We’ve all had that moment of seeing a product that’s an object of desire, only to realize that it’s a little beyond our means. Many of us in this community resolve to build our own, indeed these pages are full of projects that began in this way. But few of us have the audacity of [vcch], who was so taken with the QLockTwo expensive designer word clock that they built their own using the facsimile of its face on the front of QLock’s own catalogue. The claim is that this isn’t an unauthorized copy as such because no clock has been copied — as far as we’re aware there’s nothing against taking the scissors to a piece of promotional literature, and it certainly differs from the usual word clocks we’ve seen.
So how has this masterpiece of knock-off engineering been performed? The catalog cover has a high-quality cut-out rendition of the clock face, and the pages behind are thick enough to conceal an addressable LED. By cutting slots through the pages enough space is created for strips of LEDs, which are then hooked up to a Wemos D1 that runs the show. The software is provided, et voila! A faithful facsimile of the original QLockTwo, in part produced by QLock themselves. We applaud the ingenuity involved, but like [vcch] we’d say that if you like the QLockTwo then perhaps you’d like to consider buying one.
I don’t think the catalog company could have an issue with someone copying a clock that they copied. Maybe the translation is the issue, but just translating a product doesn’t mean you have exclusive rights to it.
Might be a design patent involved. Check on copyright too.
If you resell it in large numbers maybe. I avoid inviting patent lawyers / trolls at home :-)
I’d like to consider buying one. However, the wife and bank would rather I didn’t…
Well 14$ and it is yours :-) :-)
1300$-1500 qlock Wow. Got to love crazy. This better design needs some shadow masking. Serious glow over. Re arrange words. Centering would be nice or maybe around a circle. Can still get sp0256 from china. Make that talk.
See the project page – indeed a couple of pages of translucent paper improves this.
Yes the diffusion is better but neighboring words are still lit as well. Not as brighlty but loses the distinction of intended word. Original product doesnt seem to have that issue. Since nitpicking Also seem to be missing four minute markers around top and side. And on line catalog suggests it “speaks” – of course likely translation error to English- but ya why doesnt it? For the money of original it should talk, dance, take the dog out, water the garden, load the dishwasher, or something more than highlight words to time and play alarm.
I do like use of RGB Addressable LED as opposed to their white only.
May be different highlight colors somewhere there but Didnt stay long.
The solution is to put a small separation between lines and words. I did not do it because I liked some words being half lighted.
Im not a fan of word clocks but I love the idea of turning the catalog into a working clock – well done