4 ms·
One thing I've never understood (and hopefully some Casio geek can shine a light on): why do almost all old Casio models have a 24/12h time switch taking the pr
by jorvi 2mo ago
One thing I've never understood (and hopefully some Casio geek can shine a light on): why do almost all old Casio models have a 24/12h time switch taking the premium spot as one of the main 4 buttons, instead of having it buried deep in the (awkward) menus. Seems to me that something like alarm or stopwatch setting or a second menu action button would have been far more useful.
- RoadieRoller 2mo agoIn my country, 30-40 years back, people who needed a watch were those ones who travel regularly. And travel was mostly using public transport, trains and planes. Most or all of it operated using a 24h time. That button was very useful. Compare that to the mute/silence/DND physical button in iPhones today. Also people who worked in confined spaces who wouldn’t know if it was day or night outside after a days job. My father who worked in an oil rig in Abu Dhabi used one. He gifted me one. This was 1998.
- CorrectHorseBat 2mo agoHow about just leaving it on 24h time all the time?
- addandsubtract 1mo agoI just use 24h time in the afternoon.
- tass 2mo agoYes but why not just always use 24h time (or 12h if that’s what you like). It’s a little strange that a dedicated button would be needed to switch between them, especially when the math to convert between them is so simple.
- whizzter 1mo agoExactly, my kids knew how to convert between the formats at a fairly young age.
- bestouff 2mo agoOK, but who would use 12h time ? I never understood, this seems so backwards.
- themadturk 1mo agoHow about someone who was raised on 12h time and has used it for 70 years? Sure, the math to convert is pretty easy, but why?
- m000 1mo agoI.e. boomers holding everyone else back again.
- bestouff 1mo agoOk right. I didn't know people were used to that.
- yepyeppers 1mo agoYou didn’t know about 300 million Americans?
- afandian 1mo agoI doubt that anyone knows 300 million people let alone that many Americans.
- williamdclt 1mo agoI'd guess that the very large majority of people don't know that americans use 12h time, no. Why would they?
- Dilettante_ 1mo agoIt is a bit strange, like being surprised some countries drive on the left side. xkcd 1053 of course, but people are still allowed to be surprised when someone went their entire life without picking up a fairly common factoid.
- speak_plainly 2mo agoThose buttons are the menu. The idea of menus on watches is a modern ux extravagance. I don’t have the satisfying answer as to why they dedicated a button to 12/24 hour time but my guess is that it’s simply a cool digital feature and stands out against the limitations of analog watches.
- pjmlp 2mo agoTo add to it, I always kept the manuals around, because remembering the key press sequences was akin to doing combos in arcade fighting games. A few months without doing them, and it was hopeless trying to remember how to do them again.
- radiator 2mo agoI always followed trial and error until I reached my target and I had the feeling that my results were much better than if I were randomly clicking buttons. That is, some memory always remained. Or the menu is well thought out and has some consistency.
- minusLik 2mo agoThe button press sequences are still combo-style; when I set one of the alarms on my ABL-100WE, it always ends in trial and error. I mean, basically it's logical, but when the buttons change what they do (e.g. when the display says "SET", the light button becomes "up"), it throws me off.
- slater 1mo agoI have a 6.30AM alarm on my FW-91, and I'm too lazy to figure out how to switch it off. 15 beeps, btw, till it turns itself off for the day.
- rbanffy 1mo ago> 15 beeps, btw, till it turns itself off for the day One thing I miss that’s not on my Fitbit is an hourly warning. When you have ADHD, it’s a huge helper.
- bushwart 2mo agoI spoke with a Casio engineer about this. It's so that your bending wrist can accidentally switch it to 12h time when you actually really want it on 24h time or vice versa.
- NAR8789 2mo ago+1 I use this all the time and can't live without it
- ajsnigrutin 1mo agoIs this a joke, or an actual answer? They could just set it to 12h mode for americans and 24h mode for the rest of the world, and hid the setting somewhere deep in the menus (hold this button for 3s, then press that button 5 times, and then the other button two times, etc.), so you could change it from american to normal display if needed, and never again press it by accident.
- vablings 2mo agoMy F-91F I replaced the Casio module with an Ollee watch and pretty much disabled all of the features, I can sync the time when reconnecting to Bluetooth on my phone which I do about once a month.
