Well, that was harder than expected.
Ha! It's quite embarrassing isn't it? Practice makes perfect!
Show HN: Analog Watch
41–50 of 102 posts
Re: Show HN: Analog Watch
#42To OP, you should look into Barbara Arrowsmith-Young's clock exercises. They start with a single hand, and add more and more hands until the units get out into centuries or millennia.
Re: Show HN: Analog Watch
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Similarly, when I moved from the UK to Canada, people often didn't understand what I meant when I said it was "half ten", which is the common way of saying ten thirty, at least where I grew up.
I’m a “quarter past” person but I’ve always been confused by “half ten” (which thankfully isn’t used in Australia). But in German, “half ten” means 9:30, which is make more sense to me (probably because I’m used to how German speech often drops words, which is less common in English)
For "half ten" we're just dropping a word from "half past ten".
How does one get to "half ten" in German? Is it simply starting from "half to ten"?
Re: Show HN: Analog Watch
#44This was fun! Good call on directing to the free play before jumping into the daily challenge. I was disappointed when I realized there was no leader board for the daily challenge.
Thanks for playing. It's been a fun little game I play to make sure I don't embarrass myself when somebody asks me what time it is, since I wear a lot of watches. I'd love to add a global leaderboard, but right now it's all client-side! A server-authoritative leaderboard seemed a bit too complex, especially i.r.t. preventing cheating, but I might tackle it at some point.
I did find it easier to do but that's because I wear analog watches everyday (I don't need distractions on my wrist).
The other comments did remind me that when asked for the time I always give an estimate quickly and then read the exact time a little later. I almost always round to the nearest minute or quarter of an hour, and almost never read the seconds hand.
Fun game!
Re: Show HN: Analog Watch
#45This could be good for kids to learn how to read analog clocks. I remember this being something we did in school as kids... racing to read a clock faster than the other kid, to move on to the next section of an obstacle course. From what I understand that is becoming a lost skill.
> kids to learn how to read analog clocks [...] From what I understand that is becoming a lost skill. I don't think kids need to learn to read analog clocks anymore, in the same way that we don't teach kids to use slide rules. Technology has advanced enough that analog clocks have joined polaroid cameras and vinyl records in the "obsolete technology that some people use for nostalgia or fashion" category. (for the re…
Analog clocks are still being taught in schools, at least partially, for their mathematical education purposes. The age at with kids learn to read analog clocks is the same age where kids are skip counting and starting to see numbers in different modes of representations, both of which analog clocks provide, forcing kids to think mathematically in their everyday lives. Further in their math education, it also becomes a helpful jumping off point for understanding modulo arithmetic and non-base 10 counting systems.
Re: Show HN: Analog Watch
#46nice!
analog.watch Daily Challenge 2026-07-09
Score: 8,946 Time: 39.2s
Re: Show HN: Analog Watch
#47This fun game just made me realize that actually using analog watch does not require converting the time to HH:MM. I've been using analog watch for years, my Apple Watch face is set to analog and, apparently, I read the time as "it's almost 11", but never as "it's 10:58".
I got a mechanical watch with a 24-hour dial, and I see it as “mid-morning”, “late afternoon” etc.
It does annoy me that it’s harder to find 24-hr dials with noon at the top and midnight at the bottom. They all put midnight at the top for some reason.
Re: Show HN: Analog Watch
#48Fun game! Definitely needed the practice rounds. Would love to see a comparison of some sort of how well everyone else did.
analog.watch Daily Challenge 2026-07-09
Score: 22,020 Time: 32.0s
Re: Show HN: Analog Watch
#49Hmm, 12AM/PM watch faces don't register 0 as the hour.
Re: Show HN: Analog Watch
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
> kids to learn how to read analog clocks [...] From what I understand that is becoming a lost skill. I don't think kids need to learn to read analog clocks anymore, in the same way that we don't teach kids to use slide rules. Technology has advanced enough that analog clocks have joined polaroid cameras and vinyl records in the "obsolete technology that some people use for nostalgia or fashion" category. (for the re…
There are still analog clocks all over the place in public spaces. Sure, a person probably has their phone on them, but it seems strange that people wouldn't want to know how to read them instead of just seeing them as weird slowly moving art installations. Analog clocks also have the benefit of being able to better visualize time. A lot of people with ADHD talk about time blindness. One common thing sold to them are…
"One common thing sold to them are analog countdown timers that look like a big pie chart."
For anyone looking for one of these, you can search for 'time timer'.