American Time Blog

Remember the days when you would go to a place called a TV repair shop if your TV stopped working? A friendly technician would survey the damage, diagnose the problem, maybe order a new part or two, and make it as good as new.

Now, most consumer goods are disposable, but people do still fix some things. For example, the kind of clocks that are on the walls of schools, hospitals and other facilities around the world.

If one of the clocks on your clock system stops working, you have the option to either replace the broken part or replace the clock altogether. In either case, you can use American Time's AllSync, which is designed to work with most major clock systems - even the brands that are no longer manufactured.

We've all heard a lot about this enigmatic entity called "the cloud,” something you probably use every day for computer applications, data storage, or entertainment, whether you give it much thought or not.

And that's the beauty of it — the cloud is seamless, making it feel like the software you use and the data you consume is coming directly from your device, and not from … somewhere out there. You rarely think about it because you rarely have to.

A hospital is the most complex of all facility types, which makes sense when considering the wide range of responsibilities that fall on it’s staff. On one end of the spectrum, a hospital’s mission is the preservation of health and the saving of lives. And of course, there is also the goal of keeping its occupants comfortable and fed while accommodating a parade of visitors.

Authors Owen B. Hardy and Lawrence P. Lammers are often cited in explaining the importance of detail in a hospital: "A functional design can promote skill, economy, conveniences, and comforts. A non-functional design can impede activities of all types, detract from the quality of care, and raise costs to intolerable levels.”

Crucial to a hospitals design is a system for accurate time, and with endless corridors and a wide variety of spaces, the placement of hospital clocks requires special attention too. Whether in a bustling hallway, a patient room, or an operating room, clocks need to be highly visible both for staff and the people they care for. LED digital clocks are well-suited to satisfy this requirement with their large, easy-to-read displays.

A synchronized swimming team and a university campus have more in common than meets the eye. Just go with us on this. Like a synchronized swim team, a campus has many different programs to coordinate and a lot of moving parts. If one building has a different time than others, it can throw off the schedules of students and staff for the rest of the day – in other words, the routine is ruined.

To keep your campus running like clockwork, it might make sense to start with a system of synchronized clocks.

While it might seem daunting to keep your vast array of classroom clocks telling the same, accurate time, it doesn't have to be an arduous chore to install and maintain the system of clocks that keep your campus humming. Here are three ways a synchronized clock system can benefit your university, and how one college made the switch.

This fall, a vulnerability was found in Wi-Fi’s WPA security protocol. In plain English, this means that it’s possible for hackers to get into your network (and therefore into your private data) through any Wi-Fi device. All modern Wi-Fi networks are at risk – not just certain products or devices. The flaw was dubbed KRACK: Key Reinstallation Attack. 

What's the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of golden arches, a muscular bald man in a white T-shirt," a small light blue bird, or  the phrase, "finger-lickin' good? You likely said McDonald's, Mr. Clean, Twitter, and KFC without much thought. As you can see, branding is a strong part of how a consumer will see a business, but it's not just for big-name companies. Branding is a smart choice no matter what size your company is.

There are many ways to brand your business from fostering brand identity and encouraging name recognition with a unique color scheme or a thematic approach to interior design. And there are a variety of benefits to putting some time and money into branding. Here are some of the ways branding can boost your company in customer's minds and how wi-fi logo clocks can help.

There are countless details and documents to complete when planning for a newly constructed building — from what materials are used, to how they are installed, and how the final product functions. Among those requirements, are considerations and specifications for a clock system.

Creating these construction documents is a time-consuming task. Fortunately, companies are making it easier and faster to spec for a variety of needs in many projects. For example, for our EverAlert emergency notification platform we provide a CSI specification that can be dropped directly into the construction documents. It's as easy as that. And these documents will prove beneficial throughout the project for many reasons.

Can you imagine a world without branding? How would we identify our favorite products, businesses, and schools if they didn't have distinct colors and logos? Done well, those colors and fonts build up an identity and help create loyalty. Think about students and alumni wearing school spirit wear or the number of employees who proudly wear logoed clothing and you get the picture.

When discussing advances in timekeeping, analog clocks don’t get very much attention. It’s easy to fast forward from sundials and hourglasses to digital readouts and Wi-Fi connections, yet a recent improvement in analog clock movements is both boosting their performance and virtually eliminating their familiar tick, tick, ticking noise.

When a patient is rushed to the operating room for emergency surgery, timing is crucial. If the operation doesn't happen immediately, the patient’s life could be at risk. The clocks in the operating room are the most obvious examples of the importance of time synchronization in a hospital. From floor to floor, and from the doctor to the patients, just about every aspect of healthcare relies on synchronized clock systems. Here are some of the key ways precise timing is vital to patients' safety and the operations of a hospital.