Time to start thinking about gifts for the holidays! What better present to give than a custom and unique clock or watch you made yourself! Or better yet give them the gift of DIY fun with an awesome project they can build themselves. We’ve put together a gift guide of clocks and watches in different shapes and designs to help you save time finding the perfect timepiece!
Available At Adafruit
Solder:Time DIY watch kit: Calculator watches are back, but microcontroller watches are always in style. Make your own with this easy to solder real time watch kit from SpikenzieLabs! It comes with a unique laser cut acrylic casing which protects the watch and looks snazzy besides: the four individual acrylic parts cut to fit the internal PCB, battery and switch perfectly. Included is a velcro wrist band. After soldering the Solder:Time, the watch is built by stacking the acrylic parts with the PCB and holding it together with the included screws.
The Solder:Time was designed to be a wrist watch. It doesn’t have to be limited to living on your wrist, you could also use it as a badge or desk clock. (Read more)
Alpha Clock Five – WHITE – From Evil Mad Scientist Labs! Evil Mad Scientist Labs never disappoints with their fantastic kits and clocks. The Alpha Clock Five is no exception: An awesome alarm clock soldering kit– featuring five crazy-bright, crazy huge 2.3″ alphanumeric LED displays in dazzling white, a Chronodot RTC (for precise quartz timing, complete with battery backup) and a handsome laser-cut acrylic case.
These big 18-segment alphanumeric LED displays are notoriously difficult to drive– there are 54 LED elements inside each LED character and the different segments take different amounts of current. We’ve now made it easy to drive five at a time, and wrapped it all up in neat package with classic alarm-clock styling. (Read more)
Edo-Style Clock Kit from Gakken: Experience a favorite feudal Japanese time-piece by building your own beautiful dual-foliot, Edo-period Japanese mechanical clock!
Edo-period Japanese clocks were unique mechanical clocks that adapted Western clock-making techniques to tell traditional Japanese time. This kit from Gakken has two foliots – one for the day hours and one for the night hours. The front and rear foliots switch between 6 AM and 6 PM automatically.
A foliot is part of the Verge escapement of early clocks. Even if you’re not a clock expert or enthusiast, this kit is fairly easy to build and should only take an hour or so. (Read more)
Solder:Time Desk Clock: Make a sleek full featured, conversation starting desk clock. The Solder:Time™ Desk Clock is the latest addition to the Solder:Time kit family. The Solder Time Desk Clock (STDC) is a DIY soldering kit. You only need to provide some basic electronics tools; Solder iron, solder, screwdriver, some fine grit sandpaper and wire snips. We’ve pre-programmed the chip, so it’s ready to roll once assembled.
Itching to hack in some custom code or hardware? Bring it on! Designed with hack-a-bility in mind, the STDC is based on the same ATMega microprocessor used in the Arduino products. There are extra digital and analog pins broken-out, an open serial port as well as I2C all easily accessible within the case, as well as an integrated prototyping area on-board. Download the sketch from our web page, modify it, add extra hardware if that’s your thing, and WOW your friends (or the Internet) with your amazing add-ons. (Read more)
Xronos Clock(from greek Χρόνος [kronos] which means Time) is not your average alarm clock. It’s an open source, hackable and customizable device. It has a stylish look, is hand made, and it talks!
Xronos has an internal backup battery that will allow it to keep time if you forget to plug in. All settings are saved to flash memory (EEPROM), so you don’t have to worry about power loss and all your alarm settings and preferences will be there when the power comes back on! Since all audio files are kept on SD card inside, you can even change alarm tones, or replace voice prompts with your own (though only ones that follow Xronos’ naming convention).
Xronos has three cool looking durable arcade buttons that give you simple access to all of its features! (Read more)
Bulbdial Clock kit is based on an original design concept from IronicSans.com and developed at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. It works like an indoor sundial, but with three shadows of different length. You tell the time just like you do on a normal clock, by reading the positions of the hour, minute, and second hands.
The bulbdial we are carrying comes with red, green and blue LEDs for the ‘hands’, a black/smoke laser-cut enclosure and a wall adapter. When finished, it looks like the picture shown above!
The Bulbdial Clock is sold as a soldering kit [?]. Basic electronic soldering skill is required, and you provide basic soldering tools: a soldering iron + solder and small wire clippers. You will also need internet access to read or download our detailed assembly guide. No additional knowledge of electronics is presumed or required. Easy “through-hole” construction and clear, photo-heavy instructions are provided. (Read more)
Solder:Time II was designed to be a wrist watch. It doesn’t have to be limited to living on your wrist, you could also use it as a badge or desk clock.
This new version is even more hackable than ever. The on board microcontroller in this model is the very popular ATmega328P used in many of the current versions of Arduino™. In fact, you can reprogram your watch using the same Arduino™ IDE software that you use for a regular Arduino.
The Solder : Time II is different from the original Solder:Time in many ways. The display has been upgraded to a set of four 5×7 LED matrix modules. This gives you control of a 7×20 matrix for a total of 140 LEDs!
