What would be the best device to put any of these ones over the desk? And old phone? Maybe an esp32?
makeitdouble•Jul 15, 2026
It might not be for everyone, but sticking ones active phone on a qi2/magsafe stand is great IMHO.
Time and notifications are on one place, so they're only noticed when you're trying to plan or organize your work. Switching to timer mode is seamless.
The desk is also less cluttered thanks to the verticality of it, and the phone stays visible from afar when taking small breaks, so you don't mind leaving it there.
makeitdouble•Jul 15, 2026
"Number field" felt like the best spacial representation of a numeric clock (would need to be 24h to be perfect but that's a small tweak)
There are plenty of them in a more linear style, but the 12 columns design really works well IMHO. It's really easy to roughly guess the time at a glance.
I've seen and used some variations of these in my Pebble watch.
They're cool for one day or two. But, in the end, I will always go back to some boring but more information-dense one (with battery charge, weather, heart rate, steps, etc).
throw0101d•Jul 15, 2026
I'd really like an analog watch face for the lock screen of my iPhone.
vunderba•Jul 15, 2026
At this point it'd be worth creating an old-school webring [1] for all the HN clock enthusiasts. :)
is kind of similar to one of my clocks: the Filling Digit clock [2], which fills the hollow digits with water from the bottom up to represent the seconds in a minute:
Another one that made the rounds here on HN was "Alphabetical Clock" [3] which is pretty amusing.
Some of these seem subtly off. For example, on the orange "number field" clock (https://clocks.dev/clock/number-field), you can't distinguish between 12:10 and 10:12. On the "word field" one (https://clocks.dev/clock/word-field), there are "X"es in lieu of unused characters, which makes the emergence of words a lot less mystifying than in the original "word clock" design this is based on. The "temporal exposure" one (https://clocks.dev/clock/temporal-exposure) has weird off-center bands in the blurred area. The "figure hands" one has text sticking out of the drawing area, etc.
jolt42•Jul 15, 2026
I think the one you are calling "figure hands"... if you mean the one where hands are numbers could just use better styling overall. Two colors, different sizes, better choice of font.
Oh I love these! It just reminded me of a small project I had in which I was creating experimental watchfaces using SVGs and JavaScript, this is before the AI boom so I made all of these by hand and, although there's nothing impressive here, I'm proud of them as a designer who learned basic code by myself.
I am not sure I want to use the API when it is not that hard to get the hands of a clock going with Javascript. I know I can do the latter, but the former poses a new learning challenge that doesn't guarantee a result.
My current SVG clock is modelled on a wall clock and it has the really small text that can normally found on a clock, for example 'Made in China' and 'Quartz'. I also have a fictional brand name, plus a bezel specified with 'pathLength="60"' and a dash array.
As a design exercise, a standard clock is interesting because you have to remember the stack order of the hands, and, despite looking at clocks many thousands of times, that detail requires a modicum of thought.
I think it is a good start to get a credible wall clock that tells the time at a glance before branching out into 'cool' clocks that put design before telling the time.
I now want to add a drop shadow that changes throughout the day, as if the clock is south facing, in the northern hemisphere, corresponding to my lat/lon.
This would be easy with three js because it could be modelled, along with the entire solar system, with the camera pointed at a 3D modelled clock, however, in SVG filters, could be a while.
Getting the hands to move is the easy bit, all considered. I really don't need another API for that, but I am not in the Svelte ecosystem.
toddmorey•Jul 15, 2026
This is awesome! I made a Soroban (Japanese abacus) version, but I couldn't add it to the collection since I used css-based animations. Published here:
https://soroban-clock.netlify.app
13 Comments
Time and notifications are on one place, so they're only noticed when you're trying to plan or organize your work. Switching to timer mode is seamless.
The desk is also less cluttered thanks to the verticality of it, and the phone stays visible from afar when taking small breaks, so you don't mind leaving it there.
There are plenty of them in a more linear style, but the 12 columns design really works well IMHO. It's really easy to roughly guess the time at a glance.
https://clocks.dev/clock/number-field
They're cool for one day or two. But, in the end, I will always go back to some boring but more information-dense one (with battery charge, weather, heart rate, steps, etc).
The clock at: https://clocks.dev/clock/lock-screen
is kind of similar to one of my clocks: the Filling Digit clock [2], which fills the hollow digits with water from the bottom up to represent the seconds in a minute:
Another one that made the rounds here on HN was "Alphabetical Clock" [3] which is pretty amusing.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webring
[2] - https://clocks.specr.net/filling-digits
[3] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47571401
Around :15 and :45, the minute arrow is sticking outside the drawing region.
Created a simple 24-hour analogue face just now: https://clocks.dev/clock/c4a0aef0c379
https://watchface.netlify.app/
And I wrote about it here: https://72mena.medium.com/designing-watch-faces-using-svgs-a...
My current SVG clock is modelled on a wall clock and it has the really small text that can normally found on a clock, for example 'Made in China' and 'Quartz'. I also have a fictional brand name, plus a bezel specified with 'pathLength="60"' and a dash array.
As a design exercise, a standard clock is interesting because you have to remember the stack order of the hands, and, despite looking at clocks many thousands of times, that detail requires a modicum of thought.
I think it is a good start to get a credible wall clock that tells the time at a glance before branching out into 'cool' clocks that put design before telling the time.
I now want to add a drop shadow that changes throughout the day, as if the clock is south facing, in the northern hemisphere, corresponding to my lat/lon.
This would be easy with three js because it could be modelled, along with the entire solar system, with the camera pointed at a 3D modelled clock, however, in SVG filters, could be a while.
Getting the hands to move is the easy bit, all considered. I really don't need another API for that, but I am not in the Svelte ecosystem.
Curious Clocks and Watches through time with Oliver Cooke | Curator's Corner S8 E1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywD5kngMuYM
Nice inspiration for world building, especially Steampunk etc!