Time for your internal clock, how settings can affect your position as a bidder on timed auctions

The Romans were masters in timekeeping and so were other ancient cultures, they did not have access to devices like atomic clocks or advanced chronographes but they managed quit well!

With 2020 behind us are we in the era of the digitalisation, ancient clock's and automatic wristwatches are being replaced by electronic watches and clock's.

Since the internet (former DARPA) is available widespread so do we have access to even a atomic powered clock. Quite advanced, so advanced that those clock's are running accurate by the millisecond.

If you are bidding on (e-)auction are you most likely aware of things like latency on a computer (network). Things like instabile internet access can be adding sand in the machine. So before the auction you will reboot the device, warm it up (caching) and checked internet speed, even a spare (i)Pad 2nd computer at hand with a satellite connection (just in case your computer crashes or a local powerout!).

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The auction starts and you have your eyes on a lot what you really need to complete a collection, you have been working on that collection for two decades, today you are really excited.

Because the object of your desire is extremely rare are collectors of similar objects as well very interested. You scared them off by a high bid, currently are you still the highest bidder but 10 minutes before the lot closes did the price creep up to match your maximum initial bid.

It's time to take action, you develop a strategy to add a additional 175% on the already generous bid to make sure you will not miss it, it's the crown of two decades of work and searching!

When it's 5 minutes till closing time you enter a 75% higher maximum, nothing is happening till the last minute, the price is moving only 20% up and you throw your big card: the extra 100% from the initial max. on the last moment must be sufficient to outbid any other last call bidder.

The remaining time is ticking away, the bid amount is still not moving, you have the highest bid and a extreme high max. bid now! And the lot is closed! On internet is appearing WINNING in big green letters, what a relieve you won it! The site keeps on saying winning for a minute or so, you push the F5 button and till your great surprise did the price double, you don't believe your eyes..... What is happening, the lot is closed and you are WINNING, must be a late sniper bid, some latency with the bidding platform, no need for  panic and proud of the smart strategy to add te 175%😅! You wait and see and when you tab another times the F5 button does appear YOU HAVE BEEN OUTBID: LOST You are very disappointed, just been beaten & outbid by a snipe bid is the first idea, the other bidder did win it with just one bid step ahead, really frustrating! Difficult to comprehend what just happened.

But what has really happened under the hood, what is the Root Cause of this?😨

The auction site has a precise scheduled time when their lots are closing and no more bids will be accepted. It's hosted on a server or servers and they synchronise the internal clock with the time what is locally accepted as the standard, for example in the USA is this the site: National Institute of Standards and Technology | NIST (time.gov) But a (smaller) auction in London, Paris or Barcelona will have their servers perhaps synchronized to a different standard.    

One might expect that the remaining time scheduler in your browser is representing the actual lasting time and is counting down to the closing time of the lot. I will take you out of the dream, it is often not! Many bidding used platform's software are not pushing that time, once connected will it match the BIOS instead  and uses your internal clock to count down! What you see is not what you get, that clock is used but most sites software is not equilbrating it at first. If your clock is running early (only 1 minutes) will the counting stop 60 seconds before the lot will actual close. And the webbrowser will notify you that it is closed as well 60 seconds before, which only contributes to the confusion! The displayed time is often misleading, you can imagine when the clock is running late and you try to place a last call bid.

Last day's did I do some thorough research and did run several check's. I am a bit surprised by the first result, did set my internal time & date settings to automatic on a Windows computer. This resulted in a nearly 2 minutes discrepancy with the UTC+1 time here😱, it was running early by the way. So through my local computer it would appear that lot's would close 2 minutes before they actually do! If you have several devices to monitor that counting down on the same lot does it become obvious how the internal clock of those devices can lead to (severe) discrepancy's.

From Nemesis did I receive a link to the French atomic powered clock : Heure exacte en France - Horloge atomique (quelleheureestil.fr) Great was my surprise to see that the shown times of this and the NIST did not match. The difference got worse when the computer did enter sleeping mode, after sleeping mode did the atomic clock link show a time which was not matching at all. It was counting again after a slab on the F5 but it did not equilibrate the data, it seemed to use my internal clock somehow but now with a increasing discrepancy. Only when I copied and pasted the link in that same browser dit it renew.

Now I got curious and did follow a specific lot on a International bidding platform, one on a iPad, a iPhone and one on the desktop as well. All with the correct time settings, compared the results: differences. Only after a hard reset did the iPad get close to the iPhone. It's still running a bit to early though (3 seconds), although the internal clocks match. iPhone is connected to the 4G network of Vodafone, and iPad to a router (WiFi).

The accuracy of the auction timer is needed to be checked frequently, so is the internal clock. Be carefull with that automatic setting, especially when traveling, connecting to hotspots and switching internet provider can trigger it to get out of sync.

Redundant to mention that a wrong auction times is a enormous handicap, it gives other bidders a enormous headstart,  they can test your maximum and outbid you. You don't stand a chance against sniping, this is a common approach on these auctions. If you want to practice last second bidding that internal clock need to match that of the hosting auction server. I should place a waring, due to software changes on certain auction platforms will a last second bid lead to a increased close time in order to stand up against sniping. It's important to be aware of that, especially if you are being outbid in the last seconds, that few seconds extra can save the desired lot.

Many things go automatic in 2021, but it can take effort to have access to the actual time. Just like the Romans did have to adjust their sunclock's during the seasons are we despite the latest technology still doing the same.....

National Institute of Standards and Technology | NIST (time.gov)

Heure exacte en France - Horloge atomique (quelleheureestil.fr)