I’ve had a Phillips “atomic” alarm clock beside my bed for 23 years that just sets based on radio signal and auto restores if the power is lost, to which it has a backup 9v battery.
There’s a time zone setting offset slider and a DST slider. I basically touch it twice a year, maybe another if I move time zones. I’ve only had to touch it for DST (never switched time zones). Takes me conservatively 10 seconds to find and flip, so it’s taken me 460 seconds or a little under 8 minutes in the past 23 years to do time adjustments.
While these efforts are definitely fun hobby projects, there are cheap reliable solutions out there with minimal intervention that consume the NIST radio signal for time.
I was going to mention an Atomic Clock. I use one in an RV and it sets itself even outside of cell phone range. I know it uses a radio signal of some type but I have no idea how it works. It rights itself within a few minutes of time changes, battery loss, or the like.
It's a clock. Does it really have to have remote updating, a command line interface, an Internet connection, and HomeKit integration? That's too IoT.
I have three La Crosse clocks that run off the NIST time signal out of Boulder, CO, and need their AA battery replaced maybe once a year. The real challenge is running such a thing on a small battery for a year.
I once made a small clock that displayed "A LITTLE AFTER SIX" and such, changing its text every five minutes. Needed a power connection, though.
I'm close to DIYing it also. I have two of the la crosse clocks. One works well. The other consistently fails to update. It would be cheaper to buy a new one to see if it's a dud or that location, but I already gave up on it and modified it to have a programmable LED strip integrated into it to visually indicate to my son when it was ok to get up for the day (before he could read a clock).
So, ironically, I've ended up with a non-automatic atomic clock that instead contains a raspberry pi pico w that speaks ntp and has a programmable LED strip. That I have to manually set every DST transition, although the LED controller handles it just fine.
I'm with you. I like the DIY, take-things-into-own-hands drive and exploration. I think the next iteration would be nice as a back-to-basics learning journey, to see how less can be more, and explore the possible tools. (e.g. likely settling on a more elegant setup as you imply)
I feel like if you were gonna overthink this, you could’ve done something really cute and clever.
Like an AI that stares at the window and figures out which angle the sun is coming in, then makes a determination on what time it must be.
Then while it’s not sunny or can’t figure it out, it has dead reckoning, but it’s constantly looking at angles of shadows that determine if the time has drifted.
Also: I reckon the closest best-value watch alternative that ticks most(?) of the author's boxes is the Casio GW-M5610-1ER, so long as you are inside a radio-controlled time area.
"One, the path not taken, started with an Arduino or Arduino-like microcontroller. The other began with a Raspberry Pi or Pi-like computer-y thing. I went with the Pi, variously using both a Raspberry Pi Zero W and Zero 2 W."
Ok, so instead of bumping your clock +- one hour twice a year you preferred distro upgrades?
I've had the same struggle. There are some decent LED clocks with up to 1" displays (high), but any further and you get weird colors or glaringly-bright displays.
The best options are expensive clock displays from like Time Machines, MasterClock, etc... but they are not cheap and not meant for consumers.
> Battery-backed self-setting “atomic” clocks that get their updates via the cosmic ether have been a thing for years and get me most of the way there, but damned if I could find one with a red seven-segment display that I liked (maybe someone else’s search kung-fu is better than mine?)
The clock you've linked is not an atomic clock. It has a pre-programmed clock with a battery keeping it going. If that battery dies, you still have to set the time manually.
I just use one those awtrix clones made by ulanzi, multiple open source firmwares for it since esp32 based.
NTP, http api for displaying alerts, and mqtt support
No need for me to reinvent the wheel, works a treat mounted above my monitor
LED segments may be nice, but why not go full out Nixie tube? There are several kits out there, but for the DIY ethic, you can add WWV sync - and even watch the synchronization process - with this fellow's project:
I want a beautiful eink clock that gets its time from gps/gnss. It seems too much to have to collect a clock to wifi. Just turn it on and it should work.
I've been using an old iPad as a clock for a while. The "Clocks" app I installed lets me configured 5 different alarms (quite handy since my week varies a lot).
There have been mass-produced don't-need-setting clocks for just under a hundred years now, the first Jaeger-LeCoultre Atmos clock, https://atmos-atelier.de/en/atmos-uhr/, being produced in 1928. You don't wind them up, you move a lever across to unlock them and then they keep running by themselves. The du Millénaire model won't need resetting until 3000AD, although perhaps that range may be a tiny bit optimistic.
I can't decide how I feel about this article. On one hand, it's great. It's great that the author wanted to get something done, and thanks to the marvels of modern tech, they could do it with very little effort.
But on the other hand... gosh, this was about the simplest software engineering challenge imaginable (toggle some I/O pins) and the simplest design task imaginable (make a featureless rectangular box). And the author - a technologist! - isn't just saying "I wanted to try out some new tech". They're saying "this was too hard, I needed help from an LLM" ("would absolutely not be able to meet this challenge", "hit another wall").
