Black & White Clock concept reduces timekeeping to the bare essentials
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted Jul 13th 2009 12:29PM
posted Jul 13th 2009 12:29PM
Call us jaded -- we've seen plenty of crazy clocks 'round here, but few we'd want in our apartment (even if they fit). And when we do find one that we like it's inevitably a concept. Case in point: Vadim Kibardin's Black & White Clock. Consisting of four OLED digits that contain a light sensor, this guy displays the time in black during the day, or in white at night. The designer is currently looking for a manufacturer to make these a reality, so if you happen to be in the biz, please hit the read link to embark on this fabulous adventure. Just make sure you send us a few review units -- you have our email address.
[Via Boing Boing]
[Via Boing Boing]
I like!
Me too!
It reminds me of that #1 song I (Micheal Jackson) wrote about it not mattering if it is black or white!
Look it up!
Michael who?
It's MichAEl not micheal.
*pet peeve*
Ditto. I want.
"Michael who?"
That pedophile that just died...
I can't wait for the day when I'm watching TV on a window!?
woah, in for one
Really love the design but I don't like the idea of replacing batteries or whatever you gotta do to recharge those things.
I'd definitely buy one if it's released with some discreet power cables (thin, hidden in/behind wall), even if it costs up to $100!
I like the unrestrained, conditional enthusiasm. "I'd definitely buy one ... even if it costs up to $100!"
rest in peace michael jordan.
#1 basketball playa and first person to moonwalk.
rite?
I hope these make it to market at a decent price. I don't know 20-30 bucks, I'd get one for that probably.
If this gets out there needs to be another post for this.
This.
Do we have to keep it in military time?
It states that you can change the settings and mode via touch.
Pretty neat.
hope so, everyone should use military time. it is more clear.
Military? By that you mean a 24hr system?
Donno man, but pretty much most of the Europe uses the 24hr time system...
Guess what..."military time" is a standard in Europe :D
You could always pay a little more for your AM and PM parts. Otherwise 24hr clock is rather necessary.
It's way too damn hard to find a 24 hour digital clock in the US.. I finally managed, but it took a lot of searching. Why on earth anyone would want to deal with AM/PM is beyond me.
I say we switch to a 6 hour system. 24 hour systems are good for the militaryp probably because there are tasks and things to do and its already confusing enough to keep track of what gets done when. When you throw in the AM and PM, you just double the confusion.
Since, most of us are not in a military role, we use the 12 hours system. I like the 12 hour system, because it splits the day in two and and gives us a peek to our day, almost like a plot does for our books.
Well, imagine a 6 hour system! the first 6 is the sleeping. Tech geeks stay up until about midnight usually, and wake up at about 6 AM, because we want to get in early enough so that we can get out before our regretful woot-off purchases get delivered. So, the first 6 is the "Sleeping 6".
The next 6 is the put-out-fires section of the day. This is where you make phone calls, smash ur face with coffee drinks, and fix everything that went wrong after you left work the day before. This is the "Working 6".
The next 6 hours is lunch, cooldown, chit-chat, and slipping off your business casual. You've already put in 6 hours of work, so you only have 2 hours left. You're just sitting around chit-chatting to others and solving things as they are brought to you. Then you leave, go home, take off your dress pants and leave on the work shirt and open tabs to load all the pages that weren't safe for work. This is the "Cooldown 6"
The next 6 is the fun 6. You go out to dinner with your geeky friends to talk about raid problems and 5-boxing AV. This is where you unwind, hang out, game, actually use the geeky crap you crave. This is the "Geeky 6".
Some will say that this will get confusing! Someone asks what time it is and you say 4?! How do you know what 4 it is? Well, then its just by task association!
"Sir, what time is it?"
"It is 4 o'clock. Why? What are you going to do?"
"I was wondering why my bag o' carp hasn't arrived yet."
"Yes it is getting late into the Cooldown 6, isn't it?"
It may force us geeks to be more sociable than usual, eh? Yeah, that'd never work...
