ChronoLog • Watch Accuracy

This app pretty much does all you could ask: logs your wear time, tracks your watches accuracy by both manual input and the ability to take a picture, as well as work as a Timegrapher which admittedly I haven’t tried that feature since I have an actual Timegrapher. The other feature are pretty much flawless and the app is laid out extremely user friendly. I really like the fact that it gives you stats on what watch you wear the most/least, most recent, and what hasn’t been on your wrist in a long time. Just buy this app you won’t be disappointed

I cannot recommend ChronoLog. My biggest complaint is with one of the app’s headline features: using your phone’s microphone to analyze the sound of a mechanical watch. Apparently, the algorithm does not have a firm grasp on what a watch actually sounds like. As a test, I repeatedly said the word “click” into my phone’s microphone, gradually speeding up as the session went on. ChronoLog dutifully analyzed my performance and eventually reached the conclusion that I was not speaking at all—I was, in fact, the proud owner of a catastrophically defective mechanical watch. According to the app, my entirely fictional timepiece was beating at roughly 18,000 BPH and losing about 1 hour and 32 minutes every single day. I admire the confidence. Faced with the choice between “this person is obviously talking” and “this is the worst watch ever manufactured,” ChronoLog committed to the latter. The app never stopped to ask the obvious question: “Could this possibly not be a watch?” Beyond that, I struggle to see the value in many of the other features, especially now that the app has abandoned its free trial in favor of an upfront purchase. Take the newly released “Wear Log.” Every time you put on a watch, you tell the app. Every time you take it off, you tell the app again. In exchange, the app rewards you with an exquisitely detailed historical record confirming that, yes, you wore your watch. Curious which watch you wear most often? Unable to glance down at your wrist over the course of several weeks and form even a vague impression? ChronoLog has a painstaking, manual, bespoke workflow for exactly that. The app feels less like a tool for watch enthusiasts and more like an experiment in seeing how many ordinary activities can be converted into data entry. If future updates teach the microphone the difference between a mechanical escapement and a guy saying “click” over and over, I’ll happily give it another look.