I just bought this Phillipe Starck watch. I’ve been a big fan of his for years, and this is my second watch I’ve owned that was designed by him. While I love the look, I hate setting the thing. The best tutorial I found on how to set the time is here: Gadgets Page » Ask Laura: How to Set a Phillipe Starck Watch. I am going to extract the key point from her post, because I am half afraid it will get dropped and I won’t be able to find it again.
The button on the bottom left controls the mode. When you push this button one of the four modes will flash (TIM 1, TMR, ALM 1, or CHRO). Push the mode button until TIM 1 flashes. Now, you are in Time 1 Mode. You should be able to see the time, seconds and date on the face of the watch.
Hold down the mode button until the hour starts flashing. You can now set your time. The top right hand button will move you from hours to minutes to date, etc. The bottom right hand button will change the digits. When you have set it correctly, you can press the mode button (bottom left hand button) and it will start acting like a normal watch again.
In normal time mode, you can switch to TIM 2 by pressing and holding the bottom right hand button and set the dual time in the same manner.
Thanks, Laura!
P.S. If you have this site worthwhile and you’d like to buy me a coffee, you can do so here. Thanks! That’s awesome!
Smart People I Know 
I just received this watch (PH1110) as a gift, and do not understand which “buttons” I push, since the watch does not seem to have any. Do I push on the little dots on the back of the body, on the side/corners of the body, or on the flat areas of the band at the body’s corners?
Thanks so much,
Chris
Chris, the buttons are crazy hard to use. The “buttons” are the four sections on the front, I believe. (The word “Starck” is on one of them.) I take my watch off and press the front while holding the watch behind the button. Through trial and error, I found this works. It should not be that hard to use, but it is.
Try that and let me know if it works.
Wow; thanks so much! The buttons are really hard to push (they don’t even feel like buttons), but that did the trick. I’ll be sure to bookmark your page for when daylight savings time starts 🙂
Thanks a million again!
Chris
Does this watch have a backlight feature? It seems from the Starck website, many of his watches do. If so, do you know how to turn on the backlight to see the watch at night?
Thanks so much
Chris
Yippee; I figured it out!
Press (really hard) and hold top left button.
Good work, Chris! Thanks for sharing here.
Those “buttons” are not attached to anything. We took the watch apart. The buttons are just dots not attached to anything.
Please explain.
Thank you
It is hard to press them, but on my watch, if I press them, the display does change and the time can be set.
But the dots are not attached to anything nor can I apply and sort of pressure on it. It’s like pressing a hard rock!?! Please help!
It requires ALOT of pressure. It is like pressing a hard rock. But it can be done. OTOH, it is a pain, and in some cases, it may make more sense just to return the watch and get something more workable.
I’m going to try and gently use pliers…I’ll put a cloth to protect the watch but I’ll see if I can get the numbers to change…I don’t want to return the watch because I like the way it looks…
How to switch on this Watch, i bought this watch as a gift but couldnt figure out how to switch it on.
I think some people are still confused, press the FRONT of the watch not the back. The “line” on the front separates the top two buttons and bottom two buttons.
So essentially you are pressing on the hard plastic on the front, for example the bottom right button has “Starck” written on it. To the left of that, on the other side of the line is the bottom left button. Hope this helps.
Any ideas how we actually turn the watch on? Brand new gift purchase and have tried the above. Is there something I am missing? Any advice would be greatly received…
I would recommend you check your battery. Mine is always on: there is no on/off switch. Good luck!
Thanks. Yeah I got it replaced in the end. Now to work on adjusting the strap!
This is a case study of failure where design should follow function and not ignore function altogether for the sake of design.
I am on my 5th Starck watch and usually try to be in London around the time change and the lovely staff in Covent Garden help me out. Also have had help in Brighton. This year stuck in Wales so decided to Google. Wow, this is great, did it first time. If I could only stop the alarm beeping at 11:00 I would be 100% pleased!
Glad I could help with part of it! You will have to do more Googling to solve the beeping problem, though! (Perhaps there is way to set the alarm to off.) Good luck!