@space tech
you are an idiot. good day sir.
how the hell is the 12hr system confusing?? when i wake up and the clock says 9:32, i know i didnt wake up 9:32PM.
or if someone says hey lets meet up at 7 for drinks, i know its not AM.
or if bossman says report is due on my desk by 8, obviously hes not going to be there at 8 PM.
its pretty simple i think
Ah but weems. I took a nap at 4pm Saturday and woke up at 9:30. With my dark curtains and the fact I'd been sleeping a while I didn't know if slept all night or not. So am/pm isn't always easy to follow
And multiply that confusion by at least 5 when love potion #9 is involved...
@ pball_inuyaya - Here's a novel idea......OPEN YOUR DAMN CURTAINS!!
Seriously! The whole concept behind am/pm isn't hard. Military time is no more clear than using two little letters to denote whether it's the first half of the day, or the second half of the day.
I find it very hard to believe that there are people out there who are confused with the concept of am/pm unless they're a product of some southern incestuous breeding experiment which clearly has more things wrong with it than learning how to tell time.
Personally, I think 24hour time + unified world time would be best. If it's 0100 in France, it's also 0100 in Hawaii.
@ProfessorDex
You can stop with the personal attacks ya know. I have curtains for a reason so I can close them to make a room dark when I sleep. I know that might be hard to understand.
@Andir3.0
That sounds like a great idea (I've though about that before), but I doubt it'd work that well since day time and night time would be different hours in each time zone.
this woot is ribz
@pball_inuyaha
Clearly I understand what the purpose of curtains are for, however you chose to use them as a pathetic excuse trying to demonstrate a point, which failed miserably. If you fall asleep at at 4pm and wake up at 9:30pm all you have to do is open your curtains and see where the sun is. Here's a hint, it' rises in the east and sets in the west. Problem solved.
Don't get pissy and claim I'm personally attacking you when you get called out on your comment which made no sense at all.
There is no need of AM/PM parts extra to display 12HR time because if the clock is black then it's am and if it's white it's PM.. Simple man...
wow, Rams I think you just solved this issue
That's pretty damn spiffy. Some of the best ideas are the simplest ones...
indeed
Simplicity is beauty.
As long as it works, yes.
>>> "...displays the time in black during the day, or in white at night..."
What happens between night and day?
i was thinking along the same lines. I'd hope that each digit does not have a light sensor. If it does, then you may have some weird results in different lighting situations.
Uhhhhm Michael Jackson? Too soon?
Gray.
Now only if Engadget could get this for their Recession Giveaway!
they should lol
Now THIS I like.
Just a question though,
how do they communicate?
I guess they are battery powered. Individually I imagine.
I was wondering the same. I guess is pure concept, no reality
You guys must be thinking too hard. You set the time on each one and tell it which digit it is.
Sounds simple enough. Guess I was looking for something a little more advanced : )
@Josh
But you have to set them quickly. If it's changing from 4.59 to 5.00 the hour could change first if you set it first and it would read 5.59. Or, worse yet, the single minute could change making it 4.50 then the hour (5.50) and then the ten-minute (5.00).
I think one of the digits will be the "control" digit that you set the time on and then wirelessly tells the others what to do.
I would buy one.
How about inventors make stuff instead of designers?
If this guy thinks he can make this with an OLED, he's a fool. It would require a fair amount of power, enough that it would have to plug in to be visible at all.
You could make it with EL ("Indiglo"), but then it wouldn't be visible in the day much at all. Maybe a combination of EL and a piezo flip display?
It should be E-Ink.
Also, lots of poor design: They imagine that each digit is independent. Many problems with this: how do you sync time setting, syncing day/night mode (as mentioned above), power (you don't want different digits dying at different times), expense.
I like the e-ink idea, but what about at night? Can e-ink displays have backlighting? [e-ink noob]
E-ink is a great idea. No, they can't be backlight, but neither can piezo electricdisplays.
