After many decades of practice, I know how to use "dumb" ones. The only feature I like is built into my dishwasher. It adds or removes rinse cycles depending on how turbid the water. If I keep the filters clean, the dishes reliably come out without any grunge. And, it takes me less than 1 minute each to set the digital clocks on my microwave and my wall oven. I've become very proficient because of the occasional power "blinks" we experienced for almost a year. It only takes about 1 second of no voltage and the clocks reset to 00:00. Cheap circuit boards. How much would it cost to add an electrolytic capacitor to provide backup voltage for maybe 5-6 seconds? The power blinks were more common until very recently because our electric company was building a new substation about 1/2 mile from our building and apparently needed to periodically re-route main circuits when testing or connecting new sections of circuitry. Now that the construction is completed, we've gone about 3 months without a blink. Fingers crossed.

Around here, a lot a trees, a lot of blinks. Alarm clocks in bedrooms, microwave, and stove all need resetting. Old Mr. Coffee had a clock.

BTW my atomic watch is running three minutes fast. The hell with it.

I stopped wearing a watch when I got a cellphone.

If your atomic watch has both an analog (traditional clock face) dial as well as digital display, make sure to check the time on the digital display. My digital display has always been accurate to the second but occasionally the analog display doesn't agree. Check the manual for how to adjust the analog display so it agrees with the digital. Sometimes the tiny motor and gears that move the analog hands get pokey if the rechargeable battery in my solar watch needs charging (or, if you watch isn't solar, maybe your battery needs replacing).

Same here. I'm sitting in the living room with my laptop and can see the time on it, also the cable box. Around the house, there are ten places to see the time, plus the car.

Neither am I. However, the dishwasher that we decided on has next to nothing to set or display its features. I have to use an app on my phone to find out when it's out of rinse aid. I suppose I could top it up every week, but that sounds too much like work.

It is solar and only digital. I mentioned before that I just keep it on shelf below my lamp near computer. Must be around 20 years old and I do not know where the manual it. I could probably adjust it but do not wear it and don't want to spend the time on it. Years ago on a new car it must have taken me a half hour to figure out how to change the time. It is just annoying how some of these devices behave and prompted me to start the thread.

Watch I wear now is a smart watch keyed to cell phone and much lighter than clunky atomic watch.

There is a Windows time sync , but it only updates like once a week . I got the Atomtime program like 25 years ago when I was deep into restoring old comps to give to the neighborhood kids . It was useful to check the timekeeping on those old boxes . (think P4 and older comps)

I got back to wearing a watch years after they became smart and I realized that they were useful :-)

It's actually adjustable, either via the registry or via the task scheduler. The polling interval is measured in seconds, so you have a lot of fine control.

My last watch died in a motorcycle accident at 3:08PM on March 28, 1983.

I guess I know how you know :-)

Sometimes the old way is more reliable and less expensive. My dishwasher has a little plastic window in the rinse aid compartment. My rinse aid is bright blue. When the window shows a bright blue color, I know there's enough rinse aid for the next load. When it is black, it's time to refill the compartment. No circuit boards, sensors, apps required. Totally reliable.

Less expensive for us. Less profitable for dishwasher manufacturers.

I just ordered a new fridge. It was difficult to find a french-door fridge with icemaker and without ice or water dispenser.

Yes, I wish my dishwasher had that. But we never choose a dishwasher because it has an inspection port for rinse aid.

I chose for reliability. We'll see how that goes. It's only coming up on its first birthday.

Our old dishwasher machine (bought before 1980) has that thing, but you have to open the main door and look at a piece in the basin.

Speaking of dishwashers, I recently read a 'housing trends' article that said that builders are increasingly skipping the dishwasher in new builds, opting instead to put the microwave down in the cabinet, thus clearing the space above the stove for a traditional hood.

At my house, we run the dishwasher only about once a month, but we use it daily as a drying rack.

Yeah, sometimes watches are good like that.

We use our dishwasher daily. It's almost always completely full to the point where some pots have to be washed by hand to make room for everything else.