And that... I mean, I just don't know what to make of this. Were we always like this? Are LLMs making us like this? Is it good? Is it bad?... and don't give me the calculator analogy...
To be fair, I did the research, the BOM, the systemd service and timers, the packaging, most of the installer, and the deployment pipeline myself. It's just the python and the Fusion modeling I needed LLM help with. Coding beyond bash scripting is just not something I'm good at, and at 48, I've kind of accepted that it's not ever going to be no matter how hard I try.
>"...but damned if I could find one with a red seven-segment display that I liked..."
Funny but I have one which updates time "via the cosmic ether", has big red 7-seg LEDs and as cherry on top it has laser LED based projector that displays same big red 7 seg digits on whatever surface one points it to - ceiling in my case. I bought it decades ago in RadioShack
I’ve had a Phillips “atomic” alarm clock beside my bed for 23 years that just sets based on radio signal and auto restores if the power is lost, to which it has a backup 9v battery.
There’s a time zone setting offset slider and a DST slider. I basically touch it twice a year, maybe another if I move time zones. I’ve only had to touch it for DST (never switched time zones). Takes me conservatively 10 seconds to find and flip, so it’s taken me 460 seconds or a little under 8 minutes in the past 23 years to do time adjustments.
While these efforts are definitely fun hobby projects, there are cheap reliable solutions out there with minimal intervention that consume the NIST radio signal for time.
Just for anyone interested who wasn’t aware there’s some “old school” time broadcast solutions out there too besides NTP: https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/time-di...
I was going to mention an Atomic Clock. I use one in an RV and it sets itself even outside of cell phone range. I know it uses a radio signal of some type but I have no idea how it works. It rights itself within a few minutes of time changes, battery loss, or the like.
It's fascinating reading if you're interested in finding out the details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWV_(radio_station)
We’ve come full circle.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46952384
https://github.com/tanvach/clocksync
https://github.com/kangtastic/timestation
https://github.com/hzeller/txtempus
WVB: A Tiny WWVB Station - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13258631 - December 2016 (49 comments)
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
(format shifting precision time keeping is cool imho, from stratum 0 to whatever your target clock may be)
It's a clock. Does it really have to have remote updating, a command line interface, an Internet connection, and HomeKit integration? That's too IoT.
I have three La Crosse clocks that run off the NIST time signal out of Boulder, CO, and need their AA battery replaced maybe once a year. The real challenge is running such a thing on a small battery for a year.
I once made a small clock that displayed "A LITTLE AFTER SIX" and such, changing its text every five minutes. Needed a power connection, though.
I'm close to DIYing it also. I have two of the la crosse clocks. One works well. The other consistently fails to update. It would be cheaper to buy a new one to see if it's a dud or that location, but I already gave up on it and modified it to have a programmable LED strip integrated into it to visually indicate to my son when it was ok to get up for the day (before he could read a clock).
So, ironically, I've ended up with a non-automatic atomic clock that instead contains a raspberry pi pico w that speaks ntp and has a programmable LED strip. That I have to manually set every DST transition, although the LED controller handles it just fine.
I'm with you. I like the DIY, take-things-into-own-hands drive and exploration. I think the next iteration would be nice as a back-to-basics learning journey, to see how less can be more, and explore the possible tools. (e.g. likely settling on a more elegant setup as you imply)
I feel like if you were gonna overthink this, you could’ve done something really cute and clever.
Like an AI that stares at the window and figures out which angle the sun is coming in, then makes a determination on what time it must be.
Then while it’s not sunny or can’t figure it out, it has dead reckoning, but it’s constantly looking at angles of shadows that determine if the time has drifted.
It would just start counting
This reminded of this other clock project: https://mitxela.com/projects/precision_clock_mk_iv
Also: I reckon the closest best-value watch alternative that ticks most(?) of the author's boxes is the Casio GW-M5610-1ER, so long as you are inside a radio-controlled time area.
"One, the path not taken, started with an Arduino or Arduino-like microcontroller. The other began with a Raspberry Pi or Pi-like computer-y thing. I went with the Pi, variously using both a Raspberry Pi Zero W and Zero 2 W."
Ok, so instead of bumping your clock +- one hour twice a year you preferred distro upgrades?
I feel this article's premise too much. That's exactly the sort of clock I wanted to get my mom as a gift.
Why is it so dang impossible to find a not trash simple LED clock that's 'large print', 'the right color', and not annoyingly too bright?
A deluxe model might include a day of the week bar or dot and a month / day in month number (smaller than the time, mostly people care about the time)
I've had the same struggle. There are some decent LED clocks with up to 1" displays (high), but any further and you get weird colors or glaringly-bright displays.
