Designed by Andreas Dober for Germany’s Anthologie Quartett, the Catena (Latin for “chain”) has a certain retro-steampunk look about it. Time is told using copper digits mounted on the outside of a bike chain that rotates around a single motorized gear. Now don’t bother trying to tell the exact time with this. The only numbers on the chain are the hours, so any attempt to figure out minutes is a crap-shoot.

While I dig the grungy minimalism of the clock, I don’t dig the $2300+ (USD) price tag. But I suppose if you’ve got really deep pockets, you can order one over at Unica Home.

On the other hand, I won’t tell anyone if you decide to make your own out of $20 worth of junk you find at a flea market.

[via Incredible Things]

It is a clock after all. Although I think it could also be looking to get high. It looks like it’s getting more and more desperate by the hour too.

[via The Presurfer]

The Black Belt watch is water-resistant for up to 100 meters and has a satin-finished, PVD-treated steel case. The sandblasted steel bezel features the Kanji characters for each hour. A black belt adorns the watch’s face, while the minute and hour hands were made to look like Shinai (the wooden bamboo practice swords used in Kendo). The timepiece embodies traditional martial arts values, like Yu (Courage), Meiyo (Honor), and Ramen (Noodles). I’m kidding! Please don’t punch me.

The people behind this ubermacho yet sexy watch are martial artists-turned-watchmakers Claudio Alessi – a “multi style Sensei who is a Mixed Martial Arts instructor” – and  tournament-proven karate practitioner Yvan Arpa. What a combo. In making the Black Belt watch, the two martial artists are still fighting the good fight: a percentage of sales from the watch will be donated to the Little Dreams Foundation, which helps youth excel in arts and sports.

The watch can be yours for 500 kicks to the solar plexus dollars. No, of course not; unfortunately not even the official website has the lowdown on the price or the release date of the Black Belt. But you can already pre-order it, just make sure you have a black belt!

[via The Time TV via The Awesomer]

Then I realized that this clever LED-lookalike clock isn’t a clock at all. It’s an educational puzzle for teaching your kids how to read digital clocks. After all, analog clocks aren’t the norm these days, so why would you need to teach your children to read time on a more modern display?

I guess the only problem I have with the whole concept is that Digits‘ Jumbo LED clock trainer comes with a bunch of tiny little pieces that are easy to lose (and possibly swallow). And it’s not cheap either. At $100 bucks, I could probably buy myself a whole roomful of cheap digital alarm clocks and set them all to different times. The Digits Jumbo LED clock trainer is available over at Ponoko.

The ZAZ tells time using a minimal liquid-crystal display that that indicates the hours, minutes and seconds using stacks of dots and dashes. Unlike most LCD watches, the ZAZ features an unusual transparent screen that lets you see through to your wrist below. And unlike some other unconventional watch displays out there, this one is actually pretty easy to tell the time with.

The stainless-steel watch comes is positioned asymmetrically on its band, lending to its distinct looks. Each one is water-resistant to 3ATM, and is available with either a black or white leather band, or one with mesh silver styling. The Nooka ZAZ will ship later this Fall, and is available for pre-order over at Watchismo for $380 (USD).

The Ice Tube clock ($70 USD) gets its brilliant blue display thanks to an old-school Russian-issued VFD (vacuum fluorescent display) tube. It’s set inside of a spiffy clear acrylic shell, which lets you see its internal circuitry whenever you want. Each tube has 8 glowy blue digits, as well as a dot indicator for PM and an alarm on/off indicator.

While the Ice Cube kit includes everything you need to build a standard alarm clock with day/date functionality, both hardware and software are open source, so you can mod this to do something else if you want – say display text messages or run the time backwards.

Keep in mind that the circuit generates very high voltages (up to 70 VDC), so you’ll need significant electronics, soldering and kit-building experience if you want one of these sitting on your bookshelf (and not catching your house on fire). If you’re up to the build challenge, head on over to Adafruit and place your order.

[via LadyAda]

Heheh. Sasqwatch. Sasqwatch. Cracks me up. Oh I’m sorry man, I didn’t, I was just kidding. What? There really is a Pinkfoot? Whoa. I bet it goes ape for Kool Aid. Just like you – I mean, I’m sure you’ll find them Yeti one day. It’s just out there. Keep on searching. Meanwhile you can boost the morale of your fellow hunters by getting them one of these. Just $50 (USD) each at Entertainment Earth. I’m sure if you ask your mom nicely she’ll get you all four colors.

