- Jony Ive’s design company created a bedside clock with illuminated digits instead of hands
- Inspired by pocket watches, but considerably thicker.
- Available in Japan for around $373 / £279 / AU$529
Former Apple design chief Jonathan Ive’s new firm LoveFrom has designed a new luxury product: a watch called The Clock.
Inspired by vintage pocket watches and manufactured by Japanese brand Balmuda, The Clock joins other Balmuda luxury products such as The Brew coffee maker, The Speaker wireless speaker and The Kettle electric kettle.
According to Balmuda, “we wanted to do more than show the time; we wanted to make time a pleasant experience.” And to do this, the firms have collaborated on an analog watch that does not have hands.
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What is Jonathan Ive’s Clock?
Instead of using hands to display the time, The Clock uses LEDs in a system Balmuda calls “Light Hour.” Illuminate the hour digit and then illuminate the markings around the circumference of the dial to display the minutes. Another tick becomes the second hand and moves across the screen.
Jony Ive really likes aluminum (or aluminium, as he proudly pronounced it during his years at Apple despite the pressure of the accent around him) and here he used an aluminum unibody case for The Clock, like many of his Apple creations.
It measures 7.5cm wide and tall, weighs just under 260g and charges via USB-C. Apple Magic Mouse users will be relieved to see that The Clock’s USB-C port is on the back instead of underneath, so they can still see the time while the 24-hour battery recharges. And yes, 24 hours seems a bit short for a watch’s battery to last as well.
In addition to the time display, The Clock also features ambient soundtracks composed specifically for The Clock’s Relax Time mode, including “the sound of rain, the noise of a boat on the river, and the crackling of a cabin fireplace” performed with “stunning realism.”
International pricing has not been announced, but The Clock is currently available in Japan for around $373 / £279 / AU$529.
According to Gen Terao, CEO of Balmuda, The Clock was designed to solve a personal problem. Listening to the sounds of rain on his phone while trying to fall asleep, he “started to wonder if having these social devices next to my bed might be related to my sleep. And then it occurred to me: Wouldn’t it be cool to have a personal clock made with modern technology that plays the gentle sound of rain, a really nice sound to fall asleep to?”
The movement of the second hand lighting was apparently based on the Foucault pendulum at the National Museum of Nature and Science, and the moving lights during the Relax Time soundtracks were “inspired by the flickering lights of distant cities and the twinkling of stars.”
It’s good that Terao found a solution to his concerns, but I think The Clock’s design is a step back in terms of readability: for me at least it’s slower to read than a traditional clock face, and I suspect the choice of white illumination on a light-colored aluminum dial will be difficult to see even in slightly bright sunlight.
That said, I’m not The Clock’s target audience: I prefer (and own) Braun watches inspired by the designs of Ive’s idol Dieter Rams, such as the Braun BC02 and the Classic wall clock. Braun’s cute Classic travel clocks are less than a tenth the cost of The Clock, and the price includes a sturdy set of good old-fashioned hands.
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