Tag Archives: wall clock

Hive-like LED wall clock offers a colorful and dynamic way to tell the time

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Clock designs come in all shapes, sizes, and levels of complexity. On one end, you have ultra-minimalist analog clocks that barely have discernible hands or numbers on their faces. On the opposite end, however, you have not only sophisticated mechanical clocks with all their gears and movements, you also have digital clocks with smart features that go beyond telling the time. Of course, it’s always a matter of balancing functionality and features, and some designs intentionally tip the scales toward one or the other depending on their target audience. This DIY wall clock, for example, caters to those who want a more vibrant and creative way to display the time, though it does require a bit of technical and electronics know-how to make.

Designer: Dawid Karoński

It’s really impressive how far DIY tools have come these days, from desktop 3D printers to small circuit boards that can run complicated programs to control nontrivial devices. And depending on the skills of the one making them, the end result could even look like a professionally made product that came from a factory rather than someone’s garage or home workshop. The Hexaclock, named for its unusual shape for a clock, is one such example, offering a wall clock and smart lamp that can rival the quality and features of well-known smart lighting brands.

The catch is that you have to make one yourself, which may or may not result in a product of equal quality. You’ll need a 3D printer, unsurprisingly, but that is actually the easier part of the process. The more tedious phase requires precisely cutting an LED light strip into specific sizes so that the LEDs actually line up with the hexagon-shaped compartments of the lamp. Even more laborious is connecting these segments together again into a single unit, at least electronically, so that you can control the strip with a program as if it was never cut at all.

All of these details, from the schematics to the software, are made available for free so that anyone with the right tools and knowledge can make their own hive-shaped wall clock. In terms of functionality, the clock offers plenty of customization options, from animated color transitions to dancing patterns. What’s even more impressive is that it supports a light sensor that can dim all LEDs except the ones displaying the clock itself so that the bright lights won’t disturb your sleep at night.

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Solar-powered sundial wall clock concept offers a unique way to tell the time

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Today’s clocks and watches seem to be split between mechanical analog and electronic digital designs, but there are more than two ways to tell the time. Of course, some of these methods are regarded to be inaccurate, error-prone, and at the mercy of the elements, but there’s a certain charm and magical feeling to the way our ancient ancestors tried to discern the time of day. The sundial is one of the oldest time-keeping tools, one that works on the presumption that the sun travels the same path every day of the year, which isn’t exactly the case. Still, it’s not an entirely incorrect method and it can easily be fixed with modern technology, like this sustainable wall clock concept that is powered by the sun in more ways than one.

Designer: Begüm Kılınç

A sundial works by simply observing the shadow that a stick or a tall thin object casts on a flat surface, a shadow that moves around and grows or shrinks as the sun makes its way through the sky. The sun doesn’t travel the exact same path all year round, however, and this method definitely doesn’t work at night. Modern technology, however, has a way to shine a light 24/7, and this wall clock uses that to recreate the almost mystical appearance of a sundial while utilizing energy from the very sun that inspired it.

Name after the Egyptian god of the sun, the Ra wall clock utilizes an LED ring light to simulate the sun. But rather than shining from all directions, the light is focused on a single point to recreate the effect of a short stick casting a very long shadow. As time moves, so does the light move around the periphery of the circle, thus mimicking a sundial but with more consistency and accuracy. Plus, it works at night as it does during the day.

While this would have been enough to create a modern sundial clock, the concept takes the association even further by also following how the sundial of old needed only the sun to function. Rather than relying on batteries, Ra uses solar power to make sure the clock is running 24/7 without the need to charge it or change batteries. The transparent solar panel that makes up the wall clock’s front cover actually harnesses any light around it, so the clock doesn’t need to actually be exposed to the sun and can be used indoors or under low-light environments.

This design helps give the sundial wall clock a sustainable potential, even if it does minimally use some electronics as well as LED lighting. Unlike analog clocks, there are now complex mechanisms that are difficult to repair, and unlike digital clocks, there are no screens or displays to show the time. It uses a very simple method that traces its roots back to ancient times, but one that still has benefits to the people of today.

