I found my old watch today. It had been gathering dust in a cupboard for the last six months or so.

I say watch but it actually goes by the name of ‘smart bracelet’.

After charging the battery the only task that remained was to set the time.

So I looked at it.

I pressed it.

I swiped it.

I tapped it.

I shook it.

I scratched my head.

Then I looked at it some more.

I pressed it again.

I swiped it again.

I tapped it again.

I shook it again.

I don’t want to get too monotonous here but this cycle was repeated several times.

Until I finally concluded definitively that there is no way to change the time on a smart bracelet. If the time on the display is wrong then you’ll just have to alter the speed that our planet is spinning. A less daunting task, it seemed.

So I did what I always do when hopelessly floundering. I googled it.

The only drawback with this is that I don’t know the brand name of my smart bracelet so I had to watch several videos of American and Japanese men enthusiastically showing off the features of their new gadget until I found a device which looked like mine.

I watched a video. And discovered I was right, you can’t change the time on a smart bracelet.

What you have to do instead is ‘sync’ your smart bracelet with your mobile phone via Bluetooth.

This alien process includes downloading a health app which asked me my a) height b) weight and c) what I want to achieve.

a) not sure

b) don’t know

c) just to set the time.

I successfully downloaded the app. The time display magically corrected itself on the watch. But now the app keeps making strange requests, asking permission to do things like ‘analyse your sleep’.

I thought of a simpler time, when I was a happy schoolboy with a digital watch bought at the Lammas Fair. Setting the time was simple, you just stuck a safety pin into a little hole.

Those times are gone. These days my smart bracelet is smarter than me.