Some persons are into cutting-edge expertise and need the most recent smartwatch on their wrist the second it hits the cabinets at their native retailer. Others are right into a extra traditional and minimal aesthetic, and go together with one thing like a Casio F-91W, or maybe a calculator watch or a Timex Ironman. After which there may be Henner Zeller, who not too long ago constructed the best watch that you just wouldn’t wish to be caught useless carrying in public — at the very least outdoors of the Hackaday Supercon anyway, the place this very distinctive timepiece was noticed.
Zeller’s watch known as the Glowtape, and because the identify implies, it shows the time by way of a glow-in-the-dark show. To date this sounds fairly regular, and also you could be anticipating one thing like an Indiglo impact. However that isn’t in any respect what this watch is. The show is definitely a protracted piece of 2-inch vast glow-in-the-dark tape. This tape passes via a housing that prompts areas of it like pixels, then when it emerges, it shows the time (or for that matter, anything you program it to show).
The watch case (📷: Henner Zeller)
Contained in the watch is an array of 64 ultraviolet LEDs, which shine on the tape as it’s manually pulled previous them. This prompts the glow-in-the-dark impact, which shows the time beneath a transparent plastic panel that diffuses the sunshine and provides to its brightness. The LEDs are managed by a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller. A reasonably beefy LiPo battery is required to energy all the LEDs, which provides to the dimensions of the watch, however whenever you cross a sure threshold (which Glowtape crossed way back), who’s even counting anymore?
The glowing impact doesn’t final very lengthy, so it’s essential to frequently pull extra tape previous the LEDs if you wish to know what time it’s. Having what seems to be practically a foot of tape hanging out of the watch always just isn’t precisely sensible both, so this watch is admittedly extra of one thing to indicate off than it’s a sensible timepiece.
Placing the wristwatch idea apart, any such show could possibly be very fascinating for a desktop clock or banner. If the tape have been made right into a loop, and it was routinely moved previous the LEDs, that might make for fairly a novel gadget. Zeller has supplied schematics and firmware if you want to tinker with this idea by yourself. And when you do, be sure to put up it to Hackster so we will have a look!