Wifi Network Clock Review: Great Features <$40 With A Security Concern

 

I have many clocks in my home which all seem to show different time no matter how often I try to sync them to an accurate time source.  I was looking for something inexpensive that I could have in the living room that would auto correct itself often so I had one clock I could depend on there.  

I decided to stay away from radio clocks that needed to be able to receive WWV to reset themselves as I knew that would work maybe once a week, if I was lucky. I used to have a WWV correcting watch and I had to remember to put by a window at night to get updates. Ideally, I wanted something that would reset hourly so it could be accurate to within a second or two.  

After searching around, I found this clock on Amazon and thought I’d give it a try.  It can be set to synchronize over wifi with any time server worldwide or even a local one if you have your own NTP server. It is customizable via a web browser to display any time zone (including UTC – great for logging), show the date in rotation, set the brightness, etc.

I have had the clock running for a couple of weeks now and it is working well. The display is bright and easy to read from across the room and whenever I check its accuracy, it is always within about 1 second of the correct time.  

The only issue I have with it is the open wifi hotspot used for initial setup can never be turned off.  Although the range of the hotspot is limited, it is still a security risk since someone can hop through the clock and on to your home wifi if you are not careful.  It is also possible to look at the HTML code of the clock’s setup page and see your wifi password which is a bad design choice that was made by the manufacturer. 

However, there are a few ways you can protect yourself here:

1. Create a separate wifi network with internet access and limit it so that only the clock can join it.  This is the solution that I use. I have locked down the “clock” network so only this unit’s MAC address can connect to it. The worst case is someone can play with my clock settings but I feel it is reasonably secure for me based on the clock’s open wifi hotspot range.

2. If you do not have a guest network where you put all your devices that are less secure, you could set one up and put this clock on there.  This is a good way to protect your computers from anyone coming on to your network via a less secure device like a doorbell, printer, lightbulb or other questionable gadget. This is not as secure as option 1 but simpler to set up. The main problem is your password being exposed via the clock’s setup page.

This budget clock hits a sweet spot between features and price—ideal for general use around the house or logging in the shack. It is reasonably well built but you must be comfortable with its obvious wifi security hole and make sure to lock it down. 

Product link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DR2G868Y