PROTOTYPE #4 - GOODBYE TO THE TICK-TOCK CLOCK

Glance Clock Movement

The clock is ticking! STOP.

Do you hear that? No?

Come closer! Do you hear it?

I don’t hear anything.

Glance Clock is completely silent, thanks to the precise clock movement implemented in its construction. In addition to the silence of its movement, Glance Clock is auto-calibrated and sets the current time automatically.

Let me tell you how it works.

When you open the box and see your brand new Glance Clock, the clock says 12:00. The first thing you do is connect your phone to Glance Clock and then... magic happens! The clock receives the current time signal and sets the time automatically. Easy, right? From that moment onward  you won’t have  to worry about  time accuracy at all.

How did we achieve this? We started from the idea that we don’t want to ask our users to set and adjust their clock manually. For this reason, we decided to use two stepper motors and gears to move the clock’s hands. In addition to the motors and gears, we added homing optical sensors that provide information about the hands’ position. We 3D-printed a lot of gears and tested them out, but nothing seemed to be good enough.

The problem was that this kinematic scheme was very loud. It was clear how the hands were moving because the motors moved the gears once per minute, step-by-step. This wasn’t satisfactory because we wanted to achieve totally smooth movement. After making several iterations, we still did not have an acceptable result.

Somewhat troubled, we went back to brainstorming and continued our research process. Finally, we found the solution. We started our cooperation with NeXtime, one of the largest wall clock manufacturers. This awesome company suggested that we try one of their own designs which is used in auto-synchronized clocks. We tested several samples and found that their model for movement worked extremely well. There were no ticks, and besides being very precise, the design was complete with optical sensors that can be used for auto setup and auto synchronization.

We changed our mechanical and electrical design to fit the new movement that will be used in the mass-produced device. Since those initial design phases, we’ve done many experiments to be 100% sure that the clock’s movement fits all of our requirements.

So, does Glance Clock tick? NO, ABSOLUTELY NOT! We hope you enjoy your experience using Glance Clock.