Wall-Clock Reviews

I own a small mortgage company and we have clocks all over the place: On the telephones, on the fax machine, on the desktop clock radios,on the battery powered wall clocks and the employees wrist watches. The problem is, that they often show different times! Deadlines are critical in my business, so the Atomic Clock is just what we needed. Now we have one OFFICIAL clock in the office and everybody knows that it is the correct time. And it LOOKS really cool too! I know it seems expensive for a wall clock, but if you want an indisputable source for the correct time all the time, get an Atomci Clock! They come in a variety of styles to match any decor. We bought two, one for each office.

I was a little skeptical of the claims made by the manufacturer but it looked like a great idea so I gave it a try. I put in the battery, followed the simple directions and was off and running in less than ten minutes. Is it really working? I'm a pilot so I have a handheld GPS that is updated by the atomic clocks onboard the satellites. My random checks confirmed it was working. Cool. In April came the big test -- will it really 'Spring Forward' on it's own? The geek in me couldn't resist watching. Yep. It marched the hands forward at the appointed time. A little spooky but fascinating. Now that the novelty has worn off we just regard it as THE CLOCK and set all our other timepieces by it.

This is a very good clock. It is extremely easy to set up, is accurate, and will wake you up. It is high-tech but with no frills. It is a basic alarm clock with snooze and nothing more. It is small, yet big enough to read easily, and loud enough to wake me without having my hearing aids in. It does exactly what it says it will do!

So easy to use. i couldn't believe the quality of the picture.

I bought two of this clock because I'm sick of adjusting the time after a power outage.
The clocks sets the time automatically within 5 minutes of powering up. The only weakness is that even with the brightness (dimmer) sets to high, it is still kind of dim, and each LED segment has slightly different brightness. If you put it near the window, I think you may have difficulty reading the clock. However, I put them in shaded areas, so I can read the clock just fine. Still, I wish they can be brighter.
You can pick one of the four US time zones (PST, MST, CST, EST) via a switch. I did not test the alarm or battery backup.
AC cord has a small power brick attached at the end.
Imported from China.

I've had the 30731 for about a week and am, thus far, very pleased.

When I began shopping for a new alarm clock, my primary selection criterion was that it have an LED display. Many new clocks have multifunction LCD displays which are nice except that you can't see them in the dark without pressing a button to illuminate them like an LCD wristwatch. Alternatively, some of these LCD clocks have projector attachments that shine a time display on the wall or ceiling, but you can't see them in a well-lit room! An LED display is visible under all ambient lighting conditions and seemed to me the most logical and straightforward solution.

Once the universe of clocks is narrowed to LED models, the next consideration is the size of the LED digits. They run anywhere from approximately 1/2 inch to 1 inch. I'm very nearsighted, so to be able to see the time in the middle of the night without my glasses, is purely a case of "the bigger the better". The 30731 has digits that are .9 inches high - bigger than most other LED clocks and easily readable sans glasses at 4AM. Obviously, the larger the display, the larger the clock, but I have lots of room on my nightstand and was not concerned with the 30731's somewhat larger than usual size (about 8.5"W, 3"D, 4"H).

At this point, additional useful features are the only other necessary evaluation. The 30731 has the ability to set itself by receiving a radio signal from the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) located in Colorado (Do a Google search for WWVB and you'll find them - lots of useful info). You set your timezone and whether you use Daylight Savings Time and the clock does the rest.

I can report that from my location in NY, this works perfectly but you should know 2 things. First, I have found that the clock must be facing East-West (i.e. facing Colorado from NY) for the auto-setting to work. If your bedroom is laid out such that your clock will not be facing in the general direction of Colorado, you might have a problem. (Actually, I think if it faces directly *away* from Colorado, that's OK too. As long as its not "end-on" to Colorado.) Furthermore, as the instructions point out, time signal reception is best in the wee hours of the morning, and that is the only time that, for my location anyway, the clock is able to sucessfully set itself (but it has sucessfully reset itself every night).

My only complaint, and it is a minor one, is that the snooze alarm bar, though large and easy to find, doesn't really depress like a button but sort of pivots front-to-back on a stiff spring and can cause a little fumbling when you're in a semi-conscious state.

The alarm is an electronic "chirp". Loud enough to wake me but not so loud as to cause coronary arrest.

The clock has battery backup for power failures if you put a 9V battery in it (not included).

It does not have dual alarms or weekend settings. It does not display date, day of the week or seconds.

You can see a better picture of the clock and get more info on it at the equitytime.com website.

