The watch face displays four figures, each with a lot of random-looking lines and triangles stuck on them all over the place. I tried staring at the image and trying to read off what time it was, before giving up and just peeking at the bottom of the image to read it off: 15:23.

The design was submitted by Lloyd from Australia, who explained: “I feel this design would appeal to puzzle, game and sci-fi lovers in particular. It would also suit geeks and anyone who likes quirky modern things as well as thinking ‘outside the box.’”

Here’s the key to figuring out the numbers that the figures stand for:

If you haven’t cracked the code, this is how it was done:

Extremely simple, right? But were you able to figure it out on your own? Now that you see it though, it’s actually a really easy watch to read if you know what you’re looking for.

[via Tokyoflash]

That’s what I initially thought of Tokyoflash Design Studio’s Sudoku Puzzle Watch Concept, but you don’t actually have to solve the entire puzzle from scratch with the watch – just a small portion of it.

The design itself is easy to understand enough: the face of the watch is actually a digital display showing a Sudoku puzzle grid. At least two grids from each column will have two blank spaces each. Just fill each grid up with the missing digit from 1 to 9, and you’ve got your answer. Once you figure it out, read the figures from left to right to figure out what time it is.

The Sudoku Watch Concept seems pretty complicated at first glance, but it’s a whole lot simpler than you think – especially if you’re used to solving Sudoku puzzles. And if it gets made, I’d definitely want to get my hands on one.

[via Tokyoflash]

The limited-edition Kisai Optical Illusion is a touchscreen alarm watch, with time, date, alarm, and EL backlighting. You’ll need keen eyes to make out the time, as it’s hidden in diagonally reversed lines among a maze of confusing squiggles.

If that’s too hard on your peepers, you can just press the reveal button and the watch will show the time. It comes with an animation mode as well, which alternates between the puzzling illusion and revealing the time ever 20 seconds.

While it might not look that technologically advanced, the display has one of the most complex LCD screens ever on a watch, with over 1500 tiny LCD segments which need to be addressable by its time circuits. The watch is made out of stainless steel, and it’s available in either black or silver with a natural or green display. For the next two days, you can order the Kisai Optical Illusion watch for $179 (USD). After this, you’ll end up paying $199.

Watch designs featured by Tokyoflash are usually extremely complicated, which makes reading the time off of them – which happens to be the main purpose of watches, by the way – more difficult than necessary. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised when I chanced upon the Trax MkII Concept Watch.

The watch was designed by Peter Fletcher from the UK, and draws on obvious military themes as its inspiration. That’s pretty much apparent as it uses tank-like treads to tell the time. Unlike other watch displays that flash a series of LED lights and leave all the time reading interpretation up to you, the Trax MkII tells it like it is: with good, old-fashioned digits.

As the time changes, the numbered treads move into position. Just read the numbers found between the LED illuminated brackets in the middle to know what time of day it is – in military time, of course.

On the design, Peter explains: “I wanted to come up with a watch design based on driven belts. The first thought that popped into my head when thinking about belts was caterpillar tracks and what caterpillar tracks are usually attached too. So I decided to use tanks as an inspiration for this watch concept.”

Execution of this particular design will require a fairly complex mechanism to be built, but if you’d like to see it produced some day, be sure to cast your vote over on the Tokyoflash design blog.

[via Ubergizmo via Geeky Gadgets]

Just in case you can’t tell, the FOUR watch design is all about the number four. It was submitted by Firdaus from Malaysia, who said: “I was influenced by many Japanese Tokusatsu and most of them featured henshin gadget that are very futuristic and stylish. Inspired by the shape of digit “4″ and Japanese “つ” (tsu), I came up with this watch design.”

On the watch, the time is displayed on lines of LEDs in the following groups: 12×1 hour, 5×10 minutes and 1×9 minutes alongside the “4″ shape face and part of the strap, as illustrated by this image:

It took me a couple of minutes to understand how the FOUR watch face above was supposed to read 8:21. The trick is to look for the darkened LED segments and then count up from the bottom of the watch.

