Comment by matt_the_bass | Hacker News Reader

Comment by matt_the_bass | Hacker News Reader

Hi Everyone. I have a Show HN that is a little different than what’s typical. My side project is building word clocks. I’ve developed the entire physical item including the mechanical design, the manufacturing design, the electrical design, and the firmware. Moderator Dan saw this listed in my profile and suggested I share it.

I was inspired to make my first word clock after stumbling upon a DIY design on hack-a-day[0]. I really liked the idea of a wordclock but felt that the designs I found online were too DIY or too modern metal and sterile. I wanted a design that was both elegantly styled and with a professional finish.

My first word clock was given as a present to my parents and it still hangs in their home today. I made more clocks similar to that first design which I also gave out as gifts to friends and family. Later, I developed a simplified design that I donated to AS220, my local Providence artist group, where I periodically teach a word clock making workshop[1].

After a few years of producing word clocks for gifts and fun, I developed my first word clock which is for sale. It utilizes a combination of fine craftsmanship and clever electronics to produce a one of a kind piece of practical art. I’m proud of the fit and finish of my word clocks and want to share them with people who want more than just a utilitarian tool.

I do all the fabrication myself in my basement. Now that I have the manufacturing process down, I’m ready to start marketing them. I’m promoting them as limited edition art pieces, not a mass market product. This first design is limited to 100 units.

So far I’ve sold one unit on etsy[2] without any promotion whatsoever. So I’m hopeful that with a little promotion I’ll be able to sell 2-3 per month. I’m not really interested in turning this into a large scale business. I already do that for my day job. My intent with this is to continue to expand my creative output. It’s also a great excuse to acquire cool tools (aka toys) that I can teach my kids to use.

Please let me know what you think and feel free to ask questions!

[0] https://hackaday.com/tag/word-clock/

[1] http://industries.as220.org/the-wordclock

[2] https://www.etsy.com/shop/FineWordclocks

The website does not say the production limited to exactly 100 pieces. You should add that, because limited could be 20.000 or something... Plus number each clock, like '12 of 100' with a small metal plate, having a date and your name. I am sure this adds to the value.

OP here. Thanks for the comment. I do mention 100 pieces on the 3 paragraph of the front page. Clearly this may not be well presented since you didn't notice it. Thank you for the feedback!

I provide a numbered certificate of authenticity. But a plate is an interesting idea. I'll think about how to make that happen.

It looks really cool, but just one suggestion -- your homepage has four example pictures showing "It's eight o'clock" and all of the others are for "round" numbers of minutes. I'd really be interested in seeing how it handles something like "11:13" or "11:59," non-round numbers. That would be a lot of the appeal in something like this for me, I think...

I noticed that some pictures show the suffixe "ish" right at the bottom right corner (I think it's a clever trick; wonder if it's boring to basically always see that word lit up since it's less likely that a time is round)

Thanks for your feedback. That's a valid comment about ish persistence. However, I haven't noticed that during my own use.

OP here. Thanks for your comment. This design currently displays the exact time every 5 minutes. The 2 minutes before and after each exact time have "ish" appended to the time.

There are a couple of reasons for this approach:

1. I wanted to have a square clock face but was limited by the LED strip spacing I could source conveniently. This limited me to an approximate number of characters.

2. With this character limit, this was the simplest way to display times. Personally, I don't think this is the type of clock requires every minute precision. The qlocktwo (mentioned in other comments) has the exact time every 5 minutes with 4 LEDs to indicate the other 4 minutes. That wasn't my preference.

3. Other designs I've made as gifts in the past were physically larger and included a bunch of other times including:

- almost (for 2 minutes before an exact time)

- about (for 2 minutes after an exact time)

- ish ("randomly" replaces almost or about)

- plus a bunch of other exact times that could be made from the existing exact time lexicon

- It's Now

- as well as some other cool easter eggs

This larger design has a pretty cool lexicon (IMHO) but is much bigger and I couldn't fit it nicely on the stock wood material I could find. I didn't want to join planks of wood and I wanted this design to be square.

I'm working on a present for my wife that include "in paris" (she's a French teacher) that can be added to any time (and obviously including the math for the timezone offset).

That's odd, I think I saw one of these in a small gift shop in a mall in the Mitte district of Berlin, just a few months ago. Was it the same maker, or someone different? TBH I'm a bit wary of people buying mass-produced Chinese stuff and marketing them as "art objects".

This is most likely from QLOCKTWO, who is a German company with a similar product

https://qlocktwo.com/en/

OP here. Nope, not mine. There are a TON of DIY kit versions, a few cheap plastic chinese versions, and one high end design from a german company. Probably you saw theirs. I wanted a warmer aesthetic with a different design approach. So I made my own.

I do all the word working and assembly myself. It's not a mass-produced thing from a factory in china. I do use some LED strips that are sourced from China, but I do all my own soldering of the controller board and LED strip connections.

I don't want to compete on price with the DIY/chinese factory kits. what I'm really selling is my time and thought and effort. I'm pretty proud of the quality of finish my design has.

Right on, thanks for the clarification!

Beautiful design! I hope this takes off among those who can afford it, but I am unfortunately not among those.

Thank you! I'm constantly surprised at how many people spend an amazing amount of money on expensive TVs, cars, etc. Hopefully some of them will buy one of my clocks!

I'd want the ability to manually set the time, or point it at an NTP server of my choosing.

OP here, for simplicity, my design allows for timezone selection but for user simplicity, the time server is not selectable. I think your suggestions is quite valid for many of the HN readers, but not for that audience I'm targeting.

thanks for your comment!

It's valid to future proof your clock so it will be useable in the future.

I agree. I’m working on a manually setting time option if no WiFi is available.

Very cool. Any plans to sell kits or put DIY instructions online?

OP here. thanks! No plans to sell this as a KIT or DIY instructions. However, I have taught a word clock fabricating workshop at AS220.org a number of times in the past. I donated a simplified wordclock design to AS220 Labs. In that workshop, I demonstrated the fabrication of different parts on their laser cutter and shopbot CNC. Then guide the students though soldering and assembling the unit. there is some documentation on the AS220 website for that design. It uses the same lexicon as this unit but is built from acrylic, MDF, and Arduino Unos.

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