I have not experienced the dim or irregularly illuminated display reported by the reviewer from Redmond. I find it amply bright with all LED segments uniformly lit.

I am quite happy with this alarm clock and can recommend it without reservation.

If you are looking for a sharp, well built clock for your office this isn't the one. It works as advertised but I was surprised at the shoddy workmanship and finish on the bezel. The joints have huge gaps in them and the wood has multiple nicks & scratches as well as a very poor finish. Mine is going out in the barn where it will fit in quite well.

Final update: I called the company that makes this clock and told them about the battery eating nature of the thing. They gave me an RMA number and shipped me a new clock which has been working fine for the last two weeks and has a much nicer fit and finish.

I've owned this clock for 15 months now. It is well made and surprisingly durable (I dropped it from a height of about 7 feet to the floor and it never stopped.) I purposely let the battery drain down-the second hand moves only every two seconds to show the battery is low. It took 13 months before that happened. My problem with it is with it updating to and from daylight savings time. The first time it took nearly a day and a half for it to decide to fall back to standard time (it actually goes ahead eleven hours). Come daylight savings in the spring I eventually gave up and took the battery out and put it back in again just to kick start the time change. This past fall it seem to work great. I got up in the morning and it was on standard time. I was so happy. Then the next day it decided to jump back to daylight savings time again. What was that about!? Overall I like the clock. It is dead accurate most of the time. Once in a while I'll catch it jumping ahead a few seconds or running full speed around twelve hours plus. (It does that to fall back a few seconds.) If you are a stickler with accurate time this clock will have you happy most days of the year.

We have this clock now for about a month and it is functiong
perfectly. It seems always a bit funny/odd to me how radio-controlled clocks have to be 'initialized'. This one was overall
quite easy to get synchronized with the radio signal. I followed
the instructions and used the nice feature of 'signal-strength'
testing which lets you know if you have a reasonable chance at
a particular spot in the house for getting a good radio signal.
It synchronized the first night (living in the East Bay Area, CA). I like that one can choose so many different looks for this
clock. Supposedly it will adjust for daylight saving time. That will be a pleasant feature. It is nice to have a clock that shows the exact time.

If you are looking for a sharp, well built clock for your office this isn't the one. It works as advertised but I was surprised at the shoddy workmanship and finish on the bezel. The joints have huge gaps in them and the wood has multiple nicks & scratches as well as a very poor finish. Mine is going out in the barn where it will fit in quite well.

Final update: I called the company that makes this clock and told them about the battery eating nature of the thing. They gave me an RMA number and shipped me a new clock which has been working fine for the last two weeks and has a much nicer fit and finish.

I've owned this clock for 15 months now. It is well made and surprisingly durable (I dropped it from a height of about 7 feet to the floor and it never stopped.) I purposely let the battery drain down-the second hand moves only every two seconds to show the battery is low. It took 13 months before that happened. My problem with it is with it updating to and from daylight savings time. The first time it took nearly a day and a half for it to decide to fall back to standard time (it actually goes ahead eleven hours). Come daylight savings in the spring I eventually gave up and took the battery out and put it back in again just to kick start the time change. This past fall it seem to work great. I got up in the morning and it was on standard time. I was so happy. Then the next day it decided to jump back to daylight savings time again. What was that about!? Overall I like the clock. It is dead accurate most of the time. Once in a while I'll catch it jumping ahead a few seconds or running full speed around twelve hours plus. (It does that to fall back a few seconds.) If you are a stickler with accurate time this clock will have you happy most days of the year.

We have this clock now for about a month and it is functiong
perfectly. It seems always a bit funny/odd to me how radio-controlled clocks have to be 'initialized'. This one was overall
quite easy to get synchronized with the radio signal. I followed
the instructions and used the nice feature of 'signal-strength'
testing which lets you know if you have a reasonable chance at
a particular spot in the house for getting a good radio signal.
It synchronized the first night (living in the East Bay Area, CA). I like that one can choose so many different looks for this
clock. Supposedly it will adjust for daylight saving time. That will be a pleasant feature. It is nice to have a clock that shows the exact time.

If you are looking for a sharp, well built clock for your office this isn't the one. It works as advertised but I was surprised at the shoddy workmanship and finish on the bezel. The joints have huge gaps in them and the wood has multiple nicks & scratches as well as a very poor finish. Mine is going out in the barn where it will fit in quite well.

Final update: I called the company that makes this clock and told them about the battery eating nature of the thing. They gave me an RMA number and shipped me a new clock which has been working fine for the last two weeks and has a much nicer fit and finish.