[via Nerd Approved]

You see, the hour markers around the perimeter of designer J.P.Meulendijks‘ Chasing Time clock gradually change positions as the minutes pass. It’s designed so every time you look up at the clock, it looks just a little bit different than the last time you looked at it.

At least the clock hands work the way you’d expect, so you can still tell what time it is – even if you are completely hypnotized by the outer moving bits. If you’re looking for something different to hang on your wall you can order the Chasing Time clock from Swedish design shop pid.se for $359 (USD).

[via GeekAlerts]

Designer Andy Kurovets envisioned this über-modern watch concept that uses a modulated laser scanner to projects the time onto the surface of your wrist. And he promises it won’t give you skin cancer. At least that’s what I heard – somewhere.

The design features a unique broken “o”-ring band that is slightly elevated from your wrist in order to provide sufficient projection throw distance.

Cool, no? Unfortunately, the design is only conceptual at this point, so if Alessi happens to be reading this blog – make these. People will buy them… so long as the laser doesn’t set your skin on fire.

[via Yanko Design via Ubergizmo]

The Ora watch tells time on a series of three crisscrossed analog time strips. The top strip tells time in minutes, overlapping a smaller band with the hours, and a narrow third belt with the current day of the week.

The mechanism requires an intricate and complicated set of motorized gears pull each band into the correct postion as the time changes.

Designed by Alexandros Stasinopoulos, the Ora is merely in the conceptual stages at this point, so you won’t be able to stop by your local watch shop and buy one of these any time soon.

So it’s all really cool except for the fact that it doesn’t actually exist.

[via designboom via dustbowl]

Banpresto’s new GONG! alarm clocks look like those bells that they have by the side of the fighting ring. The difference here is that these ones are designed to wake you up. When it’s time to get up, a referee’s voice starts to count down from 10. If you don’t get out of bed within the 10 count the “round” is over, and the bell rings. An internal vibration sensor detects if you’ve actually gotten out of bed of if you’re still lying there like a lump.

For now, the clocks are only available in Japan, so if you want one of these you’ll want to Google “ゴング！目覚まし時計“. Good luck with all that. If you can be patient, I’m sure the guys over at StrapyaWorld will eventually sell these worldwide.

This extra-loud alarm clock gets its power from a couple of 140-decibel electric horns. A relay, a 12-volt laptop power supply and a whiff of solder later, and this cheap alarm clock was transformed into the most ear-shattering alarm clock you’ll ever hear.

Here, have a listen:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

As an added bonus, it’s guaranteed to wake all members of your immediate family and each neighbor on your block.

[via MoHacks]

The aptly named “Little Robot Clock” has tiny articulating joints with clips in place of hands so he can hang on to your notes and whatnot. Of course, you don’t have to use those clippy claws for good. They can also be used for staging tiny robot battles in your cubicle.

I bet you can’t buy just one. But then you may say “why do I need so many clocks on my desk”, and I respond “set them each to a different timezone and shut the f*ck up.” You can start building your own desktop robo-clock army for $20.50 (USD) each over at Brando.

Polish modder mb1988 built this hard drive clock uses the old persistence-of-vision (POV) illusion, which display phantom “hands” on the face of the spinning drive platter. A set of colorful LEDs encircle the platter, blinking rapidly to illuminate the current time on a slot cut into the face of the platter. An ATMEGA128 microcontroller under the hood that makes the lights blink at precisely the right moment to create the illusion. There’s even a remote control that lets mb change the colors and effects on demand. But what makes this clock design really special is the incredibly detailed and evocative etching under the clock’s Plexiglas face.

You can check out the entire build log and schematics (Polish/machine translated) over on Elektroda. Don’t understand how it works? Check out the video below to see the clock in action:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

[via Hacked Gadgets]

Pretty pretty lights and shiny things. Insert frowny face of shame here.

The Energy Aware Clock concept comes from Sweden, and is pretty self-explanatory. The house-shaped device maps out energy consumption based on time, and displays a circular, 24 hour visualization of when power is being drawn the most and the least throughout the day.

So slaves to sexy design aesthetics (like me) and people genuinely interested in when their geeky goings ons deliver the biggest blow to the power grid both get something out of the Energy Aware Clock. Well, they would if it weren’t for the whole “not yet available in retail” thing.

Currently, the clock is being shown off at various design shows, like the Design September 2009 show in Brussels, Belgium. But if the Geeky Gods of Gadgets and Gizmos have any love for me, the Energy Aware Clock will garner enough attention and praise to become a retail product sometime in 2010.