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The iconic Heng Balance Lamp gets reimagined as a Pendulum Clock with the same signature aesthetic

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Remember the Heng Balance Lamp? A lamp so beautiful it reimagined lights, user interactions, and just the emotional design of lamps in general? Designer Zanwen Li decided to lean in on the Heng Balance Lamp’s iconic aesthetic, creating an alarm clock that paid homage to the simple, almost zen-like quality of the Heng lamp. Shaped to look like its inspiration, the Heng Alarm Clock uses a crucial detail, the lower ball + thread, as a pendulum, evoking a similar level of curiosity in the clock. The upper half of the clock has its face, while the lower half has an upward pendulum that rocks to and fro.

Designer: Zanwen Li

The Heng Balance Lamp’s iconic design remains perhaps the most plagiarized on the internet (closely competing with Dyson’s bladeless fan). Playing on that iconic aesthetic, the Heng Alarm Clock has a similar capsule-shaped design, with a clock face on the top half, and a swinging upturned pendulum at the bottom. To be honest, it would be fun if Li integrated a light strip into the lamp too (as a fairly literal shoutout to the Heng lamp), but that’s probably just wishful thinking on my part. The lamp’s minimalist design and fun reinterpretation of a classic product make it a great addition to any home. The balance between minimalism and quirky creativity allows it to resonate with all sorts of people. However, if this isn’t too quirky/minimalist for you, I recommend checking out the bizarrely beautiful Klydoclock instead!

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DIY wall clock is an enchanting way to tell time using prismatic lights

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Clocks, especially the ones we put up on walls, are no longer the single-function products of ages past. Many of them also serve as decorations, sometimes to the point that telling the time has become secondary and almost optional. That’s the case for some clocks that look stunning in terms of aesthetics but sometimes at the expense of easy readability of the time. Given how wall clocks are rarely used to accurately read the time down to the minute, however, that shouldn’t be a problem for most cases anyway. That, in turn, allows for a lot more freedom in how to represent time. This beautiful DIY project, for example, almost completely does away with the convention of distinct clock hands, instead using different hues of light to let you eyeball the time to some extent.

Designer: David Tweeto

Like many DIY wall clock projects, this Decorative Analog Clock involves quite a number of small electronics, wiring, and a bit of 3D printing. As the name suggests, however, this clock bucks the trend of defaulting to a digital presentation and clings to the analog way of telling time, at least in theory. In reality, it is completely driven by software, and the three distinct light colors each tell a different aspect of the time, just like physical hands.

Instead of ticking gears, the Decorative Analog LED Strip IoT Clock uses a small microchip that syncs with NTP (Network Time Protocol) server to know the time. This also controls a strip of 120 LEDs that is folded to form 60 pairs of LEDs back to back, running the strip inside a wide wooden ring that serves as the “face” of the clock. Although it would have been easier to 3D print a plastic ring cover, wood had the advantage of not only looking more stylish but also preventing the light from bleeding through.

The light uses the three primary colors of light (not pigment) to indicate time. Red is used to tell the seconds, and it only shines outward from the rim. Green is for the minutes, and its short light is also on the outer periphery of the circle. Finally, blue stands for the hour, and it is the only one that shines inside the hole of the ring.

In practice, this light analog clock isn’t exactly good at giving you the exact time since the lights can occupy more than just a single “tick” in the clock. It can still give you a general idea, though, which is what analog wall clocks are often used for anyway. As mentioned, the actual clock feature becomes secondary with these decorative clocks, and this DIY project definitely fulfills the primary purpose with much success, especially when the lights are dimmed. It creates a beautiful splash of colors on your wall, serving as a piece of light art that some might not even associate with a clock, even with the red light moving around the circle every second.

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This textured wall clock uses dynamic shadows that make its appearance change as the day passes

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Sundial, meet the modern analog clock!

Inspired originally by how shifting shadows were used to tell the time back in the ancient days, Sasha Torgova’s “Wall Clock” uses a unique textured clock face to emulate the same phenomenon. Place the clock on a wall that receives daylight and the clock’s face changes as the sun rises or sets. Sure, the hands on the clock tell the time, but the dynamic shadows on the clock’s face tell a story of timekeeping too!

Designer: Sasha Torgova

The clock’s texture is directly informed by Sasha’s love for Origami and industrial design. It’s the perfect melting pot of sorts, as the wall clock uses a bit of both. The texture on it was first arrived by experiments with folding paper, before Sasha decided to cast the final clock face out of concrete. The texture has more depth towards the edges, and is shallower towards the center, allowing the hands to move around unencumbered. “When natural light changes, the perception of the clock changes as well following the difference in shadows from the voluminous surface of the dial”, said Sasha.