- VPenkov 1mo agoNewish Casio user here. From what I understand, it's so that you can switch it to 24h after accidentally switching it to 12h and vice versa.
- cryo32 1mo agoBeen using Casio watches since 1983. That is exactly what it is for.
- apt-apt-apt-apt 1mo agoHN makes me laugh like twice a year – you're either the first or second!
- lanewinfield 1mo agoyou mean the first or the thirteenth.
- psolidgold 1mo agoI see what you did there
- hemmert 1mo agoPlus, you don't have to manually convert from 24h to 12h time.
- euroderf 1mo agoThe state of American math skillz.
- menno-sh 1mo agoTo be fair I've been using 24h time all my life and I still sometimes say 5 when I meant 15 (3), at least once a year.
- Magicrafter13 1mo ago
- benrutter 1mo agoWearing a Casio as I type this. The "24hr" button switches 12/24 modes on the "watch" mode, when using stopwatch it starts the watch, and when using alarms it turns the alarm on/off. It has pretty critical functionality for those, I think the way its labeled on the watch face just makes it sound a little odd.
- Ekaros 1mo agoNow that I think I can't very fast come up with any feature I would want to have on third button in clock display mode. UI is 3 buttons, light, mode and one mode dependant. So I can't think what you would use it for in clock mode. So better have it work, but do something inconsequential...
- make3 1mo agoMaybe it's because the United States is not the whole planet
- mrweasel 1mo agoA watch like the F-91W is a bit wonky in terms of the buttons. You're right the 24/12h makes no sense, who needs to switch between those two options regularly? The backlight button is also questionable, because it's not entirely clear what you're suppose to gain by vaguely illuminating the first 20% of display, which will be empty from midnight until 20:00.
- nielsole 1mo agoAt night it is more than sufficient. I even use it as a flashlight
- mrweasel 1mo agoIt has to be extremely dark though, or maybe mine has a worse than normal backlight. Other models are much better, it's just the F-91W. The fact that Casio is well aware that the backlight is just terrible, but haven't fixed it in close to 40 years is hilarious and just makes me love it even more.
- greysonp 1mo agoAnd you specifically have an F91W? In pitch black, it maybe illuminates 2/3 of the screen for me. I can't imagine using it as a flashlight! But mine is newer, maybe the older ones have better lights.
- nielsole 1mo agoYes, F-91W still on its first battery. It's not a great flashlight, but it allows me to find back into bed and not run into anything
- teekert 1mo agoEven worse, my Casio can't even change the default mm-dd to my country's default dd-mm, keeps throwing me off. I used to walk around with a Casio always, I would have welcomed this connectivity, but now I have a Pebble and I like the balance. Could have done without the HR monitor, and with GPS though (some features don't work without phone connection, too many I find). Other than that, perfect for me.
- teekert 1mo agoFor me the 24h is buried... But then I can't change the default mm-dd to my country's default dd-mm, which just keeps throwing me off.
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- Beretta_Vexee 1mo agoFor a very long time, China and India used a mixture of the 12-hour and 24-hour formats, which meant they had to convert the time or switch between time formats multiple times par day. That was the intended use of this button. Both countries have now officially switched to the 24-hour format.
- williamdclt 1mo agoI'm skeptical. Switching between time formats when you're used to it requires 0 cognitive effort, and certainly doesn't warrant a button. Eg in France, people use 24h time for display but talk in either 12h or 24h time depending on personal preference, so you might look at "17:00" and say "5" without even thinking about it, it's just a different name for 17.
- bluebarbet 1mo agoTrue (and can confirm) but this assumes a lifetime's habit of interchanging the two.
- bluGill 1mo agoIt doesn't take long to learn to interchange. If you start today you won't be doing it tommorow, but if you keep it up in a few months you will. At least for the common times - you might have to think about what 10pm is if you normally go to bed before then.
- Beretta_Vexee 1mo agoIt’s not quite the same when a schoolchild or a farmer has to figure out different train timetable formats depending on the railway company. It was the 1980s, and these were the first affordable watches available… The SNCF doesn’t change its format when you travel to Brittany or Alsace.
- red-iron-pine 1mo ago[dead]