French Revolutionary Decimal Time

Why do we divide the day into 24 hours, 60 minutes per hour, and 60 seconds per minute? Because of the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians — civilizations that used base-12 and base-60 number systems thousands of years ago. These choices made sense for their astronomy and counting methods, but they’re not exactly intuitive in a world built on base-10 mathematics. During the French Revolution, reformers attempted to bring rational order to every aspect of life — including time itself. In 1793, France introduced decimal time, dividing the day into 10 hours, each with 100 minutes, and each minute with 100 seconds. The idea was elegant and logical: a day could be expressed as a simple fraction, calculations would be easier, and time would finally match the metric spirit of the revolution. Decimal time was even used officially for a short period — from 1793 to 1795 — and clocks were made to display both decimal and traditional time. Although the reform ultimately failed to catch on, it remains a fascinating glimpse into how humans tried to rethink something as fundamental as time itself. This watch face celebrates that revolutionary idea. At the top, it shows the percentage of the year that has passed, a reminder of the flow of time on a larger scale. In the center, you’ll find decimal time, displayed as hhmmss in base-10 (10 hours per day, 100 minutes per hour, 100 seconds per minute). At the bottom, you’ll see a “pseudo-ISO” timestamp — a simplified date and time format (example: 10-25T11:31) — giving a clean, modern reference to the current day and time. It’s both a tribute to revolutionary thinking and a playful experiment in how we measure our days.

1.3: Seconds in red to honor France 1.4: Blue, white, red also in always on mode + app crach fix 1.5: Bug fix, placement hours and minutes 1.6: Hide/show elements in settings in app