There's a mechanical watch feature called a “hack” | Hacker News Reader

There's a mechanical watch feature called a “hack”

hachyderm.io

140 pointsluu106 comments

Interestingly, hacking seconds have become so ubiquitous, that some watches will advertise the "lack" of hacking seconds.

I.e. in the Rolex GMT, when you adjust the hour hand independently of the seconds hand, the seconds hand continues moving (non-hacking), which allows you to change the time zone when traveling without messing up the seconds hand that you previously already setup.

Which is completely asinine, as mechanical watches, even expensive ones are inaccurate by many seconds every day.

Rolex are +/- 2 seconds per day.

That's terrible. Hacking prevention would make sense if they were ±2 seconds a month.

1 minute a month (upper bound) is hardly a deal breaker. If you were adjusting the watch regularly without hacking (as a pilot) you'd have an error rate that's probably close to 10x higher. 10+ minutes a month WOULD make a difference.

> 1 minute a month (upper bound) is hardly a deal breaker.

For a relative measure: if you're off by one minute when using a sextant, then you could be off by (IIRC) about 15 nautical miles.

So one should at least know the average drift of the time piece if it's being used for navigation, and it should be sync'd up with UTC/GMT regularly.

For regular day-to-day stuff, one minute is probably less dire.

+- 2 seconds per day is their worst case specifications (watches being stored in weird orientation, with high temperature etc.). It is common for standard usage watch to be within 10 secs monthly.

I agree it's not perfect but:

1. For cases where seconds matter in human interaction there are well know and efficient protocols to sync

2. Often 2-3 seconds turn out to not matter but being on the right time zone does. It is an evolutionary development after all so (at least at some point) there exists a large market for this feature

It's useful while traveling across time zones. You'd lose a lot more time if you had to hack it while changing the local time setting.

Is it? You have a phone, you can just sync to it when you change timezone. Or is not looking at your phone part of the hobby?

> Or is not looking at your phone part of the hobby?

yes.

I mean, yes, if you're wearing a watch, it's obviously because you want to be able to tell the time with a simple glance at your wrist, rather than having to pull your phone out of your pocket.

Plus watches are waterproof, and you can bring them with you while swimming/snorkeling/diving/saunaing/whatever, which you wouldn't do with a phone.

Sure, but I feel you are rather unlikely to need to change time zone while snorkelling (unless you snorkel really far!). I understand the point of watches, just not why you would care about the lack of hack for changing the hour.

You missed the point; you aren't changing time zones while snorkeling, but you are still wearing the watch. The point is you don't have your phone with you while snorkeling so you have to check the time on your watch, and because you're traveling, you had to change the time when you got there, which the independently adjustable hour hand made easier.

An independently adjustable hour hand is a useful complication on a watch for traveling across time zones.

It's art

“Many” seconds per day strikes me as an overstatement.

The Hamilton I’m wearing right now gains about 10 seconds per week. I set it about once every 3-4 months - that’s hardly an onerous task.

I'd say you got a lucky one. From Hamilton's own site -

> Most watches that do not have a chronometer certificate have an average course deviation of -10/+15 seconds per day. To be called a Chronometer, the mechanical watch mechanism must have an average course deviation of -4/+6 seconds per day.

That’s a min/max daily range that is influenced by factors such as movement, angle, temperature and magnetism. They generally do not hit the min max and average out quite a bit day to day.

I don't know about seconds, but it's pretty nice to adjust the hour without having to reset the minute hand.

They're so perfectly imperfect, and that's why we love them.

Nota bene, a GMT does hack in the second crown position, so you can set it accurately to the second.

And independent jumping hours is super useful while traveling across time zones. It's a complication, in the same way that hacking itself is a complication. Both are harder to implement than a time-only watch without hacking.

Travel time is such a beautiful complication but so rare, I know of PF and Patek...maybe Ball aswell, I can't remember.

It's getting more common. Seiko recently released the Seiko 5 GMT which for the MSRP of $495 is a steal in the watch world, possibly the most affordable GMT on the market now. There are lots of "GMT Watches" you see on Amazon and other places for much cheaper but all of those use Quartz movements.

I mean specifically the travel-time in Patek's parlance; a jumping hour advance for a second hidden hour hand, the best contemporary example would be the Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda PF GMT.

> Interestingly, hacking seconds have become so ubiquitous, that some watches will advertise the "lack" of hacking seconds.

