I have a chronometer which I set in the following way:
long realTime = SystemClock.elapsedRealtime();
long time = alert.Created.getTime();
holder.timeChronometer.setBase(realTime - time);
holder.timeChronometer.start();
//alert.Created is a Date type, it's value is Thu Oct 30 12:41:45 CST 2014
The problem is that the chronometer doesn't count entirely in numbers, it counts in characters.