How to build a circular LCD clock

(blinry.org)

76 points | by birdculture 2 days ago

12 comments

  • zerobees 3 hours ago
    How to build a circular LCD clock, step 1: buy a circular LCD that looks like a clock.

    I'm not kidding, that's the extent of the build. They simply connect that display to a computer over HDMI. The only hacking here is browser-based JS for clock animations.

  • trencedamp 1 hour ago
    Beat project, but

    > I also tried with a Raspberry Pi Zero 2, but 512 MB of RAM were too little to run a modern browser,

    You don't need a browser to display graphics. And you don't need to be a programming whiz either. I'm sure Claude could write some python to render these clock faces.

    • edhelas 37 minutes ago
      512mb or RAM to show the time, what a time we live in.
    • teiferer 1 hour ago
      I came here to say the same thing. Why on earth do we need a "modern browser" to show a clock?
  • fxwin 1 hour ago
    > The Pi 3B+ seems just enough to render some simple animations.

    > I think a Pi 4 might be a good sweet spot between processing power and price,

    I know this isn't exactly a serious product and more of a gadget/gimmick but man we are off by a factor of like 3-4 here :D

    • hack1312 1 hour ago
      If they didn’t use an entire browser to render the clock face this seems like it could be an Arduino/ESP32-esque project.
      • ZiiS 1 hour ago
        Driving HDMI is way harder then you would guess; extremely fast timing to hit. A naive framebuffer alone won't fit in RAM, whilst not strictly needed it would make it a hard challenge.
  • atulvi 1 hour ago
    Maybe you'll love my minimalist clock design https://euclid.tulv.in/
    • idank 7 minutes ago
      Nice, is there a physical clock that works this way?
  • patates 3 hours ago
    you can also do this with an esp32 as long as you don't insist using a browser to draw a clock
    • mareklarek 2 hours ago
      That's what i wanted to say also. The raspberry is a total overkill here.

      Nice implementation though!

    • monocasa 2 hours ago
      Yeah, LVGL is probably what you'd want in that environment.
  • teiferer 1 hour ago
    Are there epaper versions of those round displays? Maybe I'm old fashioned.
  • fourspacetabs 3 hours ago
    > I also tried with a Raspberry Pi Zero 2, but 512 MB of RAM were too little to run a modern browser, sadly.

    I found that the surf browser was efficient enough to run fine on my Raspberry Pi Zero W. YMMV with animations and such, but it's much better than any chromium alternative in my experience.

  • jzer0cool 3 hours ago
    $159 quite expensive for the LCD
    • rf15 3 hours ago
      It's an unconventional shape, and not subsidised by ads, etc..
    • krige 2 hours ago
      There's a multitouch function
  • albert_e 3 hours ago
    > White USB-A to USB-C cable > White HDMI to micro HDMI cable

    Why do they need to be ...white :)

    Oh i see the cables now and cant unsee them.

    I guess next step is to 3D print a back case mount that encloses the RPi and plugs into a wall socket for power.

  • rushil_b_patel 2 hours ago
    That modak font looks similar to one in Pixel phones clock. But Nice thing you made there :)
  • altmanaltman 3 hours ago
    The cartoony clock looks a bit weird in terms of typography when the time is 10:29, the font kind of squeezes and becomes hard to read
  • sehw 2 hours ago
    [dead]