While I admit it’s a pretty cool and definitely futuristic timepiece to have, the way it tells time is way too complicated for me. Still, if you like the design, head on over to the Tokyoflash design blog and vote for it now.

It looks like a cross between a Cylon and some sci-fi robot from the 1950s. As usual, you’ll take some time figuring out how to tell the time on this thing, but it is just too cool not to wear. Its red LED cyclops eye even blinks to resemble the swinging motion of a pendulum, counting each second. The grid of lights that make up the robot’s body tell you the time or the current date. Rather than try and explain how to tell time on the EOBOT, I’ll leave it to Lloyd:

“Telling the time on this watch is pretty easy. The first 4 vertical rows of lights indicate the 4-digit time and date and in each row one of the lights is illuminated in either green or blue. A blue light indicates an even digit and a green light indicates an odd digit. The top light in each row represents either 0 (considered as being an even digit) or 1, the second one down 2 or 3, the third one down 4 or 5, the fourth one down 6 or 7 and the fifth one down 8 or 9. Therefore, the combination of a light’s colour and position in each row enables you to figure out which digit is being indicated.”

Makes perfect sense, except maybe for that “easy” part. Right now the EOBOT watch is a concept, but if you like it, hit up Tokyoflash to vote for it.

[via Ubergizmo]

At first glance you’ll look at the LED display on the CODEX and say “WTF time is it?” But once you understand how it works, it’s actually not that hard to read, and you can actually tell time at a glance.

Initially, you’ll just see a bunch of diagonal lines, but look closer, and you’ll realize that each triangular section of the watch’s pyramid-shaped face simply represents a number. When wearing the watch, the top and bottom sections represent hours, and the left and right sections represent minutes. Each number is just shown in a funky angular typeface, which is adjusted to the appropriate angle to fit into each section of the watch face. Look again. Make sense now?

Here’s a chart that explains what each digit looks like in its various rotated states. They kind of look like some sort of weird characters you’d see on the controls of an alien spacecraft, but once you understand what they are, they actually are pretty straightforward.

The CODEX watch was a collaborative design by a guy going by the name of Firdaus in Malaysia, and Heather Sable here in the US, and is currently up for voting over on the TokyoFlash design blog. If you’d like to see it produced, head on over and show your support.

For example, the watch above is displaying 3:45. Get it now? Fine. Here are more examples:

In keeping with its minimalist design, the watch face has four touch-sensitive zones – the top, bottom, left and right – for setting the time, date, alarm and light, all of which are activated by a prolonged touch. The On Air watch is yet another design which started out on TF’s Design Studio Blog, and based on a concept by Iskender and Adilet Asanaliev.

It’s available in either silver or black stainless steel, and in natural grey LCD with blue LED backlighting, green LCD with matching green LED backlighting, red LCD with matching red LED backlighting, or gold LCD with orange LED backlighting.

If you like what you’re (not) seeing, set an alarm within the next 13 hours reminding you to order the On Air watch from Tokyoflash. Wait longer than that and you’ll miss out on its $169 to $179 (USD) launch price, which is $20 less than its regular price.

In short, the LED Domino FX wristwatch sent in from someone named Lloyd from Australia will definitely not be for me. I think dominoes is a fun game, but using it as a design to tell the time just, well, makes things complicated. I mean, remember the Domino Clock?

But for the people who can be bothered to take some extra time out to understand how the watch works, here’s what Lloyd has to say about his design: “This watch design is based on one of my puzzle ideas and, although it looks baffling initially, is actually incredibly easy to understand. It is called Domino FX because of the 4 domino-like figures in the display. However, these are not really dominoes, but digital 8s with up to 7 spots arranged inside each.”

“Up to 3 spots may appear in the top half and up to 4 in the bottom half. These spots indicate which, if any, of the 7 straight lines that make up each 8 must be omitted to make the time or date visible. You know when a line must be omitted because a spot appears right next to it.”

Get it? Don’t get it? You might need to read his explanation a couple more times (and check the display on the wristwatch more than a couple of times) to get the hang of the whole concept.

