Nixie clocks are the in thing right now, and they have been for at least a decade. For his Hackaday Prize entry, [mladen] is bringing things into the 21st century with a USB-powered, IoT Nixie clock. It displays the time, temperature, the current cryptocurrency price in fiat, your current number of Twitter followers, the number of updoots on your latest reddit meme, or anything else that can be expressed as four digits.
This Nixie clock uses four IN-12B tubes, with the dot, which are more or less standard when it comes to small Nixie clocks. These tubes are mounted directly to a PCB, which is in turn mounted at 90 degrees to the main board, providing a slim form factor for the machined wood or aluminum enclosure.
The control electronics are built around the ESP8266, with a handy USB connection providing the power and a serial connection. A BQ3200 real time clock keeps the time with the help of a supercapacitor. The killer feature here is a piezo sensor to detect taps on the enclosure. Hit the clock once, and it displays the time. Hit it two times, and the current balance of your bitcoin wallet is displayed. It’s a great project, and [mladen] is hoping to turn this project into a product and put it up on Crowdsupply soon. All in all, a great entry to The Hackaday Prize.
Thats a nice Nixon nibble
I would pay money to anyone who would make modern custom nixie tubes!
You mean like these guys?
http://www.daliborfarny.com/
Big bucks, but handmade and warranted and torture tested and everything. I really want one of their clocks.
So what makes it an IoT?
“It displays the time, temperature, the current cryptocurrency price in fiat, your current number of Twitter followers, the number of updoots on your latest reddit meme”.
It connects to the internet, downloads data, and displays it. I’m pretty sure that makes it an IoT device.
built a nixie clock 17 years ago from a ebay kit been running everyday ( turns off at night ) have to adjust it from time to time for DLS as it is not on the right DLS day/month and it is currently about 7/8 min fast but cool none the less. finally built a case for it about 5 years ago… been shocked a few times adjusting the time !! thinking of getting another kit to build. fascinating clocks and always get questions about it