Smart Watch and Cruising

[rjack22]

I have a smart watch which of course is tied to my phone to gets its information.    While onboard the ship if I have the phone in airplane mode with WiFi and Bluetooth turned back on will my watch still know the correct time?   And if we have a time change in a port will the watch switch?   Would I be better off with a standard watch for the cruise?   A watch that I can set myself?

[donaldsc]

Your idea of buying a cheap dumb watch for the cruise is a good one.  Makes life much less complicated.

 

DON

[Yehootu]

Smart watch has to be synced. I always have mine on to track activity and sleep cycles. I sync it with ship internet while at sea or while in port. On the ship, it ,might come up to the right time remembering the ship time and local or position time might not be the same. I always just check my watch against ship time on TV. After 40yrs of airline flying, I'm used to adding or subtracting on my watch face time. A simple watch can give you all you want without the worry. 

[sunviking90]

On our recent cruise with 5 time changes, I manually changed the time on my phone as we didn’t have wifi package. My Apple Watch always synced with whatever my watch said. As long as the blue tooth is on should be fine. 

[Mike45LC]

6 hours ago, rjack22 said:

I have a smart watch which of course is tied to my phone to gets its information.    While onboard the ship if I have the phone in airplane mode with WiFi and Bluetooth turned back on will my watch still know the correct time?   And if we have a time change in a port will the watch switch?   Would I be better off with a standard watch for the cruise?   A watch that I can set myself?

I do not know about your watch-phone communications, but I do know a little bit about time changes on board.   On the first night out of LA on a Mex Riviera cruise, the ship often sets the clocks ahead one hour.  But the actual time zone the ship is in is still Pacific.  So I have to trick my phone.  I do it by switching the phone's time zone from "automatic" to "Denver, CO".  The phone is then on ship's time.  When the ship again sets the ship's time ahead another hour, I set the time zone to -- I don't recall which city in the Central time zone Apple offered me, but I think it was Dallas.  This hack avoids all the problems of the phone's clock not agreeing with the ship's time.

[ericosmith]

If bluetooth is turned on then your watch will show the same time as your phone.  Whether you set your phone to automatic or manual time zone changes depends.  Typically the ship changes time zones overnight.  Your phone may change whenever the gps detects you've entered a different time zone.  That could be in the middle of the day.  For me, switching the phone to manual time zones and then changing it before I go to bed makes the most sense.

[cr8tiv1]

The simple answer is yes, your watch will automatically display time on phone.  

 

The not so simple answer is sometime you need to "trick" your phone into a time zone.  For instance, traveling to Hawaii.  I take it off of automatic and set it according to the zone we are entering.  During the summer, that is Pacific Daylight Saving Time (CA), somewhere in Canada (can't remember now), Alaska, then Hawaii Standard Time.  This coincides with the ships moving +/-1 hour this way or that.

 

I made the mistake once, moving the hours in the wrong direction...in an inside cabin...and woke up in time for lunch.  

[wrongwaywatson]

I agree with the posters above.  Your smart watch will work fine, syncing to your phone.  On board it seems to work better to NOT do the automatic time zone on your phone, but to manually set it.  I would set it, double check it with the TV or the app (in the app it does say SHIP TIME in the corner) and then sync once the phone is right.  That way you don't have to worry about your phone switching back if the ship doesn't.  Always double check your watch when you get off the ship, though, to make sure it is right!

[Alcairns]

12 hours ago, donaldsc said:

Your idea of buying a cheap dumb watch for the cruise is a good one.  Makes life much less complicated.

 

DON

 The next generation medallions should include a small basic digital watch telling time only. 

[leck57]

4 hours ago, wrongwaywatson said:

I agree with the posters above.  Your smart watch will work fine, syncing to your phone.  On board it seems to work better to NOT do the automatic time zone on your phone, but to manually set it.  I would set it, double check it with the TV or the app (in the app it does say SHIP TIME in the corner) and then sync once the phone is right.  That way you don't have to worry about your phone switching back if the ship doesn't.  Always double check your watch when you get off the ship, though, to make sure it is right!

 

I think that's the best advice. On a very recent cruise around Southern Australia (Majestic), a couple of times my watch showed a crazy time and had Alaska as the location on screen. I assume that had something to do with the ships system but I have no real idea. My watched always synced but it seemed when we were way out at sea I saw these hugely inaccurate locations appear. When we were near the coast or in port all was fine.

Fortunately the ships wake up call system works well, because with my watch changing time and zones in the night, I might have missed a few things if I relied on my watch alarm.

[rjack22]

Thanks for all of your suggestions!     I am definitely going to bring a standard watch along at least to use on port days.   And I don't even have to buy one.   I have a whole collection of them from before I got my smart watch.    I am also going to look into how to manually set the time on my phone.

[wrongwaywatson]

If you manually set your time and have "automatic time zones" turned off, your smart watch won't go wonky.

 

Also, I do remember changing ships times and then getting into the next port and we did not change to local time.  We kept ship's time, even though local time had changed.  They announced it, put it at the top of the patter, and they had a big sign as you got off the ship.   Having that setting turned off would prevent it switching in that scenario, too.

[PescadoAmarillo]

We had frequent time changes and even a date change on our transpacific cruise. As others have said, just take your phone off automatic time, manually change the time and date as needed and your watch will be fine. 

[JamieLogical]

It really does depend on what type of watch you have. I had a fitbit at one point, and it needed to connect to the internet (via my phone) in order to sync, so even having the time manually set on my phone did not work. I now have a Garmin and it lets me choose to set the time manually on the watch itself (leave the phone out of it entirely), so that is what I do now while cruising.

[whogo]

iPhone Instructions:

 

Settings > General > Date & Time

 

Your iWatch should switch times as soon as your iPhone switches time.

 

You might want to add your cruise ports to the World Time app or your phone. All worked well for four time zone changes on my last cruise, but it never hurts to double check.