The Apple Watch Will Let You Time Your New Years Countdown With Incredible Accuracy

Apple VP of Technology, Kevin Lynch, explains how Apple synchronized all of its Apple Watches with incredible accuracy in an interview with Mashable.

Lynch says Apple Watch customers will know precisely when New Years arrives.

"With New Year’s coming, those who have the Apple Watch will be the most accurate watch in the room.... There will be no question about when New Year's Eve actually is now."


Apple's timepiece is so accurate that you can reportedly hold any of them side-by-side and you will see the second hands move in perfect unison.

So how did Apple accomplish this?

"First of all, we’ve curated our own network time servers around the world," said Lynch. He says they've scattered 15 "Stratum One"-level Network Time Servers (NTP) (one level down from an atomic clock) around the globe. The servers are in buildings with GPS antennas on the roof that talk to satellites orbiting the earth. Those satellites all get their time from the U.S. Naval Observatory.

The servers communicate with your iPhone via the Internet which then relays information to your Apple Watch. "We do do corrections for time delay in communication," says Lynch.


Even without an Internet connection the Apple Watch has been designed to be extremely accurate. It's got a crystal temperature-control oscillator built in that manages changes in temperatures to compensate for drift and keep the watch time-accurate. "As a piece of hardware, [Apple Watch is] far more accurate as a timekeeping device than the iPhone," said Lynch. It's actually four times better, he revealed.

"Through the whole stack, we’ve really paid attention to the accuracy," Lynch said. The company tests that accuracy using high-speed cameras that observe, frame-by-frame, as the Apple Watch second hand moves around, checking for any hint of latency.

So if you have the Apple Watch, you might want to use it as midnight approaches on New Years Eve to start your countdown!

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