American Time Blog

When every second matters, each person in your clinic or hospital needs to be on the same time. Whether tracking surgery time, coordinating patient care, keeping appointments on time or recording tasks, precise time throughout a building or campus is essential.

Follow the tips below to ensure your clocks and clock systems are ready for the time change.

Routinely check your clocks leading up to Daylight Saving Time

The beginning and end of Daylight Saving Time serve as natural reminders to make sure your facility's clocks are reliably keeping everyone on schedule.

To ensure that a wired system clock is syncing correctly, unplug it, wait at least 10 seconds, and plug it back in. The clock should be receiving synchronization signals from the master controller and display the correct time within 24 hours.

You can take a similar approach to your wireless system battery-operated clocks. Take the battery out, assuring the clock hands come to a complete stop, and reinstall it.

This is a good time to check the life of your batteries, too. If a battery is supplying 1.5 volts or more, it should be good to go. The clock will automatically be on time within 12 hours or sooner.

Float Euphoria, based in Kennewick, Washington, isn’t your typical spa. They offer a variety of stress-fighting services like massage, cupping, and floatation therapy, a weightless spa experience that feels like you’re floating on top of the water — because you are.

A Tight Schedule in a Relaxed Environment

In order for client’s to get the most out of their massage and float experiences, things have to happen right on time. Both the massage and flotation services must stick to a strict schedule for cleaning, maintenance, and to keep appointments from running awry.

Anyone who's ever visited an ice cream shop, craft beer taproom, or the cereal aisle of a grocery store knows choices can be hard. Cheerios or Captain Crunch? Weird... somehow they both ended up my cart. But sometimes in business, you have to make just one choice and when making big decisions is part of your job, the stakes only rise.

If you're tasked with selecting a synchronized clock system for your facility, there are many options to choose from. If you don’t know much about synchronized time, your mission might seem easy at first, you just buy clocks and hang them on the walls right? But just like buying an ice cream cone or picking out your favorite cereal brand, there are a variety of options to choose from. We are, after all, talking about installing an entire network of electronic devices.

As you delve deeper into this mission, you might require some guidance. Here, we'll help you determine which type of clock is best for you, depending on your industry and the type of facility you're responsible for keeping on time.

Older technologies may not get people as excited as the new iPhone, but in many cases, they prove their enduring usefulness time and time again.

Election officials still depend on paper ballots because it's hard to trust the inner workings of a computer system for a task as important as counting votes. People who conduct a lot of business over the phone prefer a landline because it provides more audio clarity and they know it won't drop their calls. Audiophiles still prefer vinyl records to their digital counterparts because there's just something about that warm, analog sound.

While the bugs get worked out in the new devices that dominate our lives, trusty standbys remain at your service. You might think that one casualty of the march of technology would be the humble wall clock, which now competes with the smartphone in everyone's pocket.

Those phones do a lot, including display the time, but they don't accomplish that task as well as a wall clock connected to a synchronized time system. Despite almost everyone having a clock in their pocket, there are many everyday scenarios that necessitate a wall clock, whether for safety, security or convenience.

Daylight Saving Time seems simple enough. You just adjust the clocks to the new time, right? But what if you have more than a few clocks? We've created a quick video to describe the difference between Right Burt, who has a no-hassle timekeeping system which easily adjusts for Daylight Saving Time, and Left Burt, who... is a little stressed out after DST.

In the synchronized clock industry, there are a lot of options to choose from if you’re considering a build out or upgrade to your facility. Think about clocks from the schools you went to as a kid: they were most likely wired, received an accurate time signal from a master clock, and were in-sync with a bell system for class changes. That may be the most common time system we can think of, but the technology and methods by which we keep time are changing. It may be time to re-think the traditional clock network, with Wi-Fi leading the way.

When someone mentions Wi-Fi, you may think of the technology that allows us fast and easy access to our smart phones — or heading over to the neighborhood coffee shop where the service works really well. For some of us, fast Wi-Fi access is more important than a reliable car. But Wi-Fi's versatility goes well beyond the consumer level. Businesses, hospitals, and schools are all using it to run their operations more smoothly with accurate time keeping.

Most of us take certain types of technology for granted — until it's not working for us. We have all probably lost phone service while inside the walls of a warehouse or at the bottom of a parking garage. This can be an annoying inconvenience, but how often has it prevented you from making a deadline or resulted in a loss of revenue?

Deciding what type of network clock you need, whether it be Wi-Fi or PoE (Power Over Ethernet), all depends on the connection to the internet in your facility. Some buildings may have more accessibility than others, so it's really up to you when purchasing your clock system. Here are some tips for determining what will work best for you.