Swatch Internet Time
Alternate time system by watch maker Swatch / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Swatch Internet Time (or .beat time) is a decimal time concept introduced in 1998 by the Swatch corporation as part of their marketing campaign for their line of "Beat" watches.
| 24-hour time (UTC) | @beat time (BMT) |
|---|---|
| 08:40:22 | @403.03 |
Instead of hours and minutes, the mean solar day is divided into 1,000 parts called .beats. Each .beat is equal to one decimal minute in the French Revolutionary decimal time system and lasts 1 minute and 26.4 seconds (86.4 seconds) in standard time. Times are notated as a 3-digit number out of 1,000 after midnight. So, for example, @248 would indicate a time 248 .beats after midnight, representing 248⁄1000 of a day, just over 5 hours and 57 minutes.
There are no time zones in Swatch Internet Time; instead, it is globally based on what is conventionally known as Central European Time, West Africa Time, and UTC+1, which is the time zone in which Swatch's headquarters in Biel, Switzerland, is located; Swatch calls this "Biel Mean Time" (BMT), although it is not actually mean solar time as measured in Biel. Unlike civil time in Switzerland and many other countries, Swatch Internet Time does not observe daylight saving time.