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Author Clock: a novel way to tell time
- Night_Thastus 2y ago13000 quotes over ~720 combinations isn't a bad spread. I'll admit, it's cute. For someone well-read this is a pretty charming gift. Visually pleasant and nicely constructed.
- altairprime 2y agoI've seen one of these in person. It works as advertised.
- tzury 2y agoNice. Saw the price and that threw me right into SharkTank pitches, “cost me $39.99 and I sell it for $199”.
- interludead 2y agoYeah, price is quite big
- bigiain 2y agoReally? A Kindle is ~$80, and the Paperwhite without ads is $180. A cheap Android tablet is ~$70 without an eInk display. Just a 4 or 5 inch eInk display would cost me ~$70 or so. This is a finished product, in a gorgeous timber case (if you like that sort of thing) with a beautiful knurled knob. And a bunch of custom written software and a collected database of quotes. I reckon it'd sell - at least to the right crowd - at 4-5 times that price. Those of use who are capable of making their own probably wouldn't buy one anyway - but as a high end gift or executive toy, I could see them selling these at $700 or $800. (And yeah, I'm considering grabbing a 2nd hand Kindle and firing up my CNC mill or laser cutter to make a case for it, but people like me are very much in the 0.1% or 0.01% of all the people who'd like to own one of these.)
- georgesimon 2y agoTo be honest, the wood feels plasticky and the knob feels unfinished. There's also a significant gap between the wood and the bezel. The screen is too small, and battery life is poor. It looks like a premium product, but it doesn't feel like one. I have one, and if it broke I wouldn't pay more than $20 for a replacement.
- bigiain 2y agoThat's sad. I haven't seen on in real life, just the pics on their website (although I did find out yesterday a friend bought one in their original kickstarter, so I'll be able to hold one soon.) I do have a bid in on a spare Kindle and plan to make my own though. I really like the _idea_ of it.
- Ekaros 2y agoI have no doubt it is also pretty expensive to make. Eink screens of that size have certain price. Other parts likely are not cheapest possible options either. Volume is likely also pretty low, so tooling etc. isn't shared over that many units. Not that it isn't expensive for what it does. Just that it probably isn't cheap to make.
- jacknews 2y agoAnd this is not far off most hardware. Retail price will be about 5x BoM cost, or about 3x overall cost of goods, though of course it can vary wildly depending on volume and market. HP famously aimed for a markup of pi (3.14x cost, ie gross margin > 60%), or e (2.71..) if they wanted to be especially competitive.
- xnx 2y ago"Author Clock has built-in Wi-Fi, so all software and content updates happen automatically." i.e. At some point in the future, an advertisement will be the first thing you see when you open your eyes in the morning.
- leokennis 2y agoI would be extremely disappointed if a $349 epaper niche gadget with more or less no maintenance costs would resort to serving ads. So yeah...that will probably happen.
- HWR_14 2y agoIndeed, what software would you want to update?
- itishappy 2y agoThe quote db? I assume they're cached and not calling an API every minute.
- toast0 2y agoIt might be nice to update the quote database, or the timezone database, and wifi is handy for setting the time. I built a wifi alarm clock with OTA updates [1], which is handy when I find yet another bug in processing iCal or assumption I've made about what data will actually be in the iCal files. :/ Although, at this point, I've figured out what kinds of things don't actually work and avoid them instead of fixing the bugs, because there's two of these in the wild and I think the person I sent the second one to gave up on it. [1] https://github.com/russor/ClockThing https://github.com/russor/ClockThing
- iMark 2y agoIs there some sort of internet law which says that any device providing a service which could be an app will eventually be replaced by an app?
- frutiger 2y agoThe app (or some equivalent) may already exist. The whole point of this product is that you get a device whose hardware is tailor made (e-ink, no other distractions, long time between charges, etc.) for this purpose.
- littlekey 2y agoThis is a great idea, and I love that it includes four languages. The price is a bit more than I'm comfortable with but I may pick one up anyway, it does look nicely constructed.
- jareklupinski 2y agonice! this reminds me of an art piece I saw once, which used segments of movies to show the time: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/christian-marclay-clock https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/christian-marcl...
- aleksiy123 2y agoCool but expensive af.
- divbzero 2y agoA novel way indeed. I love how, while difficult to build without modern computing, the clock maintains the feel of low-key ambient tech.
