Forgive me if this is something everyone but me knows. I did a search and found a ton of posts where people mentioned using the timer, but none that explicitly says how I am supposed to use it.

I have installed one timer on each of my four lots. When I click on "list" it tells me the household name and how many days it has been played. This is good, because as my hood grows it will be easier to figure out who is next to play in rotation. I thought clicking on the family name would take me to their lot, but it doesn't. Oh well. Not a big deal.

But what about the other "features"? I'm guessing that the +/- days feature allows me to change the day forward or backward so all my newly added lots will show the same number as the ones I've played for days. Is this right?

I clicked on Time Warp and got a warning that scared me out of pursuing that option further. What does it do? Is the threat real or is it another creator joke -- like the times I hit a wrong key in SimPE and it says, "All your Sim are belong to us." The first time I got that message, I thought I'd downloaded a Sim-based virus that was going to take over my computer, like one of those hostage viruses!

And then there is the event list (empty), set event day (just numbers, I supposed of how many days until an event such as a birthday or wedding. How is this feature supposed to be used?

Am I wrong to assume this gadget is just a number tracker, a convenient way for me to decide who to play next? Is doesn't actually DO or CHANGE anything, right?

I think the Lot Sync Timer was able to switch lots in one of the earlier EPs, but one of them broke it.

+/- adds or removes a day from the current lot. So if you're on Day 6 for most of your lots, and want to move in a new family, you can just use the + to set it to Day 6 without playing it all through. The day advances at 6pm (which is when Sims age if they're having a birthday).

Time Warp isn't really that dangerous. It just lets you set the day of the week and time of day. You don't want to do it if someone's at work/school because then they might end up stuck and that's a pain getting them back.

I'm not exactly sure how the event list works.

Unless you use Time Warp, it doesn't really change things.

Until OFB, that 'jump to next family' was functional-and after, it wasn't. For whatever reasons, (and he was adamant about this), Pescado refused to 'fix' the feature, saying that doing so would be too much work and not worth his time-from this thread at MATY:http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/s...pic,2386.0.html
"Pre-OFB, it should work. Post-OFB, it should be deactivated."

Which is a shame, too-I still miss that one feature. It was marvelous..

Well, it sounds like for my use, the Lot Sync Timer is little more than a digital checklist to let me know which lot needs playing.
Anyone know if there are other programs that do the same thing? Maybe something that doesn't look like a big ol' water bottle dispenser?

This one is so ugly that I will probably remove it until my hood gets so big that I can't keep up with what day each family is on.

Get the one at the very last post on the thread. It changes the model to a basegame plant. Much prettier and smaller than the dispenser.
Also, Pescado probably didn't re-enable the jumping to families because they're already selectable while you play a household (you click their house and a dialog shows up, asking if you want to play that house), so he labeled that feature in the object as unnecessary.

Events are handy - basically, when you're on a lot you use Set Event Day to make a note of which day an event will happen. So you might decide that your sims get christmas on day 25, I dunno. Once you've done that, you can then see when that event is set for and which family set it from any household with a lot sync timer, which makes it easier to co-ordinate stuff between households.

For example, you might decide that a sim in the Bloggs family is going to move in with the Jones family on day 43. So you set an event for the Bloggs family on day 43, and when you get to day 43, you move the sim out. Then when you're playing the Jones family, you can use the lot sync timer to remind yourself which day to move the sim in, so they don't wind up missing or repeating days.

It's also handy for remembering when someone is going to age up-birthdays, deaths, marriages, you name it, you can use it for anything.

The only annoying thing is that when you have a lot of family events on it, they will all pop up on other lots until you check it off on the 'marked' lot. That means lots of popups during the visit to the other lots.

PS-you can edit the read out of the sync timer, as well. I've done mine to just say-"Day x-Mortimer Goth". It doesn't have to read the whole long sentence that it originally had. I got tired of it and just edited it to simply read that text.