> I.e. in the Rolex GMT, when you adjust the hour hand independently of the seconds hand, the seconds hand continues moving (non-hacking)

Rolexes have a hacking mechanism, but it's usually only activated when you pull the crown out to the furthest/third stop, which is where you set minutes. The changing of the hour for timezones generally happens in full-hour increments (with exceptions, e.g., Newfoundland).

The original Rolex GMTs did not have hacking, but it was added later; 1971, AFAICT:

* https://www.analogshift.com/blogs/transmissions/guide-to-rol...

This hacking/non-hacking functionality is fairly common on GMT/dual-timezone watches.

> with exceptions, e.g., Newfoundland

Also, notably for about 1.5 billion people in India: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Standard_Time

Nice. I was reading the comments because I knew someone would explain the purpose of it. I have both hacking and non-hacking watches. I know what they do, but I never knew why it was something people would even care about.

Changing TZ when travelling is definitely a perfect use case for non-hacking movements. Also before and after DST.

There is also a feeling by some horologists and watch fans that the hack interacting with the balance oscillator and suddenly halting its motion is detrimental to the movement's health and precision. I haven't found any data to substantiate this, but I'm told that some watch aficionados prefer non-hacking movements for that reason.

I can imagine this being the case, but the mechanics tend to be so accurate that I could see either being the case. I think the start/stop action is so quick that it likely is not damaging. But I'm clearly not an expert on this.

Another thing - in the comments someone mentioned military folk using hacking watches to sync their watches together. This use case I do know about, although for civilian purposes. We used to do it as kids, and became well aware of just how inaccurate all of our kiddie watches were. We used to sort of race them if our day was long enough. But they were accurate enough for our various games.

It does seem a bit silly to me as well, given the stresses that watch movements are subjected to day to day, and that the hack's mechanical design barely touches the balance at all. It doesn't take very much friction at all to halt these movements, so I struggle to see where the source of damage would lie. But, people have their opinions.

And yeah, mechanical movements are technological marvels, and can keep incredible time for being a completely analog machine... But seconds per day is still about as good as it gets unless you take expensive measures (like the marine chronometers did) to get diminishing returns. And less expensive or well tuned movements can easily drift by a minute or two per day.

In a way, we've been spoiled by quartz and electronic timekeeping. Now that GPS blankets the world and lets any timepiece continuously synchronize to within microseconds, "seconds per day" sounds ludicrous. And yet, it built empires and ran the world for a couple centuries! Especially for civilian use, it's rare to truly _need_ better precision, aside from the general desire for perfection.

Odd how various watch features are advertised. I'm in the Seiko collectors world and "hacking/handwind" movements are generally seen as more desirable. Since Seiko Modding is pretty common (compared to modding other watch brands at least), the "hacking/handwind movement replacement" mod is one of the most popular.

Clock people have great words for things. Their word for features is "complications".

The subject of timekeeping is called horology. For collectors/ enthusiasts I've been trying to popularize the term hormonger, but it hasn't caught on yet.

Well as a hormonger I'm going to start using it.

The more you think about it, that term is great. It makes us focus on maintenance, not building. I wonder if clock people naturally have a longer perspective because they work on mechanical things.

I will try to use this term in software development too. Wish me luck.

I never understood where the term came from and I also have an avid interest in watching mechanical watch teardowns/rebuilds on YT.

This explains everything and I've never had a more clearer click of understanding in my life.

During early watch making history the competition was between individual watch makers and the mark of a good watchmaker beyond accurate time telling, was to add more things besides time telling I.e. complications above and beyond just telling the time.

I know this is kind of tangent to the point, but:

> the mechanical oscillator that makes the watch advance (it drives the pallet fork and escapement wheel, which produces the ticking sound)

The balance wheel doesn't drive the escape wheel, it's the other way around! The mainspring powers the train, which eventually drives the escape wheel, and the escape wheel provides energy to the balance wheel via the pallet fork.

(If you think about it, it's obvious that it couldn't be the other way around, else the watch would stop very quickly as the balance wheel runs out of energy).

The pallet fork is driven by both the escape wheel and the balance wheel, at different points in the cycle.

Yeah I was imprecise in the description here, because I started trying to describe how a mechanical movement works and it went into the weeds really quickly :) More accurately, the balance nudges the pallet fork just enough to allow the escapement wheel to advance, and that advancing motion imparts some of the mainspring's force back through the pallet fork and into the balance, so that it continues to oscillate without dampening.