[Tokyo Flash via Gadgets Matrix]

The watch is encased in stainless steel and has a futuristic touchscreen interface. It works with a hybrid combination of LCD/LEDs, so it will be easily readable during the night or day. If you need more light, just push a button and the LEDs will flare up to allow you to read the time. The screen locks after 60 seconds and can be unlocked with a swipe. It’s also got an on-screen animation and alarm clock features.

The display isn’t that hard to read. The outer ring shows the hours, while the inner one shows the minutes. My guess is that you could train yourself to read the time with a glance pretty easily. It’s available in red, blue, green, or “natural” LCD colors and sells for $149 (USD) for the next two days over at Tokyoflash. After that, the price jumps up to $169.

While I probably spent more hours playing this on my old Nokia 6200 phone than anything else, I actually remember playing a version many years earlier on my Atari 2600, called Surround, and then later with the arcade TRON Lightcycle battle.

The cool thing about the Snake Watch is that the same pixel block snake that you played the game with is the time display. Look carefully, and you’ll notice that the snake trail on the watch above spells out “12:45.” Neat. When the time is not being displayed, the snake moves around the screen constantly, to keep your eyeballs occupied, and to act as a screen saver. Not that I think a watch display actually needs a screen saver.

The watch offers up two types of digits – one where the lines are truly continuous, and another where the numbers can have dots in the middle. Definitely more legible, but not representative of the snakes’ slithering. In digits/dot mode, I guess this snake can jump!

As is always the case with designs up on the TF Design Blog, you can vote for this watch if you’d like to see it produced.

In the mean time, you can occupy your time with an actual game of Snake, right now.

I still think they were a marvel of engineering, and kind of miss the old clicking sound they used to make so you knew another minute had past. A few companies are actually making them again, and if this concept is ever produced, you could be wearing a flip clock on your wrist.

Designed by a guy named Gordon (sorry, I don’t know your last name Gordon, feel free to let us know), the Retro Flip watch is the perfect thing for those of you with retro design sensibilities.

The watch would contain a miniature version of that 1970s flip clock, set into a cylindrical oval watch body with a curved face. While Gordon has offered up the concept in a variety of modern finishes, I personally love the one with the burled wood finish. I would actually buy and wear this watch if it were produced. Though I wouldn’t look forward to “falling back” this week when daylight savings time ends and you have to flip through all of the numbers again to set the watch back one hour.

While I’m not sure of the practicality of manufacturing a flip clock in miniature, show your support for the Flip Clock over at the TokyoFlash Design Blog, and maybe if it gets enough votes, they’ll actually produce it. For now, just look at the pretty pictures.

A concept design by Peter Fletcher, the Turbine LED watch would tell the current time using a spinning turbine-like blade, with flashing LEDs on one of the blades. As the blades spin rapidly, the time would be revealed.

When I first saw this idea, I thought that building a motor into a watch to spin the turbine would eat up battery like mad. However, Peter’s concept incorporates a clever mechanical “pull cord” on the side of the watch, which provides its spinning energy instead of a motor.

At this point, the Turbine watch is only a concept, but if it manages to get enough votes over on the TokyoFlash design blog, it might someday become a real watch.

[Thanks for the tip, Peter!]

The Kisai Seven watch is most definitely inspired by Tron, and is based on an earlier concept design by Scott Galloway we featured last year.

It looks like quite an interesting addition to anyone’s watch collection. The inner ring shows the hours and the outer ring shows the minutes, in increments of 5. There are additional LED strips to decipher in order to get the exact time, but honestly, within 5 minutes is fine in most cases unless you’re Jack Bauer.

The watch is available with either blue or white LEDs, and Tokyoflash is offering the Kisai Seven for $99 (USD) for the through 10/28 at 11:00am (Japan time), but it will bump up to $139 after this.

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The Dot-to-Dot watch tells time exactly the way you’d think from its name – by drawing lines between dots on its display. Designed in collaboration between a guy in England named Peter, and a guy in Germany named Sam Jerichow, the Dot-to-Dot would feature four small, segmented display sections, each of which initially display a series of dots on their faces.