These things would drift out of sync quickly, the digits will not flip all at the same time.
Keeping in sync... hm, RFID? One of the elements is a clock (best thing if it's the seconds digit), via RFID or some other wireless tech.
Admittedly powering the thing will be difficult, unless they are using e-ink, but then it wouldn't glow at night. But still I like the idea a lot and hope to see it on my wall one day. What about the wireless power transmitting stuff? Like in the Palm Touchstone? One would have to be plugged in then, but other than that? Might bring up the price though.
They could add a power source where the colon would be in the time (how about a pipe character) that could house the RFID brains and master controls. This could be an expandable system with month/date/year as long as a power connection for each digit is designed.
How about having them all mount to a wireless power pad on the wall? You know, if price isn't an issue.
Very cool, wish I could purchase this.
I could probably read the clock at night in bed, finally. Without it being a glowing thing in my face. I like this. For a reasonable price.
I would imagine that each light module keeps time. If current time is 12:34, each module already knows the time but oviously can display only one digit. So the user has to setup which module will display which time digit (among 1, 2, 3, 4 for this example). The user just has to make sure the modules' time are synchronized, they don't have be connected or communicate to each other.
I can imagine the following happening:
08:59
08:00
09:00
09:01
How about have each sync with the atomic clock via radio?
Probably easier to have some sort of wireless built-in that you turn on only for setup. Then the digits can sync with each other. You can even tap the top or bottom of each digit to set the time and all the digits will update via their wireless link.
.
wouldn't have to be wireless
just have surface contacts
push the pieces together
it's a wired connection
they sync
you put them on the wall
.
with the accuracy of quartz timers
you might get that lag situation
for half a second
every couple of years?
.
Quartz timers are accurate to a few seconds a month. The digits would be flipping at noticeably different times within a few days.
You can get quartz timers at +/- 50ppm easily, and +/- 20ppm with some additional expense. There are 86,400 seconds IN A DAY. In two weeks, you have over 1,000,000 seconds. Thus two devices could be up to 40 seconds apart (one 20 seconds fast, one 20 seconds slow).
I looked, there are crystal oscillators that are accurate to +/-3ppm. That means the digits could be 6 seconds apart in two weeks.
What do you all think about voice controlled clocks?
I have a Moshi voice controlled clock. It's more of a novelty than anything else, but I like it.
how often do you control your clock?
awesome
This is great. Please let a manufacturer get his hands on this.
Is it all just one unit or are each of the pieces separate and they communicate over the air?
email address -> engadget@apple.com ?
that looks great
This would be great for those newfangled minimalistic designed rooms. I hope this comes to market and I can remember about it.
How are you going to remember something that hasn't happened yet?
EXACTLY WHAT KIND OF TIME BANDIT ARE YOU, SIR AND/OR MA'AM???
This is pretty sweet, save that you have to keep your blinds open for it to work.
Very nice!
I'd buy this in a hearbeat, as long as it costs
One problem I see with this:
I'm willing to bet that this clock would look like crap on anything other than a plain white wall.
Those number segments would have to be pretty transparent to look decent on a colored wall.
I'd definitely get this if it came out... for a reasonable price. $40 max?
Inverting it on the wall would be pretty cool...or trying to tell time in the dark with the opposite of what is lit. So like a hyphen would be a zero, and nothing would be an eight. Get it? ;-)
Ah, but the real question is... does it tell metric time?
http://zapatopi.net/metrictime/
That was a good read.
@kaibeezy
Are you learning haiku or something? You're doing it wrong....
I love the look of this... very clever! I hope a manufacturer comes forward!
WiFi? That would be cool. They can all communicate to each other so there should be one main light sensor.
Cool and clever BUT what if you have a black wall? I'd still want one though. :)
simplicity + design = plus. i want this on thinkgeek.com NOW.
I so want a few of those concept is pretty sweet ;-)
A digital clock is the inspiration for http://www.timeassociation.net/ which allows you to to share associations with the numbers on the clock.