It's a very clever mechanism, and surprisingly subtle. I can't be the only one who first saw a running mechanical watch and thought "wait, isn't that perpetual motion? How does that springy thing keep going without stopping?" Not magic, it turns out, just very very careful engineering :)

I know most people here don't care for it, but for those who like it, I produced this chart of the conversation:

https://www.solipsys.co.uk/Chartodon/111142286901955845.svg

Added in edit: Click on a node to open the original post.

That's a way better comment tracking system than Twitter's garbage thread implementation which Mastodon have cloned.

I used to do exactly the same thing for Twitter threads, some of which got very much out-of-hand, with hundreds of tweets. But using the chart on a sensible size monitor it was easy to pan around, find corners, follow sub-discussions, and so on.

This chart is clickable ... click on a node to open the original post.

I'm pleased you like it.

This is one thing Reddit actually got right. Their threading is perfectly coherent and easy to follow.

Don't care for it? I much prefer it, this is great!

I've had some remarkably forthright[0] comments in the past[1], so now I just assume that most people will hate it. But personally I find it indispensable for following complex discussions, and finding corners that I hadn't seen.

[0] British[2] understatement;

[1] They depress me, so I'm not going to look them up[3];

[2] I'm not British, but I've live in Britain for over 40 years and have picked up the habit;

[3] Many were deleted after others pointed out how negative they were.

Haters gonna hate on the Internet! Cool format though, cheers

Thank you ... much appreciated.

Feedback tends to come from those either mildly, or more, annoyed, or those who are greatly pleased.

I can assure you that Chartodon is among the more valuable and compelling features of the Fediverse, and I'm delighted you'd created and contributed it.

Thank you ... I very much appreciate that.

Required site visit which also explains this feature:

https://ciechanow.ski/mechanical-watch/

Really great visuals. Thanks for sharing!

This is one of the very best websites in the world. Various articles from it have been discussed here on HN before: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=ciechanow.ski

>So, there was great interest in developing a timekeeping mechanism that didn't rely on gravity.

"Great interest" is an understatement! The full story can be found in "Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time" by Dava Sobel

Cheap book, quick read, fascinating story!

https://amzn.to/465h1ij

I recount this story alot - especially about the vestigial parts in the mark 1 clock and also about how the clockmaker reduced the size of the clock in the mark 3 to a large pocketwatch size in order to increase accuracy (finer parts).

Non-affiliate link: https://www.amazon.com/Longitude-Genius-Greatest-Scientific-...

I listen to the audiobook and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Japanese railway workers in 60's and 70's were issued the Citizen Homer Second Setting. It's big feature was hacking seconds (https://www.fratellowatches.com/citizen-homer-second-setting...). I'm fortunate to own one of these.

For anyone interested in the history of chronometers, I can recommend visiting the exhibition at Greenwich Observatory, as they have the collection of original Harrison's clocks, which lead to the development of the chronometer in it's modern form. The earlier H1/H2 clocks are awesome.

https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/harrisons-clocks-longit...

Somewhat related, I came across a YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@WristwatchRevival) that I never would have guessed I'd enjoy but now I am hooked. The host disassembles a high-end mechanical watch each episode, cleans each tiny piece and then puts it all back together again.

I have never had any interest in mechanical watches whatsoever - I use an Apple Watch - but this is so relaxing and he is so good at sharing his extensive knowledge that I find myself immersed in his world for an hour or so each week.

I know this reads like a schill but I promise I have no connection other being a happy viewer.

It sounds like you just like the process. There are several good car restoration channels for this too.

Plug for Hand Tool Rescue, one of the better restorers in the tool category. A lot of them out there, now. Also like "Perfect Restorations"

There's also a cobbler one where he restores old shoes, boots, bags, etc.

Bedo's Leatherworks

Project Binky from Bad Obsession Motorsport is like this, for years they've been fitting a Toyota Celica engine into a classic Mini to create a four wheel drive beast of a car and they show all the fabrication involved. I know pretty much nothing about metalwork but it's one of the most satisfying things I've ever watched. I also learned about how cars work on a fairly low level through that series.

It’s funny because I know of Marshall from the fact that he hosts one of the most popular Magic: the Gathering podcasts and I knew he had a wristwatch channel on YouTube but I’ve never seen anyone who knew him primarily from that.