If you’re in a puzzle-solving mood, you can use the touch-sensitive E-Paper display to connect the dots and see what number is hidden on each, or just press a button and the display automatically connects the dots on your behalf, making it both a cryptic display and one that can be easily read if you’re not feeling up to the challenge.

In addition to the cool black-on-white display, the concept calls for a white-on-black variant, as well as a variety of modern watch bands to go with. Personally, I like the all-black version with the carbon-fiber look.

While the design is still just a concept, TokyoFlash often takes popular designs from their design blog and figures out a way to get them produced. If you’re a fan of the Dot-to-Dot, be sure to head over to the site, and cast your vote. Someday, you could actually be telling time with a connect-the-dot puzzle on your wrist.

The Rogue Touch display is right out of science-fiction, so telling the time can seem a bit complicated. The outer ring tells time in one time zone, while the inner ring displays a secondary time zone.

You interact with the watch using a touchscreen face to change modes or set the watch, but it automatically locks after 60 seconds, and then you need to swipe your finger across the screen to reactivate it – a smart design choice.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The case has a polished gunmetal finish, and the display, illuminated by bright LEDs is available in four colors. The time-telling LCD is always on, so you don’t have to activate the LEDs to view the time, just to illuminate it in the dark.

Through 9/29, you’ll get free shipping and $20 off if you order the Kisai Rogue Touch from the TokyoFlash web store. After that, the watch jumps up to its regular retail price of $199 (USD).

The hexagonal shaped metal watch is littered with LEDs. A button press reveals the time.  The outer ring indicates the hours, while the minutes are displayed in the center using stylized digital numbers.

The case is made from matte black stainless steel, and comes in blue, red, or green on black LED versions. It also has date and alarm functions, which is cool. As with many of the recent Tokyoflash LED watches, you’ll need to recharge it about once a month via USB.

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There are about 300 charges per battery, and the battery can be replaced. Overall, the watch is pretty interesting. It’s currently selling for $129 for the launch at the Tokyoflash website, but will revert back to $149 in 2 days.

A designer going simply by the name of Patrick has come up with this concept for a watch that tells time using the same sort of colorful sparks you get in those Tesla-coil inspired plasma balls.

The way it would work is that two tiny electrodes would rotate slowly around the perimeter of the watch – one for hours, the other for minutes – and then when you touch your finger to the center of the watch face, sparks would shoot between your fingertip and the two electrodes and through a bubble of Argon gas to display the time. Pretty cool, eh? The other cool thing about this design is that you can still read the time even when the plasma isn’t activated – which should save on power.

At this point the plasma watch is only a concept. I’m actually not sure if it’s even physically possible to pack the necessary electronics and transformer onto your wrist to pull this off. Regardless, if you like the design, head over to the TokyoFlash design blog and cast your vote if you want to see it produced. For now, you could always just strap one of these to your wrist.

Like some of the more recent Tokyoflash watches, the 3D Unlimited uses an LCD, so it’s always on. There’s a cool EL backlight so you can read it in the dark. It has a colored, mirrored LCD display. It comes in 2 different types of straps, either black metal or polished silver, and 5 different LCD colors.

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The Tokyoflash Kisai 3D Unlimited has a battery life of about 12 months, with an easily replaceable battery.

This is another watch that went from a concept back in March 2010 to reality in August 2011. It’s available from the Tokyoflash store. It’s currently on sale for $120(USD) until August 11, 2011 (12:30AM), but it will quickly revert to $145 after that.

Unless you tilt the Kisai Right Angle watch to the proper angle, all that you’ll see is a bunch of squiggles and lines, as well as some blocks, making it quite indecipherable. Once you twist your wrist, you can tell the time. Like the most recent Tokyoflash watches, it has an LCD screen, so it’s always visible.

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The watch also has some built-in USB memory, so that you can keep some of your data on your wrist at all times. That’s probably a smart feature, and one that I’d like to see in other watches, at least if it’s a 4 to 8GB.

If the Right Angle watch gets enough votes over on the Tokyoflash Design Blog, they will put it into production.