Much Older
Work.

The Concept

Signal Clock listens to its surroundings and uses live audio input to display the clock's hands as waveforms. The video above shows the very first iteration of the current physical form — there's still a lot of work to do. The idea itself goes back further: this is the same project first built and shipped as Groove Clock, rebuilt during quarantine as dedicated hardware and renamed Signal Clock.

Hardware

• Board: Orange Pi PC running Armbian — migrating from a Raspberry Pi 3B+ to a custom ARM Linux build for better performance.
• Display: Circular LCD touchscreen. Not plug-and-play — getting it working required reading the component's datasheet. The touchscreen has no driver board of its own, so I designed one and I'm writing the software driver myself.
• Enclosure: 3D printed PLA, primed and painted, with threaded inserts for hardware mounting.
• Face plate: Laser-cut maple, hand-ebonized using natural processes. The clock numbers are currently etched and hard to see — next revision they'll be metal, with relief to match the screws.
• Bezel (between screen and face plate): 3D printed via SLA.

Software

• Built in Processing. Audio input is "stylized" so the clock hands stay smooth, and frequencies that don't look good visually are filtered out.
• Single tap the screen to pull up a radial-slider UI for screen color and microphone sensitivity.
• Long press to pull up a shutdown UI.

Process & Artifacts

What's Next

• Smaller screw heads — the current ones are a bit large.
• Clock face numbers to match the screws in material, finish, and relief.
• Deepen the wood's black tone using natural processes if possible; otherwise mix a custom paint blend to match. The wood grain is staying either way.
• Finish the touchscreen driver and full touch functionality.

History — as Groove Clock

Before it was Signal Clock, this project shipped as Groove Clock — an iPad app and public installation that used ambient microphone input to manipulate the hands of an on-screen clock. It launched on the App Store, was shown at Le Poisson Rouge's interactive art exhibition in 2011, and was installed at Figment NYC 2012 on Governors Island (site B-1, Nolan Park), per Figment's official site map. The quarantine-era rebuild in the video above moved the same idea off the iPad and into dedicated hardware, under the new name Signal Clock.

The Challenge

The Betacup — backed by Starbucks as part of its push to serve 100% of hand-crafted beverages in reusable or recyclable cups by 2015 — launched an open contest on jovoto.com on April 1, 2010, asking entrants to solve the disposable cup waste problem. 430 entries came in, ranging from biodegradable single-use cups to edible "coffee balls" to social incentive schemes for reuse. Starbucks put up $20,000 in prizes: $10,000 to the jury's top pick, and $2,000 each to five entries chosen by public/community rating.

The Concept

Networked Loyalty proposed placing RFID-tagged stickers on customers' existing reusable coffee mugs. Scanning the mug at the point of sale would eliminate the waste created by disposable cups while also updating a digital version of Starbucks' paper "10th cup free" punch card automatically — no card to lose, no stamp to forget, and a direct incentive to bring a reusable mug back every time.

Entry & Artifacts

Outcome

Announced June 17, 2010: the jury's overall pick was Karma Cup (Mira Holley, Nick Partridge, Gillian Langor, Mira Lynn, Zarla Ludin, Ruth Prentice), with special mentions for The Betacup & The Betacup Campaign (Jesko Stoetzer), Champion Cup (Raph D'Amico), and Band of Honor (Scott Moorhead). Networked Loyalty was named one of five Community Rating Winners, selected by public vote alongside The Betacup & The Betacup Campaign, Cuptokeep, The NextCup, and The Neutral Resource Coffee Cup. Networked Loyalty went on to pick up coverage in the New York Times and Core77, in addition to the contest recaps below.

Press

• The New York Times — "Starbucks Hopes There Is No Java Jive From Contest Results"
• Core77
• Popsop — "The Betacup and Starbucks Favoured the «Karma Cup»" (source for the contest facts above)
• Mashable — "Starbucks Betacup Challenge"

View wireframes PDF ↗