Show HN: Pole Clock, a single 24h clock with multiple timezones

[PascalPixel]

Hi HN! I designed this Pole Clock to be a helpful tool for people like myself who often struggle with managing their sense of time.

I found that analog clocks are generally easier to read and understand than digital ones, however I find the fact that every day is broken into two 12-hour rotations unintuitive. A single 24-hour rotation makes it easier to grasp where in the day you are, the bottom half representing night and the top half representing day.

Additionally, because the clock displays 24 hours, you can add extra hour hands on the clock for other time zones. This is especially useful if you work remotely or have friends and colleagues in different time zones. At a single glance, see where they are in their days and energy levels!

I hope you'll give the Pole Clock a try and find that it helps you better understand and manage your sense of time.

[divbzero]

Two ideas to consider adding to this cool concept:

1. Could there be an option to place 00:00 at the top instead of the bottom? It looks like both positions have been used for analog 24 hour clocks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24-hour_analog_dial

2. Could there be an option to set the background to be a polar-projected world map (e.g. United Nations emblem) that rotates to align with the turning of the hour hands?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azimuthal_equidistant_projecti...

[0x0203]

Another consideration might be to switch 24 to 0 or 00. I've seen a lot of 24 hour clocks that use 24 and I'm not sure why this ever happened since there is no time in hour 24. 12:15 AM/PM is a real thing for a 12-hour clock, but 24:15 isn't, as far as I'm aware. Unless some people consider that to be the very first hour of the day, but that seems like it would invite more confusion.

[Svip]

> 1. Could there be an option to place 00:00 at the top instead of the bottom?

I wear a 24 hour analogue dial wrist watch, with 24 on top. I'll admit, I sometimes wish I had chosen 12 on top, since it's more naturally to look at the watch during the day, and less so during the night. Since it more naturally follows - on quick visual inspection - what it would look like on a normal 12 hour analogue dial.

[PascalPixel]

Great ideas! I've added both! Find them in Settings! Enjoy!

[krisoft]

For the second one, that is what is done by this xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1335/

But unfortunately they have noon at the top.

[fildon]

Huh, I built a 24 hour clock as part of this mini project:

https://fildon.me/time-after-time/

Notably, after the initial page load I don't use any JS to update the hand positions. It's entirely static SVG elements.

[myself248]

Oooooooooo, sweep second hands.

Broadcast radio people are _obsessed_ with sweep second hands, since it's how they all learned to time their announcements to end right as the next program segment begins.

If you sold a cheap tablet that did nothing but that, and synced to NTP with a programmable display offset (some stations run 5 seconds ahead of real time to deal with encoder delay, for instance), station managers would beat a path to your door.

[PascalPixel]

Love the face that includes 7 days! Very minimalistic!

[throw0101c]

If anyone wants to wear a 24-hour dial on their wrist:

* https://romeoswatches.com/the-5-best-24-hours-watches-buying...

* https://svalbard.watch/pages/Svalbard_24-hour_watches.html

* https://vintagewatchinc.com/24-hour-watch/

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24-hour_analog_dial#Watches

[PascalPixel]

Wowzers I love these one-hand 'slow' watches! https://svalbard.watch/pages/Svalbard_24-hour_watches.html

I hope I can get Pole Clock on Apple Watch, wish they allowed custom watch faces!

[asoneth]

I like the simplicity and design of the Slow (https://www.slow-watches.com) watches mentioned in the first list you link in your post.

It reminds me of the Botta Design Uno 24: https://www.botta-design.de/en/products/uno-24-plus-titan

I appreciate the clear delineation between "day" and "night" sides of the face, the meaningful position of the date complication, and a hour hand design that makes it possible to see down to ~5m increments.

[LeoPanthera]

I like "Yes" watches: https://www.yeswatch.com

They use an LCD backdrop behind the physical hour hand to show exactly when sunrise and sunset is for today, rather than a fixed 6-6 shadow. Really nice idea.

[ruph123]

And a good brand for single-hand watches: http://meistersinger.com/

[RedShift1]

I'm liking the Svalbard ones, but can't find a European retailer?

[quickthrower2]

Someone could create a Fitbit clock to do this too!

[dhbanes]

Or any GMT watch.

[nsainaney]

Shouldn't there be two minute hands if you add LA and India (PST and IST)? The minutes are offset by 30 mins in this scenario.

[dfee]

Came here looking for a comment suggesting these discrepancies. I was not disappointed.

