Show HN: Clocksimulator.com – A minimalist, distraction-free analog clock

I built a digital clock for my neighbor with Alzheimer a few years ago. It was a web app with an analog clock and it would show Morning / Afternoon / Evening / Night on the side.

I felt quite proud of myself, since she often got confused about whether it was 6am or 6pm on her analog clocks at home. (Alzheimer's can bring a loss of the sense of time.)

But while she thought it was a great idea, every time I came back, she had turned off the dedicated tablet we set up for the purpose

I ended up just buying her an Alzheimer's clock — a 24 hour clock with pictures indicating the time of day, for $15 or so. That one stayed where we put it!

Very, very cool.

In a similar vein, somebody posted a version of the old timecard clocks from BBC and ABC channels in the 70s and early 80s that they'd built:

https://www.mubd.net.au/tv-history/tv-clocks.html#bbc1-1981

Author can be found in the settings avialable via the cog in the bottom right hand corner, which also allows you to select the timecard you want, and alter visual settings.

I need to find the time to do a bit of research into whether it's possible to use a web page as a screensaver because I'd love to use one of these for that.

Love how clean it looks.

Related, I made a clock with a moire pattern (10 years ago now) and still love coming back to it.

The hands all spin with css transitions and I remember there was a Safari bug where if I zoomed in, the rotation would reset itself

https://psychedelic-clock.surge.sh

Really nicely done. I usually settle for

    xclock -analog -update 1 -norender -hl grey -fg grey -bg black

(You can put a `TZ="Wherever"` variable at the start for different timezones, and those that don't like the seconds ticking can pass e.g. 0.01 instead of 1 to the -update option).

Brits of a certain age will recall (and might appreciate) the clock faces available at https://625.uk.com/tv_logos/flash2.htm#clocks too.

Very clean and polished! I love how smooth the seconds hand move.

I work in an environment where we look at the time across many different timezones around the world. A couple of feature requests if you are ever in the mood:

  1. Make it possible to specify the timezone.
  2. Make it possible to create a grid of clocks, each with different timezones.
  3. Persist the grid/timezone state in the URL so links can be easily shared.

Great job, really well done.

Also cool: https://sunclock.net

I enjoy running clocks on this 5" inch circular touch screen IPS display from Waveshare: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C14CZ2GG.

The content is provided by a Raspberry Pi 4, and these Javascript/CSS/SVG clocks can be quite taxing. Especially a smooth running seconds hand often causes visual stuttering. Chrome had the best FPS I recall.

If anyone knows of other large circular displays, please post here.

The new BMW Mini has a gorgeous 24cm circular OLED display, but that's not generally available, OEM only [1][2].

[1] https://www.mini.com/en_MS/home/new-family/a-digital-quantum...

[2] https://www.bhtc.com/en/news/bhtc-entwickelt-erstes-rundes-o...

Nice job. Consider adding a option to turn on a "tick sound" as the second hand moves.

Also maybe see if you can get yours linked to clockfaceonline.co.uk

They have a bunch of analog clock visualizations. I particularly like the magical themed one:

https://www.clockfaceonline.co.uk/clocks/magical

https://www.clockfaceonline.co.uk/analogue-clocks.php

Love the correct time in the favicon. Nice touch.

Can you set it to ticks instead of continuous running of the seconds clockhand That would be great. The vast majority of analog clocks have a ticking clockhand for the seconds, if any at all (can you make the seconds optional?).

The only clocks I know of with such a motor are station clocks, like the Swiss one mentioned already, or the German variant (same manufacturer). But these have a twist: the minute clockhand does not run continuously, but also ticks. The seconds are running a little bit faster until the clockhand is in the upper position, then waits for a signal from the main clock. Only then the minute clockhand jumps one minute and the seconds are starting again.

An example can be seen here: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahnhofsuhr#Technik

I like that you can switch the second-hand to "tick" or continuously move. I have multiple analog clocks in my house and since most of them are battery-powered quartz, the second hand ticks. But, I have one that's from the 60s and needs to be plugged into the wall; that one has the second hand continuously move!

I appreciate the straightforwardness of this. If I could make one request, it would be to support more of a "tick" mode instead of the continuous second hand motion. It doesn't even have to actually make noises, I just like the visuals of the clock hand starting and stopping every second. I don't know if there's a more formal name for this in Clock World

This is something I vibecoded to learn my kid the clock. I think this is a very good use of ai coding, stuff that is for visualization and temporary learning.

https://utforsk.github.io/clockeroo/

Excellent, maybe an addition for protection from display burn-in would be nice. I dont know. Congrats.

This is actually pretty cool. It's just a clock, nothing more, nothing less. Animations are smooth. I actually prefer these analogue clocks over digital as I seem to be able to plan ahead better with it.

I like it. Simple, well-designed, smooth. It's nice everything fits in a single HTML page with no external dependencies. The inline style and script is human readable, which is becoming rare these days.

Features added to clocksimulator after posted it here:

- Screen burn-in protection(use dark mode)

- Tick movement for seconds hand

- Mechanical movement for seconds hand

- Timezone URL parameters

- Numbers on the clock cannot be selected with mouse

- Iframe embedding feature

Most of these are suggestions what came up here from you all, thank you:)

Beautiful! One small thing on the iPhone using Safari; it would be nice to have the clock vertically centered. Now it’s near the bottom half of the screen. Looking great otherwise!

May I suggest that we keep it as clean as it now, and maybe have something like the domain `/advanced` for those who want more features? (If OP has time to implement them)

Nice!

I like seeing the vanilla JS. Clean and simple. I don't think that vanilla JS is always the best approach, but I think that for this case it certainly is.

It's like https://clocks.brianmoore.com, but good

Very nice. My only suggestion would be to slightly differentiate more the hour and minute hands (so that at a quick glance, someone, perhaps even a child) can immediately distinguish between them. (i.e., hour hand slightly shorter/fatter)

The PTB (national metrology institute of Germany) provides a similar clock for decades. It is one of the few displaying the real time, not your computer’s time. The difference (if any) can be shown.

There is also a time announcement if needed.

https://uhr.ptb.de/

Somehow related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_railway_clock

I laughed, but then I saw the l. Nice job though...

Kudos. It really is clean. And the domain name is easy to remember.

If I use any analog clock simulator in the future, it will be yours.

Not analog enough. I want to hear the ticking sound!

This looks really clean, excellent job!

It takes current time from client browser and shows it. No adjustments or alarms.

Pretty cool idea, i wish it had that nostalgic ticking sound of seconds.

Nice but I think to Clock UI is too big

Looks really neat. I used to use a very similar screensaver back in the day.

Kudos.

Very smooth. Is the code open source?

Very nice!!

iframe support added, can be found under Info button.

wow bro. how did you even come up with the idea. I also like the fact that there is a toggle that you can switch if you want screen on. pretty smart

Better than 90% of the slop that gets ladled into the front page, bravo. The world needs more Clock Simulator-like projects.

[dead]