Some individuals are into cutting-edge expertise and wish the most recent smartwatch on their wrist the second it hits the cabinets at their native retailer. Others are right into a extra basic 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’s Henner Zeller, who just lately constructed the good watch that you simply wouldn’t need to be caught lifeless carrying in public — no less than exterior of the Hackaday Supercon anyway, the place this very distinctive timepiece was noticed.
Zeller’s watch is named the Glowtape, and because the identify implies, it shows the time through 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 an extended 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, the rest 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 fairly beefy LiPo battery is required to energy all the LEDs, which provides to the dimensions of the watch, however if 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 commonly 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 will not be precisely sensible both, so this watch is actually extra of one thing to point out off than it’s a sensible timepiece.
Placing the wristwatch idea apart, this sort of show might be very fascinating for a desktop clock or banner. If the tape had been made right into a loop, and it was robotically moved previous the LEDs, that may make for fairly a novel gadget. Zeller has supplied schematics and firmware if you want to tinker with this idea by yourself. And in case you do, be sure to submit it to Hackster so we will have a look!