See also: “Falsehoods programmers believe about time”

https://infiniteundo.com/post/25326999628/falsehoods-program...

[gumby]

You can see this by the position of the hour hands. The minute hand is “just” a convenience.

[psnehanshu]

Another one for Nepal, they have an offset of 45 mins.

[spiffytech]

It appears the minute hand only reflects local time.

When I add time zones with fractional-hour offsets, the hour hand for those zones is at the appropriate angle within the indicated hour.

[mikrl]

Also, Newfoundland and Labrador (GMT -3:30)

[gus_massa]

It would be nice to have a permalink to a version with my customized list of time zones. I imagine it would be useful to send it for recurring meetings with the same set of persons.

[ydant]

I tend to use worldtimebuddy.com as a very practical way of representing timezones when scheduling things.

As cool as this pole clock is, it's not as useful to my mind as the more linear representation worldtimebuddy.com uses.

[rauschermate]

For this exact problem I build this Chrome extension (free) - have a new tab set for the timezones where you have co-workers. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cityzen/hfdldnggnf...

[PascalPixel]

This would indeed be great to have... Then it's also easier to adopt the thing for team! Good idea!

[hakcermani]

Congratulations on this and pretty cool design. I just got the map:clock for ios which shows a map with different city times. One feature in that is to be able to do what if .. a slider to modify the times and see the time at different locations. A slider or rotary dial to change the times would be a good feature for planning. Bookmarked ur clock !

Feature requests if i may pls ! 1) Adjust the time with a slider or dial 2) Put the second hand outside the dial 3) Same for min hand or show hide the min hand -Merci!

[PascalPixel]

Might do all these things!

[IIAOPSW]

I've learned far to often that the international date line is not just tinder for expats. Can you put something to indicate the date on the timezones. Something just like your day/night indicator which tells me that on one side of the line is December 31 2022 and on the other side is January 1 2023.

[PascalPixel]

That's a good idea, I guess for now you're forced to add Tonga as a makeshift indicator! It's Tonga time!

[Waterluvian]

First thing I did was add Newfoundland and nope, it doesn’t add another minute hand.

Time zones are ridiculous, eh?

[PascalPixel]

Haha, yes! But Newfoundland's hour hand should be offset a little bit!

[ajb]

Nice.

One thing that would be handy would be to encode the settings in the URL. Then people can share a link to this with others who need the same set of time zones (eg, colleagues) and have the time zones already be set up.

[bondolo]

I like it and am interested to see how this evolves. I would love it to replace the simple clock on my iPhone screen.

For my own purposes I would like to see accurate day/night line that moves with the map.

[aszen]

Instead of dividing by two equal halves day and night, make this dependent on sunrise and sunset of the location, would be helpful to know at a glance the actual day hours and night hours

[bramblerose]

A suggestion: support merging timezones into a single hand. Currently, if two timezones overlap, only the first TZ is shown. However, one might want two hands as the DST shifts may be different.

[PascalPixel]

Great idea! I could combine the names on a single hand

[pcrh]

So intuitive and simple, it's hard to imagine this representation of time zones hasn't been conceived of before. But perhaps that's the definition of "genius"...

[PascalPixel]

T_T that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me

[adg001]

Congrats, this is so handy (pun intended)! :-)

Please consider adding a custom watch face to the Coros watches such as the Vertix.

Also consider that there are timezones offset by 30 mins.

[tommica]

Really cool - would love to move the Tokyo time and see the other hands move in accordance, to see what 15 there is in my place

[PascalPixel]

That's a great idea! I'll add that tomorrow!

[laserlight]

It was a mindfuck to see AM/PM clock when the title read 24h.

[habibur]

Excellent. You can see at a glance which of the cities are in right now in day light and where's night.

[88stacks]

I wish I could have this on my Apple Watch, but Apple does not allow us to make our own watch faces.

[PascalPixel]

Same! All I want is this on my Apple Watch. Hey Apple; Call Me?

[layer8]

Three suggestions:

- Let users switch the primary time zone by clicking/tapping on an hour hand.

- Display the true day/night line for the current time zone.

- Visualize the different dates (angle between the date line and 24 hours). Maybe color the hour hands differently when he date differs.

[xwowsersx]

Very nice. I've wanted something simple like this. I work with team distributed all over the globe and often end up googling "time in Minsk", for example. This is a really clever way of combining all the times into a single clock.

[PascalPixel]

Glad it helps you!