Damn I knew I recognized the voice from somewhere! Never connected the two. Wild stuff. He does great work all around though.

I get a similar satisfaction watching people fix up old Game Boys and similar.

Also recommended is "The Nekkid Watchmaker" for his excellent attitude and great explanations and ASMR versions.

WristwatchRevival is awesome. Love watching how meticulous he is and how he truly enjoys horology. Somewhat inspired me to save up for a long time and levelup my watch collection to an Omega Seamaster Diver 300 which I adore... Not because it's fancy, or the price tag, but because of the engineering and craftsmanship. The process of saving, and then finally being able to purchase it. People who buy fake Rolex's or watches are frauds. How can you look down at your wrist knowing that your attempting to trick everybody and take a shortcut and undercut the engineering and precision watchmakers.

I would also recommend Red Dead Restoration (https://www.youtube.com/@RedDeadRestoration). The creator occasionally dips into ASMR territory but the restorations sometimes double as chemistry lessons.

Another recommendation: Blair Watch Project.

https://www.youtube.com/c/BlairWatchProject

He services and repairs Seiko watches, records the process for his customers, and then posts them on YouTube.

My favorite is Red Dead Restoration: https://www.youtube.com/@RedDeadRestoration

I love this guys channel. You can tell the guy is really good at it because of how easy he make it look. His videos almost got me into it myself, had to remind myself that the reason he makes it look so effortless is because he put so much time into it (and there was no way I was going to achieve the same results without significant effort).

As someone who just got infected by a friend to start looking into watches, and now this thread, why wouldn't you get into it? I'm already looking for the cheapest tools and cheapest mechanical watch I could purchase to take apart and put together again. Why not give it a try?

There's an acronym in lexicography that I can't remember right now, but the effect of it is that people try to ascribe a nautical origin to everything. I worry this might be a little of that, but it's a fun story regardless.

Could well be! I have no specialist knowledge, I just got curious about the origin of the fairly random feature name, and went digging. The two well substantiated facts are:

Hacking movements gained popularity between WW1 and WW2 due to army interest (and during WW2 US mil-spec for watches required a hacking feature, leading to e.g. the Elgin A-11 hacking watch).

In the heyday of mechanical marine chronometers (late 18th century through early 20th, roughtly), common use was to set a hack watch to the sheltered ship chronometer, then go above deck with the hack watch to make observations.

The link between these two facts is more tenuous, and basically boils down to: watches with a hacking mechanism would obviously be really handy for marine use, given how the hack watch was used; and military terminology routinely bleeds between the services, so transposition from a navy to an army context around WW2 wouldn't be surprising.

As for why the Royal Navy called these watches hack watches... I pretty much just ran down the dictionary definitions of "hack", including the archaic uses that would have been commonplace in the late 18th century, and made an educated guess. I would hope that there's a book out there somewhere about this era of sailing that has a more substantiated take, but I don't have such a reference myself.

Great post!

This has nothing to do with watches per se but I was wondering which war movies include soldiers shouting "Hack!" because I can't remember ever hearing it in a film.

There's a sibling thread making the same point, and: yeah, I overgeneralized on that bit. The instance I had in mind was the M.A.S.H. TV show, which has a couple exchanges involving "hack" for time synchronization (unsurprisingly, by the most over the top soldierly characters). All I can offer as a defense is that it was late and I assumed that I couldn't remember others for that reason. But looking around now, film usually goes with the more recognizable "mark".

Here's a memoir from a retired USAF airman where he recounts what the hacking procedure looked like, though: https://code7700.com/2023_time_hack.htm

Reading this writeup, the procedure takes up to two minutes:

* each person in the room pulls up the stem when their individual second hand is pointing at 0, and also sets the time to the prearranged hour/minute,

* then everyone waits a bit longer until this is done;

* after another minute, everyone pushes down the stem simultaneously

Is there an alternative where you could have some way to force your second hand to the 0 position rather than waiting up to a minute for it to get there on its own then freeze it?

I do see why hacking is nice for time zone changes.

I manually compiled the tweets for readability:

https://pastebin.com/raw/dTGJS3Se

is there a threadreader equivalent for mastodon?

For more uses of the word "hack":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hack

Non-hacking mechanical watches are a giant pain to set. Hacking movements are the way to go if you want to get into mechanical watches.