- ajkjk 2y agoThe website tries to tell you every time someone buys one, like some kind of creepy attempt at peer pressure.
- austinjp 2y agoA well-known "dark pattern" used to suggest impending scarcity. Airlines and fast-fashion outlets are major offenders.
- exodust 2y agoThey're annoying clutter, but I don't think it falls under "dark pattern" because you can ignore it, there's no requirement to interact with it. Dark patterns guide you down a path you don't need to go. This particular one on the Author Clock site is from monto.io > social-proof.
- pinkmuffinere 2y agoFwiw, this is a fairly common way to increase sales, as a kind of social proof, and to say “wow stock sure is dropping fast!” I understand it can be annoying though, as a user I’m not fond of it either.
- ajkjk 2y agoIt is gross in general, but it's especially offputting on a product that is otherwise sorta likable and cute. Like it's one thing if a hotel website does it because you expect them to be scummy anyway (not ideal but that's how it is). But this site could have easily not seemed scummy just by removing the greedy stuff.
- lynndotpy 2y agoIt completely turns me off from anywhere that sells it. I'm an annoying Ocarina fan, and the two largest Ocarina manufacturers in North America do this. I haven't bought one from either of them in years because of it.
- Tao3300 2y ago
- Suppafly 2y agoI like this but I'd rather make it myself than buy it. I wonder if there is a db one can get with the time quotes already compiled, it would be trivial to make one, although the fit and finish wouldn't be this nice.
- bloopernova 2y agoI wish someone would sell an e-ink screen for lazy tinkerers. It would be powered by USB C, have a small Linux system installed, and some easy way to display stuff on the screen. In a nice case.
- housel 2y agoThere is the Inkplate (https://www.crowdsupply.com/soldered/inkplate-5 https://www.crowdsupply.com/soldered/inkplate-5), which has an ESP32 and so should be just as hackable as a Linux system.
- kirktrue 2y agoThanks for the link! I’ve been looking for something similar to hack on
- bigiain 2y agoA RasPi and an eInk hat seems to be exactly that? (Except for the "nice case bit, but there are RasPi eInk options that include cases too.) https://thepihut.com/products/4-26-e-paper-display-hat-800x480 https://thepihut.com/products/4-26-e-paper-display-hat-800x4...
- bayesianbot 2y agoLilyGo T5[0] has some different (smaller) sizes that seem quite good and cheap. They even have an option for battery and touch capabilities. And if eInk isn't required, they have some weirder types of devices with screens for tinkerers, like glasses and watches. Not Linux but ESP32, but I think in that form factor and performance it's preferable. Haven't tried them myself though, but they seem quite popular, my cursor has been hovering over the buy buttons for months. They usually don't come with case but there's a ton of 3d printable options and also some ready ones on Aliexpress. [0] https://www.lilygo.cc/products/t5-4-7-inch-e-paper-v2-3 https://www.lilygo.cc/products/t5-4-7-inch-e-paper-v2-3
- RomanPushkin 2y agoSending vibes into Universe for the Russian language support...
- amadeusw 2y agoThis is a very nice packaging of a kindle hack I've seen several years ago [1]. Previous discussion: [2] You can point your kindle web browser at this website: [3] [1] https://techni.gallery/literaire-klok-trekt-internationaal-aandacht/ https://techni.gallery/literaire-klok-trekt-internationaal-a... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17688324 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17688324 [3] https://literature-clock.jenevoldsen.com/ https://literature-clock.jenevoldsen.com/
- johannes_ne 2y agoI made https://literature-clock.jenevoldsen.com/ https://literature-clock.jenevoldsen.com/ It is based upon a Kindle project [1] and initially I just used the quote library from that project (which is based on a crowd-sourced collection of quotes by The Guardian [2]). Later, a lot of quotes have been added by kind strangers through GitHub issues and pull-requests [3]. [1] https://www.instructables.com/Literary-Clock-Made-From-E-reader/ https://www.instructables.com/Literary-Clock-Made-From-E-rea... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/jun/26/literary-clock-help-us-find-quotes-for-the-missing-minutes https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/jun/26/lite... [3] https://github.com/JohannesNE/literature-clock/blob/master/litclock_annotated.csv https://github.com/JohannesNE/literature-clock/blob/master/l...
- throwaway7ahgb 2y agoThe quote list is pretty cool, I wonder if there are other languages available?
