If you are at World Fantasy Con right now, you have an iHome clock radio in your room. It looks like this:
The iHome clock radio is very popular with hotels all over the world. It features an iPhone dock (with the now-obsolete 30-pin connector) and easy-to-use controls with instructions printed right on the top. Unfortunately, one of the things that is NOT covered by these instructions is how to change the time. Very few people, including hotel staff, know how to change the time setting on this clock, which means that — especially in the days and weeks following a change to or from Daylight Savings Time — the time shown is incorrect and it is frustratingly difficult to change it.
I have figured out how to do it, and I’m going to share it with you now.
Turn the clock radio around and look at the back:
You’ll see a horizontal bar of plastic with a knurled knob at the right end (it’s just to the left of the white wires in the photo above). This knob is actually a thumbscrew. Twist it counterclockwise to unfasten it.
When you have unfastened the thumbscrew, the whole horizontal bar comes off (it hooks in at the left end), revealing buttons labeled TIME ZONE and CLOCK ADJ and (on some models) a switch labeled DST.
If your clock has a DST switch, it has three positions: AUTO, OFF, and +1. The AUTO position is supposed to select the appropriate Daylight Savings Time setting automatically. (But if that were working, we wouldn’t be here.) The +1 setting advances the clock by one hour. (In my case, that changed it from being off by an hour to being off by TWO hours.) And the OFF setting gives up on the whole idea and lets you set the time yourself.
To change the time, press and hold the CLOCK ADJ button until the clock beeps and the time display blinks, then rotate the right-hand disc on the top of the clock to adjust the time backward or forward. Once you have the correct time, press the CLOCK ADJ button repeatedly until the time is displayed again. You’re done!
To replace the horizontal bar, hook it into the hole at the left end, swing it back into place, and refasten the thumbscrew.
Please link to this web page using the words iHome, clock, radio, and hotel in the link so that people can find it and change the time on their hotel clocks. Future hotel guests will thank you.
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