Tired of confusing timezones? Here’s internet time explained in plain English: it is a decimal way to name the current part of a day with one number that people around the world can share. Instead of saying “3:00 p.m. my time,” you can refer to the same .beat value.

What is Internet Time?

A useful internet time definition is a global time scale divided into 1,000 equal .beats per day. A beat lasts 86.4 seconds. If you are asking “what is beat time,” this is the short answer: a decimal day made for one shared reference. Swatch introduced the system, often called Swatch Internet Time, in 1998 as the internet was becoming part of everyday life.

The day follows Biel Mean Time (BMT), fixed at UTC+1 throughout the year. At one actual moment, a person in New York, London or Tokyo can read different local clock times but the same Internet Time beat. The reference itself does not shift for daylight saving time.

To convert, take the UTC seconds since midnight, add 3,600 seconds for BMT, wrap at 86,400 seconds, then divide by 86.4. For example, 12:00 p.m. in New York during standard time (EST, UTC−5) is 17:00 UTC and equals @750.00. At 12:00 p.m. during daylight time (EDT, UTC−4), the result is @708.33. The date and timezone matter.

Why did Swatch create it?

People connecting through the early web needed a simple way to refer to a shared moment without choosing among local clock conventions. Swatch’s proposal replaced hours, minutes and seconds with a single decimal count from @000 to @999.

That makes Beat Time easy to write and compare. It does not remove the need to agree on a calendar date or tell people how a beat maps to their local schedule, but it gives the group one consistent reference to start from.

Where can Internet Time be useful?

Remote coworkers can suggest a beat and then check the local clock times for their cities. Gaming communities can post a tournament start in .beats, while players use the date and city comparison to understand their own local time.

Digital nomads may also like having a stable global reference while their device timezone changes from country to country. The beat remains tied to the same instant; their displayed local clock changes with their location.

How do I get started?

Open our converter to see the live beat and convert a time in your device’s current timezone. The converter does not have a city selector, so for a time in another city, first establish that city’s correct local time and date.

For the corresponding clocks in multiple locations, learn more about comparing city times in the step-by-step guide. Internet Time is one more useful way to coordinate, not a replacement for dates, calendars or local clock details.