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The Blub Uno tube clock is the coolest, most inefficient way to tell time

The Blub Uno tube clock is the coolest, most inefficient way to tell time

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Duncan Hellmers' project is a single tube clock powered via USB connection

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Sydney-based designer Duncan Hellmers is using Kickstarter to fund his retro Blub Uno tube clock, and despite its somewhat muculent name, it looks pretty cool.

The USB-powered clock is made of a single Nixie tube — a cold-cathode tube introduced in the 1950s as a way to display numbers digitally before the advent of more modern technologies like LCD. The tube houses a single glowing number in a glass cylinder, which is attached to a mount made of aluminum and bamboo. A remote control allows users to change the clock's backlighting color and to select a display mode of direct, fade, or crossfade.

blub-uno

Because the clock's face only features one digit, the time is presented as a stream of four numbers. 12:30, for example, is displayed as 1, 2, 3, 0. Hellmers' previous Kickstarter project was the Blub clock, which featured four glass cylinders instead of one. Reading the time as four distinct digits might take some getting used to, but it helps that the Blub Uno is pretty nice to look at.

At the time of publication, the Blub Uno clock is only $56 AUD away from its Kickstarter goal of $7,000 AUD (about $5,416 US).