Can I Turn Off My 4-Button Digit Watch Alarm Without the Manual?

  • Thread starter Thread starter tgt
  • Start date Start date
Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
21 replies · 35K views
tgt
Messages
519
Reaction score
2
How to do it for a digit watch with 4 buttons? Is there some general rules? Unfortunately, I lost the manual.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Can you go to the maker's website? You can also try the jewelry counter at a department store.
 
The same way you turn off a baby: shake it real hard.
 
:smile:
Theyr'e all different. W bought me a new watch for Xmas last year, and of course turfed the manual less than a month later. I've figured out how to activate/deactivate the alarm, but there's no damned way I can set the time.
 
Does anyone else think that it's wrong that a watch would require an instruction manual?
 
Yeah, but facts is facts. This sucker takes multiple presses of one button after priming it with another button, while holding a third one down. And it's a K-Mart special that of course has no website (can't even find the name on the web).
 
Do you have any idea how complicated the workings of a clock are? All those cogs and junk, even for regular ones. You need to know how to set time or wind it, etc. Might not be that easy to figure out.

And the new ones are fancy, with timers, lights, alarms, two time zones. That's tripped me up a few times.
 
Evo said:
Does anyone else think that it's wrong that a watch would require an instruction manual?

i do. i like my watch to be a watch, my phone to be a phone, my car to be a car, etc. if something needs more functions, the interface should be pretty intuitive, like, 'hit any button to stop alarm'. the more complexity technology adds to your life, the less it qualifies as technology, imo.
 
Proton Soup said:
i do. i like my watch to be a watch, my phone to be a phone, my car to be a car, etc. if something needs more functions, the interface should be pretty intuitive, like, 'hit any button to stop alarm'. the more complexity technology adds to your life, the less it qualifies as technology, imo.

Well said! :approve:

As for what buttons to press, I dunno. I'd try pressing and holding one at a time for 3 seconds or so and see if anything happens. If that doesn't work, then try them in combinations of two buttons. If that doesn't work, run it over with your car and get one that's simpler to use.
 
Ha, similar thing happened to me, I got a digital watch from my dad's friend, who lives in Japan, so though i had the manual, i could only sort of use the picture to figure it out. Oh, and try looking up the manual online if its a fairly well known brand...
 
There are only a small handful of different configurations of digital watch controls. You don't need a manual. When it starts beeping, press the buttons one at a time until you find the one that turns it off.
 
russ_watters said:
There are only a small handful of different configurations of digital watch controls. You don't need a manual. When it starts beeping, press the buttons one at a time until you find the one that turns it off.

I don't think he's trying to silence the alarm, I think he's trying to find out how to turn off the alarm so it doesn't keep going off every day. :rolleyes:
 
Moonbear said:
I don't think he's trying to silence the alarm, I think he's trying to find out how to turn off the alarm so it doesn't keep going off every day. :rolleyes:

That's right, that is the question.
 
i think there is usually a little bell symbol on the LCD when the alarm is activated (ie. it will go off at the appropriate time).

It's been a long time since i owned a digital watch, but usually one button is the mode button. one is start/stop (of the stop watch). one is reset/lap time (also a stopwatch) function and the last button is the backlight.

As far as I remember if you hold the start/stop button for a few seconds (probably 3 to 5 seconds) the little alarm bell on the LCD should go off and then voila. It could als be the reset/lap button, so try both. Sometimes they have a chime (it beeps on the hour), this is symbolised on the LCD as well. Sometimes holding the start/stop button will cycle through the options ie. alarm on/chime on, alarm on/chime off, alarm off/chime off, alarm off/chime on.

give it a try and hope it works, let me know :smile:
 
I had to do it a couple of days ago on my watch (a Casio). Somehow the alarm got turned on, probably one night when I was fumbling with the watch in the dark to find the button that turns on the backlight so I could see what time it was.

Anyway, on my Casio, you press the lower-left button repeatedly until it cycles into alarm (AL) mode. Then you press the upper-right button repeatedly until the little bell/alarm icon in the upper left corner disappears. (This is also the button that turns on the backlight, which helps explain how I inadvertently turn the alarm on occasionally.) Then press the lower-left button again to go back to normal mode.
 
Moonbear said:
I don't think he's trying to silence the alarm, I think he's trying to find out how to turn off the alarm so it doesn't keep going off every day. :rolleyes:
My bad.

Typically, you hold down the bottom right button and push the bottom left button or vice versa. Or you push the mode button (usually bottom left) to get to the alarm set screen, then push the top right button to cycle through the alarm and chime modes.
 
I'm surprised people still wear multi-function watches in the age of cell phones. I think a simple, non-digital, classic watch on a man is sexy.

I have some beautiful watches, but no longer wear them since I have a cell phone. The cell phone time is more accurate than a "normal" watch. I say that because I know you geeks have watches that lose one nanosecond every billion years.
 
My girlfriend's cell phone has a different time than my cell phone. How accurate can they be if they don't agree?
 
Evo said:
I'm surprised people still wear multi-function watches in the age of cell phones. I think a simple, non-digital, classic watch on a man is sexy.

I don't carry a cell and I don't wear a watch.

I am pretty sure OP can find the directions online. What brand is it?
 
there are four buttons, one of them is the backlight. So let's ignore that one. that leaves three. If you have to hold down two buttons to shut off the alarm there are 3 combinations. If none of them work then pick a button and push it. If the screen changes then push it again if it changes back to the first screen then you know that after pressing that button you have to press a different button in order to do anything in that screen before pressing the first button again. If pressing the first button a second time results in a different screen, but is not the original screen then you are on some sort of a menu system and keep pressing the first button until you see something that looks like it could be an alarm setting screen.
 
russ_watters said:
My bad.

Typically, you hold down the bottom right button and push the bottom left button or vice versa. Or you push the mode button (usually bottom left) to get to the alarm set screen, then push the top right button to cycle through the alarm and chime modes.

Seemed like good advice. It turned out to be push down bottom right then press top right and bottom left simultaneously.
 
and then you do the hokey pokey, and shake it all about...