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This wall clock tries to make you look at time in a different way

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In our minds, we all know that time is linear. Once gone, you can never go back even just a second in the past, nor can you jump a second to the future. At the same time, however, we also have this concept of time as going in circles, with repeating cycles of 24-hour days, 30-day months, and 12-month years. Many clocks, including digital ones that try to emulate analog timepieces, represent time in a circle that goes round and round every day. It may seem negligible, but it can actually affect the way we approach our time and our schedules, which is the kind of mentality that line linear wall clock is trying to fix.

Designer: Luke Avenas

It’s almost too easy to take for granted how shapes and designs can actually affect the way we think about things. Although the concept of time is linear, we still see it as a never-ending cycle of day and night represented by a circle with hands that travel around its face. This makes us aware of certain rituals that need to happen on a daily basis, from eating to sleeping to going to work or school, but it is also somewhat limiting because it confines your “vision” to only 12 hours at a time, even when the day has 24 hours.

While we view days as a cycle of hours, we actually see our schedules more as a list of hours, days, and even months. The discrepancy between our paradigms and our tools can be jarring and inefficient. At the very least, it forces us to jump between paradigms every time we switch between a clock, a calendar, a to-do app, and the like. A digital clock may seem like it minimizes that shifting, but it may actually make it worse because it only shows the time as an isolated point rather than as part of a bigger whole.

This Linear Clock concept tries to address that in an elegant and unconventional way by representing time for what it is. It has three bars representing the hours of a day, the days of a month, and the months of a year, synchronizing with how we actually view and use time, especially when thinking about schedules and appointments. Because it isn’t limited by space, the clock isn’t limited to showing just a portion of a day each time.

The clock is also simple yet beautiful, with a material that reminds one of black marble. It uses gold markers and accents to contrast with the dark surface of the bars. The markers move across the length of the bars to indicate the hour, day, and month, moving back to their starting position when the first stretch is over. Admittedly, there are no clear markings on which position corresponds to which figure, a detail that could perhaps be added in future iterations of the concept.

The Linear Clock does take up more space than even the most extravagant wall analog wall clock, but it also serves as a beautiful accent to any room anyway. It stands like a silent witness to the passage of time, making us become more acutely aware of how little time we have left and that, despite the repeating cycle of days, you can’t repeat time that’s already passed.

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Own Your Own Giant 44″ LED Wall Clock

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Seen in school gymnasiums the world over, this giant digital wall clock is the perfect addition to an aging parent’s home to accompany their large-button television remote and home telephone. Available from BigTimeClocks (and I thought you had to be a public school system to buy these!), the clock measures a very respectable 44″W x 26″H, with 15″ tall numbers, so even grandma should be able to read it with minimal squinting.

I remember in middle school, every classroom had a clock just like this (albeit smaller) above the blackboard. I always stared at it, wondering why the minutes went by so slowly. I was convinced they actually slowed the clocks in school to torture me more. I’m still not convinced they didn’t.

Why do you need a giant digital clock that you can read from 350 feet away? Beats me, but it’s available, so better to buy now and figure out a use for it later. That’s my motto. That’s also why I have a garage full of products I don’t use and probably shouldn’t have bought.

This stunning wooden wall clock is like a metaphor for time as a gift

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Although clocks are purely functional by nature, there was a time when they became elegant and elaborate art pieces worthy of becoming heirlooms. While mechanical logs still retain that mystifying character, modern analog clocks have seemingly devolved back to their purely functional purpose. Of course, their simpler mechanisms also offer the perfect opportunity to turn them into something more than just time-keeping appliances. Wall clocks that also function as wall decor have been on the rise recently, adding some flourish to a wall that goes beyond telling the time. Some tend to be minimalist in line with current design trends, but once in a while, we come across an elaborate piece of art masquerading as a wall clock, such as Nomon’s Ciclo.