I've owned this clock for 15 months now. It is well made and surprisingly durable (I dropped it from a height of about 7 feet to the floor and it never stopped.) I purposely let the battery drain down-the second hand moves only every two seconds to show the battery is low. It took 13 months before that happened. My problem with it is with it updating to and from daylight savings time. The first time it took nearly a day and a half for it to decide to fall back to standard time (it actually goes ahead eleven hours). Come daylight savings in the spring I eventually gave up and took the battery out and put it back in again just to kick start the time change. This past fall it seem to work great. I got up in the morning and it was on standard time. I was so happy. Then the next day it decided to jump back to daylight savings time again. What was that about!? Overall I like the clock. It is dead accurate most of the time. Once in a while I'll catch it jumping ahead a few seconds or running full speed around twelve hours plus. (It does that to fall back a few seconds.) If you are a stickler with accurate time this clock will have you happy most days of the year.

We have this clock now for about a month and it is functiong
perfectly. It seems always a bit funny/odd to me how radio-controlled clocks have to be 'initialized'. This one was overall
quite easy to get synchronized with the radio signal. I followed
the instructions and used the nice feature of 'signal-strength'
testing which lets you know if you have a reasonable chance at
a particular spot in the house for getting a good radio signal.
It synchronized the first night (living in the East Bay Area, CA). I like that one can choose so many different looks for this
clock. Supposedly it will adjust for daylight saving time. That will be a pleasant feature. It is nice to have a clock that shows the exact time.

Sorry folks.. this clock just doesn't set itself! It's as simple as that. You will find no support for this product.

This clock is accurate, but not very accurate. While looking for a clock I thought it would be great to pick up one of these atomic clocks so I can synchronize all my clocks together.

Just one problem, though... when I went to pick it up and I noticed they had two of these sitting next to each other as a display. They were over 30 seconds different!!!!

There are other ways of setting a clock atomically. I bought a regular wall clock instead and now I just synchorize my watch and all of my clocks with a program I bought on the Internet.

The temperature features are nice and this does keep pretty close time. The feature of it setting itself is handy. I'm sure it makes Day-Lights savings time a bit easier. But I'm not going to pay extra for an atomic clock that is incorrect. You can do it cheaper other ways.

I received a similar (but not identical) SkyScan clock from Sams Club about 1.5 years ago. It's worked great up until last week. The outside temperature sensor stopped working. I replaced the batteries and that didn't seem to help. After contacting Eddie at Impact Merchandising (the distributor of SkyScan products) he emailed me with a fix. What you have to do is take out the batteries from both the clock and the temp sensor. Leave them out for AT LEAST 15 minutes. Then make sure you place new fresh batteries in the temp unit first. Then place new batteries in the clock. (DO NOT TRY TO SET THE TIME OR PRESS ANY BUTTONS ON THE CLOCK). Place the two units 3-5 feet apart. You should get a signal within 15 minutes. If not repeat the process once. If that doesn't fix the clock you can purchase a new temp sensor for $5 directly from them. Their contact info is :
Equity Time
6262 Patterson Pass Rd. Suite C
Livermore Ca 94550
(925) 373-9700

I bought 3 other atomic clocks (one as a gift), each for $20, and each required a less complicated procedure to set up than this one. So don't think you need to spend a lot to get an atomic clock. The better (or at least less expensive) one I'm referring to was by Lacrosse Technologies, and I bought it at a local store. I also like the way it looks although the materials are probably less expensive than this one. (But the second half doesn't fall off!)

There is a fairly elaborate procedure for setting up this clock. First, the hands must be set at about 10 minutes earlier than the actual time. Then a button on the back of it needs to be pressed once the second hand reaches the 12:00 position and again when it is one second past the minute hand. If the signal from NIST is being received properly, the clock will then automatically adjust to the correct time within a few minutes. If you don't live in a daylight savings time area, you must press and hold down the button on the back while inserting the battery. Otherwise, the clock will automatically adjust itself for daylight savings time.

Interestingly, one can even set the clock five or ten minutes fast.

Regardless of whether or not you already own a clock or watch, I think owning an atomic one is beneficial because you know it's always going to be accurate to a fraction of a second.

Within five minutes of opening the package from Amazon I had this clock set, synchronized and on the wall. The set up was not at all difficult or complicated as it took me less than a minute. I live in the Chicago area and the signal was picked up within five minutes and the time was set. I have another atomic clock in the house and I was able to confirm that the time was accurate.

The silver color looks great in our living room which is a bit on the side of IKEA in design.

I'm very happy with this clock.