> In war films, if you ever wondered what a bunch of soldiers standing in a circle shouting "hack!" at each other meant: they're synchronizing their watches.

Said no one before ever.

For that matter, no group of soldiers ever cried out "hack" while setting their watches in a war movie, either.

Is the entire thing made up?

I'm in the Air National Guard, and its very much a thing. Typically at the beginning or end of a brief/meeting when you're about to go out and do something.

But it's not a thing in movies, so nobody wonders why they say that in movies.

Because nobody says that in movies.

It's been 'synchronize watches' since WWII movies became a thing.

I've seen practically every B-grade and up WWII movie made in English, and I don't remember ever seeing the use of "hack". Anybody please point to movie references if they know any.

My memory isn’t what it used to be but I think this is the first time I’ve heard it too, if that wasn’t already clear from my tone above.

Scroll through the comments. Someone quoted a MASH scene that uses it. It's a TV show and not a movie, but at least it's an example in the wild.

MASH is culturally important but it’s not The Guns of Navarone or A Bridge Too Far. If Bridge on the River Kwai had watches, Sir Alec Guinness would have not yelled hack.

I've never heard "hack" in this context either. "On my mark!" is what I think of.

The minute I read that line, I was actually instantly reminded of an episode of MAS*H where Frank Burns utters that exact expression as he's synchronizing his watch. It's apparently been spinning in the back of my head for decades and now I understand it.

Edit:

I actually found the script to the episode:

https://subslikescript.com/series/MASH-68098/season-4/episod...

   I dropped my watch in the latrine,
   and I really don't want it back.
   
   - Just purse your lips and stand by.
   - [Making Put-Put Sounds]
   
   Coming up 0516, hack!
   
   Hack!
   
   Now!
   
   ## ["Assembly"]
   
   - Twenty seconds.
   - Check.
   - Hack.
   
   - Shut up.
   - Shutting up, sir!

I remember them doing it in Space: Above and Beyond every time they went on a mission on foot. Despite being set in the 2060s, when their watches are presumably connected to Space GPS.

One might well ask why "Hackneyed" has it's meaning of commonplace.. And if you do, you will see that Hackneyed comes from a "Hack" horse, the commonplace (often hired) horse you use for more ordinary riding tasks, you don't care if its a bit spavined or mouthed, it's not your best hunter.

In other words Hack -> Hackney -> Hack

A Hacking jacket likewise: its workday hard wearing cloth like Tweed. undied or dull dye.

Doesn't the word hackney (for a horse) come from the place Hackney (for a hipster)?

so it would be Hackney -> Hack -> Hackney -> Hack

The Hackney Horse breed was developed in the 14th century in Norfolk when the King of England required powerful but attractive horses with an excellent trot, to be used for general purpose riding horses.

May well have been named after the district.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackney_horse

This is like Proust, and the obsessive deriver-of-original-names character. I'd say its convergent distinct stories, lost in time. Hackney in London refers to a the river bend on the Lea, and an island or peninsula in the river, then the region, Hackney Carriages stem from the horse, the horse's name has now informed french breeds.. its all connected. But, Norfolk and East Anglia aren't close to Hackney in London.

Unrelated, but using Mastodon without a login is a breath of fresh air compared to the shit show that is Twitter.

So true. X will randomly not show replies, or only half of them, or just show you the "register or login" modal. I've stopped clicking links to Phony Stark's glory blazing shitshow.

is there a threadreader equivalent for mastodon?

For this thread I produced this:

https://www.solipsys.co.uk/Chartodon/111142286901955845.svg

So you are our personal threadreader? How can we reach you when we want a thread "Chartodon"ed? :)

It's a 'bot wot I wrot: https://mathstodon.xyz/@Chartodon

You reply to a post with:

Calling @Chartodon@mathstodon.xyz [param] ...

The parameter is optional, but you have:

* LR

* Spine

* Help

so it doesn't require js?

does it support transitions ?

Absolutely it does not require js ...

You reply to the post you want charted using a specific form of words, and the 'bot sees that, prepares and uploads the chart, then replies to you with a link to it.

I don't know what you mean by "support transitions".

It is, though on an E-ink tablet (which I'm frequently using to read, though I limit interactions to a Real Computer ... though those too may use an e-ink monitor these days) the light-on-dark default scheme is exceedingly difficult to read, and cannot be changed when not logged in to a specific Mastodon instance.

I've put in a feature request to address this, so far it's not been addressed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com