- johannes_ne 2y agoThere is this fork which has a few different languages and some other cool features. I believe the non-english quotes are mostly machine translations of the quotes in my repo. https://literatureclock.netlify.app/?locale=pt-BR https://literatureclock.netlify.app/?locale=pt-BR
- Waterluvian 2y agoThis is a phenomenal way to add a new distraction to every minute of my workday.
- WillAdams 2y agoFunded this on Kickstarter to get one for my wife (who has an MA in English). It's nice, but interferes with her BlueTooth mouse and keyboard, so rather than the envisioned usage at her desk it migrated to the living room. The new mode of updating less often greatly reduces the need to charge.
- interludead 2y agoI think your wife would like it!
- walterbell 2y ago> interferes with her BlueTooth mouse and keyboard Wi-Fi radio firmware bug? Presumably this uses something like an ESP32.
- WillAdams 2y agoCould be. I'll keep an eye out for a firmware update which addresses this.
- interludead 2y agoI have always hunted for things like this. In my childhood, I collected calendars with quotes from great people. These clocks have intrigued me very much
- kristianbrigman 2y agoI really like mine, but recommend the larger one - as a clock, you really need to be too close to the smaller one
- Retr0id 2y agoI wonder how easy it is to mod the firmware. I have my own idea for an e-ink clockface, and something like this could save me some hardware prototyping (at a steep price!) Realistically I'm probably better off repurposing a kindle.
- Animats 2y agoHow often does it need to be charged? I made something like that about fifteen years ago. It displayed "A little after two", "A quarter past three", and such. It wasn't an e-ink device; the display was vacuum-fluorescent. So it needed a power cable to a wall wart. I wanted to build one that would run for a year on a battery, like an ordinary clock, but e-ink displays were too costly back then. The idea is from an old New Yorker cartoon, where someone is looking in the window of a clock store, and sees a long, narrow clock displaying "A little after three". Today, of course, it has to be "cloud enabled".
- Night_Thastus 2y agoFrom the specifications: "Long-life battery: Author Clock lasts over a week between charges and comes with its own USB-C cable. Depending on your settings it can last for several months."
- georgesimon 2y agoEvery two to three weeks, in my experience
- vincent-manis 2y agoThe 1PM quote should be “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
- em-bee 2y agoonly during april
- eh_why_not 2y ago> We plant a tree for every Author Clock sold.... > Shop: $199.00 USD Funny how products that claim a cause on the side are always 5 times the price they should be.
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y agoFunny how products made as if there's no such thing as an externality or grotesque wealth inequality are always so much cheaper than they really ought to be. ps. i am not suggesting that the author clock is externality-free. it probably is not. nor am i forgetting that it will be purchased mostly by people on the upside of that inequality.
- eh_why_not 2y agoIt's buyer manipulation. "Here's this ridiculously priced item; but it's okay you can feel good about throwing this much money away, because we're planting a tree." Instead of segmenting/targeting the high-income market by product quality, they target by emotional manipulation claiming good causes. (i.e. higher-priced product that does not have to be higher quality).
- lmm 2y agoYou're suggesting that it's somehow made in a way that's more conscious of externalities or wealth inequalities than cheaper competitors, a suggestion that I think is unwarranted.
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y agoAbsolutely not. I was contrasting "stuff associated with causes costs more than it should" with "a lot of stuff costs less than it should because the cost ignores externalities"
- gtbcb 2y agoDo you all not think that companies should charge prices that maximize their profits (in the long run)? Typically, companies are trying to predict the price elasticity curve that yields the most profit via # units sold * price. That said, if you overcharge, that could be bad for the brand, turning off users in the short and longer term. Another product like this for me is the Manta Sleep Pro Mask. It’s $80, but the best I’ve found, so I buy it anyways. I’m mildly annoyed and also feel like they’re taking advantage of me on price and will switch as soon as there’s an alternative at least as good for less…but when that happens, they’ll probably lower their price, which is what typically happens as sectors and products mature due to competition. Profit maximization curves are interesting, and I think explain things like how convenience stores exist with much lower volume compared to grocery stores. Eg XYZ food costs 90 cents and the grocery store sells it for $1, yielding profit of 10% whereas a convenience store sells it for $1.50, just a 50% increase in price for the consumer (for the convenience), but the profit is 6x that for the grocery store, so they only need to sell approx 1/6 to make the same profit. In the case of the author clock. If COGS is $50, profit is $150ish. If they sold for $100, they’d have to sell 3x as many to make the same profit. Given that it’s a niche product for readers (smaller population and typically more educated and wealthier), I think they care less about the price. Doesn’t seem that unreasonable to me.