The best options are expensive clock displays from like Time Machines, MasterClock, etc... but they are not cheap and not meant for consumers.
I think too bright would be an issue with any LED display. Even lights on my modem in a different room are a bit much, I turn it off at night.
Edit: I was wrong! original post below:
> Battery-backed self-setting “atomic” clocks that get their updates via the cosmic ether have been a thing for years and get me most of the way there, but damned if I could find one with a red seven-segment display that I liked (maybe someone else’s search kung-fu is better than mine?)
I found this with ~5 minutes of searching. I think it meets your critera: https://www.amazon.com/Sharp-Digital-Alarm-AccuSet-Automatic...
(Regardless, cool project! I think yours still looks better than this one)
The clock you've linked is not an atomic clock. It has a pre-programmed clock with a battery keeping it going. If that battery dies, you still have to set the time manually.
Oh you're right! I was tricked by "AccuSet technology automatically sets the correct time when plugged in. No programming, no confusing buttons"
I just use one those awtrix clones made by ulanzi, multiple open source firmwares for it since esp32 based. NTP, http api for displaying alerts, and mqtt support
No need for me to reinvent the wheel, works a treat mounted above my monitor
LED segments may be nice, but why not go full out Nixie tube? There are several kits out there, but for the DIY ethic, you can add WWV sync - and even watch the synchronization process - with this fellow's project:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smUwbzA9SEo
This really screams esp32/esphome, and as you'd expect, there are already dozens upon dozens of such projects https://github.com/mfactory-osaka/ESPTimeCast
I want a beautiful eink clock that gets its time from gps/gnss. It seems too much to have to collect a clock to wifi. Just turn it on and it should work.
Depending on your trust of societal infrastructure, I got a DAB radio clock that sets time from the radio.
Indoor signal reception problems though
I've been using an old iPad as a clock for a while. The "Clocks" app I installed lets me configured 5 different alarms (quite handy since my week varies a lot).
If you think you need your alarm clock to be accurate down to the subsecond, you need to talk to someone about your anxiety.
There have been mass-produced don't-need-setting clocks for just under a hundred years now, the first Jaeger-LeCoultre Atmos clock, https://atmos-atelier.de/en/atmos-uhr/, being produced in 1928. You don't wind them up, you move a lever across to unlock them and then they keep running by themselves. The du Millénaire model won't need resetting until 3000AD, although perhaps that range may be a tiny bit optimistic.
How does it handle DST?
These aren't even self-setting, let alone self-adjusting. They are merely self-winding.
In fairness "merely self-winding" is quite the existential ambition for some.
* http://www.ocelotfactory.com/hoban/mouse.html
+/- 1 minute for month? holy smokes. does not qualify as self setting.
Hooking that up to NTP would be quite a project.
What are you talking about, those will drift out of accuracy in a month
"setting the clock" means adjusting time, not powering
I can't decide how I feel about this article. On one hand, it's great. It's great that the author wanted to get something done, and thanks to the marvels of modern tech, they could do it with very little effort.
But on the other hand... gosh, this was about the simplest software engineering challenge imaginable (toggle some I/O pins) and the simplest design task imaginable (make a featureless rectangular box). And the author - a technologist! - isn't just saying "I wanted to try out some new tech". They're saying "this was too hard, I needed help from an LLM" ("would absolutely not be able to meet this challenge", "hit another wall").
And that... I mean, I just don't know what to make of this. Were we always like this? Are LLMs making us like this? Is it good? Is it bad?... and don't give me the calculator analogy...
To be fair, I did the research, the BOM, the systemd service and timers, the packaging, most of the installer, and the deployment pipeline myself. It's just the python and the Fusion modeling I needed LLM help with. Coding beyond bash scripting is just not something I'm good at, and at 48, I've kind of accepted that it's not ever going to be no matter how hard I try.
Edit: retracted, but left up for context
The article itself appears to have had help from an LLM, too.
Go look at the editorial policy from Ars. Lee just writes like that; it's his style, it always has been.
nope. i was using em-dashes and semicolons before they were cool.
I believe you (and sorry, I do think I was wrong), but for the record I wasn't judging based on punctuation.
Look at it this way: LLMs are trained, among other things, on quality professional prose. I've been writing for Ars for almost 14 years at this point.
I don't sound like LLMs. LLMs sound like _me,_ lol.
fwiw the article doesn't sound LLM to me whatsoever, so opinions def vary!
>"...but damned if I could find one with a red seven-segment display that I liked..."
Funny but I have one which updates time "via the cosmic ether", has big red 7-seg LEDs and as cherry on top it has laser LED based projector that displays same big red 7 seg digits on whatever surface one points it to - ceiling in my case. I bought it decades ago in RadioShack
so basically NTP!