Swatch Internet Time
One number for the whole planet. No time zones, no daylight saving, no conversion.
Sat, 15 Aug 2026 in Biel
Why there is only one number
Swatch cut the day into a thousand parts and started counting at midnight in Biel, Switzerland, where the company is based. That reference — Biel Mean Time, UTC+1 and never anything else — is the same for everybody, so a beat is an instant rather than a local reading. “Meet at @500” needs no follow-up question.
- Your clock
- 22:09UTC
- Beat now
- @964everywhere
Convert
Beats at a glance every 50 beats
| Internet Time | BMT (UTC+1) | UTC |
|---|---|---|
| @000 | 00:00 | 23:00 prev. day |
| @050 | 01:12 | 00:12 |
| @100 | 02:24 | 01:24 |
| @150 | 03:36 | 02:36 |
| @200 | 04:48 | 03:48 |
| @250 | 06:00 | 05:00 |
| @300 | 07:12 | 06:12 |
| @350 | 08:24 | 07:24 |
| @400 | 09:36 | 08:36 |
| @450 | 10:48 | 09:48 |
| @500 | 12:00 | 11:00 |
| @550 | 13:12 | 12:12 |
| @600 | 14:24 | 13:24 |
| @650 | 15:36 | 14:36 |
| @700 | 16:48 | 15:48 |
| @750 | 18:00 | 17:00 |
| @800 | 19:12 | 18:12 |
| @850 | 20:24 | 19:24 |
| @900 | 21:36 | 20:36 |
| @950 | 22:48 | 21:48 |
Where it came from
Swatch launched Internet Time in October 1998, at the moment when the internet had made it normal to talk to someone eight zones away and painful to arrange a time with them. The pitch was that the network has no geography, so the clock on it should not either: a thousand beats, counted from midnight at Swatch's headquarters, printed on a line of .Beat watches with a second, beat-only dial.
As a replacement for the ordinary clock it went nowhere — a beat is an awkward 86.4 seconds, and the reference point is one company's front door. As a way for strangers in different zones to name an instant it worked, and that is where it stuck: ICQ showed it, and Sega's Phantasy Star Online used it so that players in Tokyo, Frankfurt and Chicago could agree to meet without anyone doing arithmetic.
The arithmetic is small enough to do by hand. Take the time in UTC, add an hour for BMT, count the seconds since midnight and divide by 86.4. Nine in the morning UTC is 10:00 BMT, which is 36,000 seconds, which is @416.
Other ways to cut up a day
One beat is exactly one decimal minute — both scales divide the day by a thousand, they just disagree about where the day starts.
Questions people ask
What is the .beat time right now?
@964.68 — Swatch Internet Time counts the day in 1,000 beats from midnight in Biel, Switzerland, and it is the same number everywhere on earth. That is 23:09:08 BMT, or 22:09:08 UTC.
How long is one .beat?
1 minute and 26.4 seconds. A thousand of them make a day, so a beat is exactly a thousandth of 24 hours — and exactly one decimal minute, which is why this clock and the decimal one keep step.
What time zone is Internet Time in?
None, which is the point. Every beat is measured from midnight Biel Mean Time (UTC+1, no daylight saving, all year), so @500 is the same instant for everyone. Nobody has to convert anything; there is only one number.
How do I convert my local time to .beats?
Convert your time to UTC, add one hour to get BMT, take the seconds since BMT midnight and divide by 86.4. The converter on this page does it in either direction for any city, and shows its working in both BMT and UTC.
Is Swatch Internet Time still used?
Not as a mainstream clock — Swatch launched it in 1998 and the .Beat watches are long discontinued. It survived where a single global number was genuinely useful: ICQ carried it, and Sega's Phantasy Star Online used it so players in different regions could agree on a meeting time without doing time-zone arithmetic.