Concept watch uses rolling tapes to tell time

This concept watch Alexandros Stasinopoulos uses three interleaved tapes to tell time. I have no idea if it'd be possible to build this, but man, I want one.

'ora' concept watch by alexandros stasinopoulos (Thanks, Paul!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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jimh

azelfscine, I think that it’s precisely that no one actually NEEDS a watch that it has become such a designer’s medium. There have always been wonderful timepieces to be had, but they were lost in a sea of unremarkable ones. Now, it’s a medium that is only visited by the consumers and designers who choose to keep it alive.
Anonymous

Seriously, I don’t CARE how much this would cost.

I want it.
Avram / Moderator

I don’t think I’d want one of these on my wrist, but a larger version for my wall would be excellent.
Itsumishi

Well, it isn’t possible the way he’s concepted it. The drive gears clash with the roller gears.

How are the drive gears mounted on/in the belts, which would be moving? Muy ridiculoso.

Not really, there is no reason there can’t be a frame sitting inside the belts (and mounted to the inner corners of the shell) holding all the drive gears in place, the roller gears can be held in place directly into the shell of the watch.

This just isn’t shown in the concept as it gets in the way of seeing all the gears.
technogeek

If it comes in at a reasonable price, I expect every woodworker in the Western world will want one for its reference to the classic tape measure… even if only as a novelty, and even if it only lasts a few years.

(As opposed to my 25-year-old off-brand digital watch, which was $19.95 new and is still running off the same battery, having outlived five watchbands.)
Anonymous

not entirely different to the amazing artist Tim Hawkinson’s “Tape Measure Clock”: http://www.metapedia.com/wiki/index.php?title=Lmp76 — check it out along with a whole host of other brilliant timepieces….
Anonymous

Oh, it possible though the drive wheels need to be slightly crowned. I’m thinking it will take a lot of effort to drive those belts. I wonder if it will take one or two AAA batteries.
hail_diskordia

I’d wear the hell out of that (the black carbon fiber version, I think)… but a production watch? Probably not. Or if it does, it’ll be two grand.
Felix Mitchell

why not just use the main vertical tape for hours and minutes and scrap the other two?

Scrap the horrible moulded asterisk shaped cover for something simpler and more craft-like, OBVIOUSLY the strap should be a measuring tape as well.

Seeing the insides might be nice, but you could reduce cost and width by getting rid of that too.

‘a design is finished, not when you cannot add any more, but when nothing can be taken away’
valdis

@5 Felix Mitchell: “why not just use the main vertical tape for hours and minutes and scrap the other two?”

For the same reason we have hour and minute hands on analog clocks – if we had just one hand or tape, it would be 1,440 tick marks around, and each hour’s 60 tick marks would be compressed into what’s currently only 4 minute tick marks.

Ever looked at a clock and not been sure if it’s 3:36 or 3:37? Now imagine if you’re not sure if it says 3:24 or 3:36. One minute inaccuracy probably doesn’t matter, 12 minutes almost certainly does (and if it doesn’t matter, why the hell you checking your watch? :)
pjcamp

Well, it isn’t possible the way he’s concepted it. The drive gears clash with the roller gears.
Anonymous

Felix Mitchel
‘a design is finished, not when you cannot add any more, but when nothing can be taken away’

Unless that design is intended to be artistic. I think it’d be boring as a single tape.
Cochituate

The obvious thing here is a Craftsman or Stanley branded version of this that would be the wall clock in your power tool/man cave. Imagine an episode of Norm Abrams’ build-it show, with a wall mounted version of this over the big door in the background. That would make me smile.

Chris Grundy having the same damned clock on the wall of his power tool/man cave would just make me grumble about him finally having something I wanted, before I changed the channel anyway.
aelfscine

I’m kind of amazed that there’s this aesthetic revolution going on in a technology that’s dead as a doornail. I’m 30 and I don’t know a soul my age or younger that wears a watch…
Anonymous

How are the drive gears mounted on/in the belts, which would be moving? Muy ridiculoso.