… or perhaps the polar opposite. It might be the only time it is accurate is when I’m observing it. It’s a Citizen Men’s AT4006-06X watch. Solar powered, “atomic” time accuracy set by radio signals from the Halls of Science somewhere in America, once set I should never have to adjust it again until entropy disables its movement.
I’ve had this thing just a couple of weeks, and I’ve noticed some really odd behavior. I’ll preface this by saying that I’m often wearing a long sleeved shirt or light jacket, and the watch is hidden under the cuff.
Three times now, I’ve pulled back the cuff and seen the second hand of the watch running with frantic speed, until it gets to the correct time and then it resumes it’s normal second to second pace. I know it gets back to the right time, because I’ve checked it against a reference time shortly afterward.
So what’s going on? My logical mind tells me the following is possible, but there is nothing in the documentation to support this theory. First, the speeding second hand is normal behavior for those time when the watch is set incorrectly and it then receives the signal to correct the time. But when that happens – and it’s only happened a couple of times in the first couple of days when I was playing with the controls – the minute and hour hands also fly around at high speeds until it gets to the correct time. But the later sightings have only involved the second hand moving.
So my theory goes that, when light is cut off from the watch face, the second hand movement stops, to save energy, while the minute and hour hands remain at their slower movements. When enough light hits the sensor in the watch face, the second hand is triggered to catch up at high speed to the correct time. So may watch may be unpredictably inaccurate when I’m not viewing it, and only achieve accuracy again when light makes the hands visible.
Either that, or the second hand just randomly stalls out on occasion, and as randomly corrects itself on other occasions. But it’s very odd that I haven’t witnessed such a stall, only correctly kept time, or a speeding hand working to catch up to the correct time.
Any thoughts on this odd behavior?