- Why Should Someone Get A VHP?
- What You’ll Need
- Setting the Watch
- Re-Synchronization Process
- Tables & Examples
Why Should Someone Get A VHP?
I’ve written before about how the Longines VHP is one of my go-to travel gear items.
Why do I love my Longines VHP (VHP = Very High Precision) watches when I travel? They are super nice but not too flashy, they are fancy without being too fancy and making you a target of a pickpocket, they are super easy to change time zones on (without having to hack the watch!), and they boast of the the most accurate quartz wristwatch movements in the world–and they don’t need to dial up the atomic clock every day.
How accurate is it? It’s accurate to within ±5 seconds per year. That’s at least 10 times more accurate than your standard quartz watch. You can pick one up on clearance right now at one of the Swatch outlets for somewhere around $500. The only more accurate quartz watches that I know of use the Citizen Caliber 0100 (which will keep you within 1 second per year, but will set you back over $7000). But that’s it…
Fellow Walt Disney World annual passholders: If you hack your watch exactly to the atomic clock, a VHP may be just the tool you need to snag that awesome boarding position on Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. Southwest travelers, knowing how the check in process is today, your VHP watch can be your difference between an amazing boarding seat and a center seat in the back. And for non-rev travelers trying to hit 24 hours before your flight on the nose to help your position on the standby list–it may be your difference between making it home or not.
The only drawback is replacing the battery on the watch. Longines recommends you send it into them for service. This will run you at least $60 and take your watch out of commission for a few weeks. Also, the first time I did this, my watch came back not calibrated properly. They thankfully fixed it free of charge (with another return shipment to the factory, of course), but this got me wanting to learn how to set one by myself. Unfortunately, instructions weren’t published anywhere.
That got me thinking that maybe it would be a good idea to write a blog topic about setting the watch. Hopefully, the Internet will locate it and benefit from having these clear instructions.
Special thanks to DaveM on the WatchUSeek forums who outlined the process pretty well in his original post. This post strives to be a clearer set of instructions with more examples.
What You’ll Need
To do this properly, you’ll need a:
- Teeny, tiny regular screwdriver. You’ll ideally want one that’s about 1mm in width. A set like this should do the trick nicely.
- Something to open the screw-off caseback of the watch. This works nicely on the VHPs. I’ve also been known to use “balloon” ones like this one with mixed results, based on the watch. There’s a much lower chance you’ll scratch the watch or caseback with the balloon.
- A timer. The timer on your smartphone will do nicely.
Setting The Watch
- Pull out the crown. After 60 seconds, the watch should go to sleep.
- Remove the caseback of the watch using your caseback tool / balloon.
- Remove the old battery. The battery housing is held in place by 2 tiny screws. Be patient–this takes some skill and the correct screwdriver. Here’s a picture of the screws to remove. Once removed, the entire battery housing lifts out.
- Leave the watch without any battery for 5 minutes.
- Install the new battery. The battery is a 380/SR936W. The 394 battery has the same dimensions, but probably won’t last as long.
- Wait for the complicated “dance” of the date wheel / hands / etc to complete. You’ll probably feel the “dance” taking place as you’re screwing in the battery housing of the watch.
- Wait for 5 minutes after the “dance” has completed.
- Long press the crown. (A “Long Press” is 2 seconds long.) This will cause the watch to display the date in an unusual fashion, including the year.
- Check the date. Suppose the remembered date was 11/30/2024.
- Seconds Hand should point to the month (11, or “55 seconds,” would be November)
- Minutes hand will point to the ones digit of the year. (so, for 2024, the minutes hand will point to the number 4.)
- The hour hand would point to the tens place of the year. (So, for 2024, the hour hand should point to the number 2.)
- The date window should display the correct date (so, in keeping with the example, the date window should show 30.) If the date window shows the wrong date or the “Longines Wing,” then re-synchronize. (See the steps below.)
- If the date is correct, long-press the crown. After 2 seconds, the time reading should change to 12:00 PM (noon). Date shouldn’t change, and the watch should start to tick.
- Set the time in the normal way.
Re-Synchronization Process
- Short press the crown–this should make the seconds hand rock.
- Move the seconds hand to the current month. (So, if you suppose the current month is November, you’d move the seconds hand to 11.)
- Short press the crown again–the date rocks.
- Rotate the crown to change the displayed date in the window to the correct date.
- Short press the crown again–the minute hand rocks.
- Rotate the crown to select the date with BOTH HANDS. (So, if it is 2024, you’d point the hour hand at 2, and the minute hand at 4, thus setting the hour and minute hand to 2:20 (hour hand pointing at 2, minute hand pointing at 4))
- Long press the crown. This will put your watch on noon of the day you are setting the watch.
- Manually set the time the normal way.
Tables & Examples
In case this is still confusing–when re-synchronizing, the second hand is month:
| January | 05 Seconds |
| February | 10 Seconds |
| March | 15 Seconds |
| April | 20 Seconds |
| May | 25 Seconds |
| June | 30 Seconds |
| July | 35 Seconds |
| August | 40 Seconds |
| September | 45 Seconds |
| October | 50 Seconds |
| November | 55 Seconds |
| December | 00 Seconds |
…and the hour and minute hands are the tens and ones digit of the year, respectively.
| 2024 | 2:20 |
| 2025 | 2:25 |
| 2026 | 2:30 |
| 2027 | 2:40 |
| 2028 | 2:45 |
| 2029 | 2:50 |
| 2030 | 3:00 |
| 2031 | 3:05 |
| 2032 | 3:10 |
| 2033 | 3:15 |
| 2034 | 3:20 |
And so on. Here’s a few examples.
After correct synchronization, to synchronize the date, the face would read:
- 2/28/2054 – 5:20:10 with 28 in the date window.
- 11/12/2028 – 2:40:55 with 12 in the date window.
- 8/25/2023 – 2:15:40 with 25 in the date window.
- 3/17/2037 – 3:35:15 with 17 in the date window.
Let me know if anything can be improved or if I made any errors in the comments below!