[via Geek.com]

Each clock measures in at about 10-inches square, making it about 175 times larger than a regular computer key. While you won’t be able to spell out “CTRL-ALT-DEL” if you hang three of these on the wall, you could buy all four and spell out “CTRL-ALT-ESC-ENTER”, which I believe makes flames shoot out of PCs running Windows XP or Vista – so don’t try this at home.

Computer key clocks are available from (the unfortunately named, but still cool) PHAG (that’s Philadelphia Home and Garden) for $18.50 (USD) each.

[via Design Milk]

Created by Japan’s SeaHope, the Dual Touch LED watch has a display that can react to your touch. In finger trace mode, the LEDs under your digits follow your exact movements.

The other cool thing about the Dual Touch is that each one features a unique dual-color LED matrix that can change colors with a simple swipe of your finger. There’s a blue/green combo, a red/green, red/blue, orange/green and orange/blue duos too. Each Dual Touch watch comes in a slick modern stainless steel (silver or black color) case, and is protected by a durable mineral glass crystal.

In addition to the finger-touch mode, there’s also an animation mode that switches between 6 different patterns including the requisite “running human” pictured above. You can check out a basic Flash demo of the watch animation here.

You can find all of the different permutations for sale over at SeaHope’s online shop for ¥18,900 each (appx. $209 USD).

Designed by Biegert & Funk, the QLOCKTWO displays text that describes the current time using statements like “IT IS NINE O’CLOCK” or “IT IS FIVE PAST TWO”. Individual minutes are conveyed through the tiny white dots in the corners of the clock. A flip of the switch, and the seconds appear as a giant dot-matrix display behind the letters. And if you’d prefer your time in a language other than English, you’ve got a choice of German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, or French versions too.

The handmade German clock features a painted acrylic or stainless steel face, which tops a sturdy wood box that houses an array of LED backlighting and circuitry required to tell the time. This sophisticated timepiece uses an atomic-synchronized time-signal reciever and automatically adjusts its brightness based on the ambient light around it.

Here’s a demo of the QLOCKTWO in action (in German):

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

As much as I love the design, the QLOCKTWO isn’t cheap. It retails for €1099.99 (appx. $1565 USD), and interchangeable color faceplates are available starting at €95 (appx. $136 USD) each over at the Biegert & Funk store.

Now for the good news. If you happen to own an iPhone or iPod Touch, you can now grab a nifty little program over on the App Store that simulates the QCLOCKTWO’s functionality on your wonderdevice for just 99 cents. That’s definitely within my budget.

[QLOCKTWO via Design Milk]

Designed by Japan’s Takara Tomy, Clockman jars you awake each morning with a variety of chatty statements, along with some goofy animated facial expressions. But even after you hit the snooze bar, he seems to keep going, and going, and going. Clockman just doesn’t know when to shut up. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) for those of us who don’t speak Japanese, we have no idea what Clockman is actually saying. Here – watch the video below and let us know what you think Clockman is talking about.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

I like to think he’s saying something like “What the hell are you still doing in bed?”, “Don’t you have to get to your McJob so you can buy more cheap plastic gadgets from Japan? Loser!”

The other weird thing is that you’re supposed to choose a Clockman based on your blood type. There’s AB, B, O and A versions for you to pick from. Why? Why not? The guys over at CScout Japan seem to have an explanation – but it’s about as scientifically sound as biorhythms, horoscopes and tarot card readings.

I dare you to buy an O, even if you’re AB negative. Do you think it might reject you like a transplanted organ?

Clockman hits the streets of Japan this September, and it’s doubtful that we’ll see an English-language version anytime soon ever.

[photos: Kaden Watch and CScout Japan]

The Wooden Sound Box Clock features a bold design sensibility, peppered with just enough technology in make it seem at home in any geek’s bedroom. The current time, date and day of week all glow through the faux-wood face of this clock, courtesy of some retro-red 7-segment LEDs. In addition to telling time, the alarm clock can play digital music from your SD/MMC cards or USB thumb drives through a pair of full-range speakers mounted into the sides of the big black box.

If the watermarks on the images above didn’t clue you in already, you can grab the Wooden Sound Box Clock over at Brando’s Watch site for $95 (USD) – if you can believe it, the clock is just $55, and $40 of that is for shipping from China.

(FWIW, this alarm clock may look a whole lot like Karlsson’s Cube, but the built-in media player gives this one the advantage.)