- spalt 2y agoI kickstarted this long ago and when I got it a few months ago gave it to my wife as a gift, who is an author. She immediately rejected it because she found the eink transitions where it flashes a dark color briefly very distracting.
- huygens6363 2y agoThat’s an .. interesting reaction to an unique and thoughtful gift.
- m463 2y agoI made a small digital clock program that I put on a small display. It sat next to me while I worked, and I found the transitions from one time to another (like 1:01 -> 1:02) to be distracting. So I changed the transition to be a gradual fade and it helped. Now that I think about it, I remember getting distracted years ago at a home with a grandfather clock. A quiet room except for the ticking. Definitely accentuated boredom (which with smartphones, we never have anymore)
- 1000100_1000101 2y agoYeah, at work we switched phone systems a few years back to some Avaya phones. The new ones had a small screen on them. After 15-30 minute idle, they'd display the a logo that would jump to a new location every minute or two. It was a constant distraction in the corner of my vision. Ended up moving the phone to where I couldn't see it. About 10% of the workforce found it distracting.
- sdwr 2y agoIt's a potentially insulting gift for a writer. Writing lies between job and hobby, depending on success. This product, from the ad copy, is targeted at fans of writing. People sitting on the bleachers, not the ones on the court. So from the right angle, the gift reads as saying "I don't take you seriously - you're a wannabe".
- BiteCode_dev 2y ago
- crote 2y agoI wonder if someone has managed to extract the quote database yet for DIYers. The device's firmware is easily available via their website - the Mac Installer contains a pair of 9MB binaries (in addition to 200MB of Electron), which seems to just be an unencrypted ESP32 blob. Running `strings` on the blob gives plenty of human-readable stuff (including entire html pages), but nothing resembling quotes. Maybe they are compressed in some way? Assuming 140 characters per quote, the entire 13000-entry quote database should fit uncompressed in about 2MB, so who knows.
- __jonas 2y agoHere is the quotes database of one of the older projects this is (potentially) based on: https://github.com/JohannesNE/literature-clock/blob/master/litclock_annotated.csv https://github.com/JohannesNE/literature-clock/blob/master/l...
- gwern 2y ago13,000 seems surprisingly small, all things considered. Seems like the sort of task where you could automate it with a small LLM instance and process millions of books easily. Then extract all of the key strings and have a set of tens of thousands of ways to describe time which can be searched for as fixed-string matches, and might be of interest in its own right. (How do mentioned times change over history? Do they get more precise? Do books take place at wider ranges of the day?)
- bigiain 2y agoThere's only 1440 minutes in a day. So there's almost 10 quotes for each possible minute to display (assuming an even enough distribution). Even if you check the time a lot - I guess I probably check the time 3 or 4 times every day between 9:20 and my regular 9:30am meeting - it'll probably be ~15 days before I hot a duplicate quote. That feels like "enough" to me?
- gwern 2y ago
- abdullahkhalids 2y agoUnfortunately, shipping is only available for the US. Not even Canada.
- itskarad 2y agoCool, but $200, wow.
- Tao3300 2y agoIf I'm halfway through reading a quote when it ticks over, can I backtrack?
- em-bee 2y agoyou probably have to turn back the clock
- walterbell 2y agoReturn tomorrow, same time, same place.
- Tao3300 2y agoIt claims to have more than 13000 quotes, which aren't going to be evenly spread. There's probably at least a month of midnights, but precious few 5:37s
- thih9 2y agoEink is bad for anything that changes often; the flicker of the screen refresh would be distracting. There is a high chance that the quote would disappear before you finish reading. Even ignoring these flaws the item seems significantly overpriced.
- bigiain 2y ago"High chance"? How long does it take to read a line or four of text? Especially when the bit you're actually after is highlighted in bold? (And to me, it looks underpriced, unless they've already got orders or investment for production runs in the 10,000s. I've done a hardware startup. Hardware is _hard_. Amazon manage to sell Kindles for ~$80 building them at Amazon volumes, and almost certainly subsidising them with expected future ebook sales. I'd be very very surprised if they'd even be breaking even on manufacturing if they're building those in runs of ~1000)
- thih9 2y agoI meant that the full quote would disappear, not letting you finish reading, check the title or author. Unless you're really after the highlighted bit, but then a "regular" word clock [1][2] seems a better fit. [1]: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1468882678/led-word-desk-clock-for-home-office-led https://www.etsy.com/listing/1468882678/led-word-desk-clock-... [2]: https://www.amazon.com/live/video/08cccf8215454ac799a2906811dbf469 https://www.amazon.com/live/video/08cccf8215454ac799a2906811...
