Faceless clock makes you think twice about how it works

[SamBam]

Neat. I had figured the hour hand had a tiny gearing mechanism in the connection between the two hands. A magnet is a much simpler solution.

An old acquaintance of mine designed and sold an awesome wristwatch that used two ballbearings attached by magnets. [1] Not only was it useful for blind people (it was a much better mechanism than the old watches with an openable face, which could get misaligned by touching) but it was also fun to play with, as you could spin the ball bearings around and they could get caught again by the magnet. The video of the person spinning the hour hand reminded me of that.

1. https://www.eone-time.com/

[tshaddox]

I was expecting a little gear at the center point as well that went backwards at a slightly slower angular velocity than the minute hand is moving forwards. But I found myself slightly disappointed that it's "just" a magnet. For some reason having the two totally different positioning mechanisms for the two hands feels less cool to me, even though it almost certainly is a simpler implementation.

[justusthane]

> I had figured the hour hand had a tiny gearing mechanism in the connection between the two hands.

They have a previous version that was exactly that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCOC2zNjWCg&list=PLAYNJqEoXT...

The movement of the hour hand is pretty terrible though.

[munk-a]

Yea - I'd assumed the hour hand had some sort of dead-reckoning compensating gear on the joint in the middle of the clock similar to a south-pointing chariot[1]. I'm actually a bit disappointed they used magnets since it'd be so easy to mess up the orientation with a bit of otherwise benign interference.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South-pointing_chariot

[netsharc]

I wonder if they used gears to move the hand clock, if it just needs to be rotating at a constant speed... I think so, 330 degrees counter clockwise per hour? Since, as the minute hand does a full rotation, the hour hand needs to travel 30 degrees..

[mmastrac]

This is super cool but where is the second bearing you mentioned?

[jshprentz]

Clocks with no apparent mechanism are known as mystery clocks. They were invented by French clock-maker and magician Robert-Houdin [1]. He exhibited his first mystery clock at the Exhibition of the French Industry of 1839. Many other makers have created mystery clocks in popular decorative styles of their day [2].

[1] https://www.liveauctioneers.com/news/be-smart/robert-houdin-...

[2] http://www.roger-russell.com/mysteryclocks/mysteryclocks.htm

[bassdigit]

This year, Cartier took the idea to the next level with the "Masse Mystérieuse": An absolutely gorgeous watch with insane mechanics where the movement is the rotor.

[1] https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/the-watches-and-wondrously...

[plgonzalezrx8]

Love the "no bullshit" articles that explain things quickly and clearly. A+ Work on this blog post.

[mortenjorck]

Projects in this space tend to be fairly niche, geeky proofs-of-concept with a Woz-like fun factor but little mass-market appeal.

This, however, has plenty of both. With a little polish to the industrial design and a high-quality contract manufacturer, I could absolutely see this becoming a popular item in homes and on desks.

[ok_dad]

No, not everything needs to be turned into a product for the capitalistic machine. Let us have some fun without trying to make a buck off of it!

[CobrastanJorji]

I'm sad that both hands aren't magnetic. It'd be much more cool if the whole hand assembly floated. I suppose the two sets of magnets might interfere with each other as they pass by. I wonder how far you'd need to separate them to make it work.

[daxfohl]

IIRC there was a rule from E and M class saying it's impossible to contain something using static charges alone. So presumably you'd need some high frequency sensors and feedback mechanism just to keep it stable. But I guess once you get that then moving it with time might not be that much more difficult.

[CrazyStat]

Making stuff float with magnets is hard. You have to replace the permanent magnets with electromagnets and then have a while bunch of sensors and logic to drive the electromagnets. I can't see a way to make it work in a clock like this.

[Alexmania]

Konstantin Chaykin built a watch similar to this called the Levitas, seems really awesome. https://chaykin.ru/en/watches/levitas/

[gregschlom]

Oh wow, I've been wanting to build this for a while. But my idea was to make it wrist watch sized, and use LEDs around the ring to show the time. (Or use laser diodes and project the watch hands on the wearer's wrist).

I believe the LED option is doable but it draws quite a bit too much power, even if the LEDs aren't always on.

Other, more power-efficient approaches would be using a ring-shaped LCD or e-ink display, but they do not exist off the shelf and custom orders are expensive.

Or use a conventional watch mechanism to rotate acrylic rings.

Anyway, I brainstormed a ton of possible ways to make this thing, but in the end, it's really hard to make small things like wrist watches.

[thunky]

This reminds me of the "hubless" motorcycle:

https://motorbikewriter.com/hubless-motorcycle-streets/

[moistly]

That dude’s ass is about 2 inches away from being dragged down into the bike’s drive system. Gutsy move.

[IshKebab]

I always wanted to make one of these with fully floating hands using invisible thread.

[bee_rider]

Clever and elegant

[cat_plus_plus]

Does it, with minute hand obviously attached to the frame?