Designer: Andres Martinez (Nomon)

A clock’s main purpose is to tell the time, but you won’t always be interested in that all the time. That means that a clock, whether on the wall or on your desk, spends most of the day unused and pretty much unappreciated. It’s hard not to appreciate the Ciclo, though, which looks like a wooden ribbon stuck to your wall. There’s almost a metaphor here about time and the present being a gift. Regardless of whether that was intentional or not, it’s hard to argue that it would definitely be a great gift to others or for yourself.

Many designer wall clocks these days tend to eschew the traditional circle that encompasses a clock’s face, or at least makes them subtle or invisible. The only circles you’ll find on the Ciclo are the round pips that mark the hours. These can be the same wooden material as the rest of the clock or made from metals like brass. Whatever the material, they still stand out, sometimes ever so slightly, to make it easy to actually tell the time.

The centerpiece of the clock is, of course, the wooden strips that make up its body. These thin sheets of wood are bent at their center and then arranged in a floral pattern to create the semblance of a round face. The wedge-shaped gaps between each strip not only create interesting whitespace to break the monotony of the wood but also provides color contrast, especially if the clock is affixed to a wall with a light hue.

Each Ciclo is made by hand, and the wood is sustainably sourced forested wood. That almost makes the wall clock completely sustainable if not for the electronics it needs to actually fulfill its function. It’s still better than many of the plastic-based wall clocks that litter not just markets but even some designer shelves.

The Ciclo is definitely a work of art and a handcrafting masterpiece, one that can easily breathe life into a barren wall. Admittedly, telling time becomes secondary with this design, but it combines function and art in a way that will continue to serve a useful purpose, even long after the clock’s batteries or electronics have died out.

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This wall-mounted analog clock displays the time of day in countries across the globe

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Bent Hands is an analog wall clock that denotes global cities and their corresponding time of day.

These days, checking the time and weather in global countries is as easy as scrolling through your text messages. With only a few clicks, you can find the local weather condition and time in cities you’ve never visited, or even heard of before. While the convenience of smartphones provides us with instant gratification and global information, the artful subtlety of the analog world has its perks. Bent Hands is a new analog wall clock for the modern home from UGLY.DUCKLING ID, an industrial design studio led by Gihawoo, displays the different times of major cities across the globe.

Designer: UGLY.DUCKLING ID

Named after the crux of its design, Bent Hands features a single clock hand that starts in the clock’s center point and crimps in a concentric formation to coordinate the time of day with corresponding cities. Speaking on the design behind their clock design, Gihawoo explains, “It is possible to see the global time at a glance by differentiating the size of the circle. The edge of the angled hand which was designed out of the attachment that the hands of the watch are usually straight shows the times in each country. It implicates the message that the world is moving together without breaking even though they are living in a little bit different time frame.”

Positioned at the top of the wall clock, the spot that’s ordinarily reserved for 12:00, users will find the major city of London displayed. Just beside the city’s name, a ballpoint indicates the time of day and connects to a long beam that traces the names of additional cities, denoting the time of day in other cities. Then, the beam connects to another ballpoint that reveals the exact time for Abu Dhabi. Moving closer to the clock’s center point, ballpoints correspond with more cities to reflect the time of day.

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This customizable wall clock merges the dials displaying two different countries’ timezone

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The Jetlag Clock is a wall clock that fuses two dials together to display the time of two different countries.

Whether you’re a globetrotter by virtue of work or have a relationship with someone who lives in another country, keeping track of different time zones can get tricky. Wall clock systems that are comprised of several clocks are able to tell us what time of day it is in different countries, but they’re fixed in their design. A single system may host three separate clocks telling the time of three different countries, but users can’t add other time zones without buying another clock entirely. Italian designer Alberto Ghirardello developed the Jetlag Clock to change that.

Designer: Alberto Ghirardello

Defined by the shape of two circles fusing together, the Jetlag Clock is a customizable time zone wall clock that allows users to change the times and countries displayed. Two mechanisms operate separately to show the time of two countries that users can choose on their own. The Jetlag Clock is made from laser-cut metal and oriented in a way that allows users to hang it either vertically or horizontally.

Describing the design and shape in his own words, designer Ghirardello explains, “Jetlag is a laser-cut metal wall clock whose shape is an ideal fusion of two dials, whose hours are marked by a series of holes which merge and become common to both pairs of hands.” If users choose to change the countries displayed on each clock dial, the white paint coat allows users to write in the name of new countries and then they can adjust the times accordingly.

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