- sgarland 2y ago> If the "Captive" setup page is not working, try going to "192.168.4.1" instead of the captive website. I’m at a loss as to why they’d hard-code an IP address instead of pulling a DHCP lease. I suppose they chose that subnet with the thought that it isn’t in use for most people, but it would in fact collide with a VLAN on my network.
- Liftyee 2y agoI reckon it's a combination of simplifying it and assuming that anyone capable of setting up a VLAN knows enough to sort this one out. That might not hold for more exotic networks (businesses, schools...)
- yardshop 2y agoIt's beautiful and fun! $199 seems expensive, but when an EInk screen is around $80 and it has a carved oak case and brass fixtures and a nice finish, it seems worthy of the price. But what about all of the great quotes that will occur from 12a to 6a when I'm asleep? I would have to set it to random wrong times on different days to read all of them!
- nothrowaways 2y agoAwesome
- jacknews 2y agoNice idea and nicely packaged. I think they could open the firmware and make plenty of sales from tinkerers, and 'secondary tinkerers' ie people buying the clock to use a particular mod to show the tides, moon phase, stock quotes, or whatever.
- vzqx 2y agoNeat, but the weird line breaks would drive me crazy. https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/647e0971bc9b144cf71693a5/663a7c03a2412671257d2282_Author_Dahl-p-1080.png https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/647e0971bc9b144cf71693a5/... https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/647e0971bc9b144cf71693a5/650c539fb838be83c8e020a0_clock-101.webp https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/647e0971bc9b144cf71693a5/... I wish they would add hyphens and justify the text.
- lccerina 2y agoThis device does not need a WiFi for any reason. A microsd with the entire database of messages (encrypted) would have made the device cheaper, safer, consuming less energy (not an expert, but I guess that those solar cells you see in calculators could power 1 e-ink transition/minute forever), still upgradeable and a better product overall.
- rrr_oh_man 2y agoBut this wouldn't be a SaaS
- xwowsersx 2y agoDoesn't it though? > An ever-expanding library > What a vision that is. We are continuously adding new quotes to Author Clock. Once it's connected to your WiFi they'll simply begin to... apparate.
- lxgr 2y agoNTP time sync is nice, but arguably that could be solved using a WWVB receiver for a much smaller bill of materials.
- acureau 2y agoAgreed, but I don't think there'd be any reason to encrypt the database
- georgesimon 2y agoI have 2 of these (their campaign manager payment service was confusing, and I accidentally bought a second one). For me, it is very disappointing. The screen is _very_ small and most people won't be able to read this from a shelf. The only place this is appropriate is next to you on your work desk, but personally, I prefer a desk free from decoration. It takes a lot of effort to read a quote, and they're usually disappointing. The quotes are banal without context. It is a thrill when you recognize a quote from a book you know, but it rarely happens. The wood is thin and plasticky, the brass knob is too sharp-edged and feels unfinished. There's a gap all around the bezel. It runs out of charge quickly, the interface is much slower than is comfortable. I'm really sad to say, I can't think of anything good about it. I accidentally bought two, and decided not to cancel the second so I could offer it as a prize in my club. But now I won't inflict that disappointment on someone else, and it is still in the box.
- exodust 2y agoThat is brutal. Good review though, appreciate the honesty. I was half considering it as a gift, not so sure now.
- BiteCode_dev 2y agoBeautiful. I need a device like this, but with the famous memento mori calendar (https://memento-mori-calendar.netlify.app/ https://memento-mori-calendar.netlify.app/), maybe with a bigger screen. But the aesthetic and the e-ink screen is really nice. Although, $200 for a clock is probably more than what I would spend. I understand e-ink are not cheap unfortunatly.
- harrylove 2y agoShould have put a “C.” in the middle of the name. Would have been an instant buy.
- scrumper 2y agoOh very very well done.
- sigmonsays 2y agoOoooof, that price tag though $200 or $350 I can build this myself, thanks for the idea!