The new LED matrix allows for an amazing amount of information to be displayed; aside from the current time… The date, month, words, scrolling messages, graphics, special characters … the possibilities are endless. (Read more)
TIMESQUARE DIY Watch Kit: Show up stylish AND on time to any event with this awesome looking DIY watch. We have a few watch kits here at Adafruit but we finally have one that looks good and fits well, even for ladies and kids and others with smaller wrists and hands. Its got a 8×8 bit matrix display and a repurposed silicone watch band for a professional look.
64 LEDs light up to tell you the time in a variety of ways. Built into the kit are 3 different watch ‘faces’ – a scrolling marquee with time and date, a binary watch display (for geeks, robots and binary fans), and a moon phase display (for beach-combers, werewolves). There’s also a built in battery meter so you can check your battery life. Want to make your own watch? Easy! The microcontroller is an Arduino-compatible, all you need is an FTDI Friend and the Arduino IDE and you can design your own watch faces and upload them to the TIMESQUARE. (Read more)
Adafruit Projects
NeoMatrix 8×8 Word Clock Are you fascinated with the passage of time? Do you want a stylish, modern and functional timepiece to add to your clock collection? The word clock is a one-of-a-kind time telling device, using a grid of letters to spell out the time. While you could spend thousands of dollars on other versions of this idea, this project is an inexpensive and quick way to build one for yourself. (Read more)
NeoPixel 60 Ring Wall Clock: This project uses the DS1307 Real Time Clock with an Arduino to display the time as a series of colored arcs.
With the new NeoPixel 60 Ring, we have a perfect display for presenting the time with RGB LEDs!
Hours are represented by red, minutes by green, seconds by blue. The arcs overlap and the colors mix. Minutes and seconds are each represented by a single green or blue LED, respectively. In the 12 hour version, a single red LED represent 24 minutes. The image above represents 3:48.
To build this project you will need:
4 x NeoPixel 1/4 60 Ring – so you can make a NeoPixel 60 Ring
DS1307 Real Time Clock breakout board kit
Arduino Uno or other Arduino compatible microcontroller such as the DC Boarduino
Adafruit Perma-Proto Half-sized Breadboard PCB (
Read more)
FLORA NeoGeo Watch Make your own LED timepiece! Use FLORA and its GPS module to tell time with a ring of pixels. A leather cuff holds the circuit and hides the battery. The watch is chunky but still looks and feels great on tiny wrists!
The circuit sandwich becomes the face of the watch, and you’ll use a tactile switch to make a mode selector. The watch has timekeeping (one LED for hours and one for minutes), GPS navigation (customize your waypoint in the provided Arduino sketch), and compass modes. (Read more)
NeoPixel Ring Clock: Build a clock with NeoPixel rings and FLORA! The FLORA GPS provides accurate timekeeping, and the clock’s circular motif make it a handsome addition to your desk, wall, or even around your neck. (Read more)
Wave Shield Talking Clock: Here’s a different take on DIY clock projects. Whereas most dwell on visual displays, ours features Adabot’s friendly face speaking the time.
Best of all, you can make this your own…give it your face and voice…or if you can do impressions, how about an Arnold Schwarzenegger or Dave Jones clock? Anything goes!
(Read more)
MONOCHRON We wanted to make a clock that was ultra-hackable, from adding a separate battery-backed RTC to designing the enclosure so you could program the clock once its assembled.
128×64 LCD (KS0108) – we special-ordered the black and white display
ATmega328 processor (we even stuck an ‘arduino’ stk500 bootloader on there too)
Laser cut enclosure in black acrylic
Beeping/blinking alarm with 10 minute snooze
Battery backed-up real time clock (DS1307) keeps time even when power is lost for years
European/US 12 or 24 hour time display as well as date
Completely open source hardware, all firmware, layout and CAD files are yours to mess with
Plenty of space for mods, a prototyping area for soldering stuff in
(Read more)
We’re excited for the Holiday Season here at Adafruit, and we can’t wait to share that excitement with you! Stay tuned into the blog where you will find new, handpicked gift guides five days a week from November 9th through December 24th, 2015 alongside holiday themed tutorials and builds!
Free Deals
Adafruit offers exciting deals and free items when you shop with us. As of October 13th, 2015 we are currently offering:
- Adafruit Perma-Proto Half-sized Breadboard PCB – Single for order $99 or more
- Adafruit Trinket – Mini Microcontroller – 5V Logic for orders $149 or more
- Adafruit Pro Trinket – 5V 16MHz for order $249 or more
Adafruit Holiday Deadlines 2015
Here are your 2015 shipping deadlines for ordering from Adafruit. Please review our shipping section if you have specific questions on how and where we ship worldwide for this holiday season.
The Adafruit Shipping Department works hard to get your orders out as quickly as we can, but once they’re in the hands of our carriers they’re out of our control.
Carriers have been struggling to keep up with the sharp rise in online orders. UPS, FedEX, and USPS all experienced delivery delays over the last few years.
So all the Adafruit Shippers say: Please be sure you get your gifts early! Order as soon as you can! Once you place your order we’ll ship like the wind!
UPS ground (USA orders): Place orders by Friday 11am ET – December 11, 2015 – There is no guarantee that UPS Ground packages will arrive by December 24.
UPS 3-day (USA orders): Place orders by Thursday 11am ET – December 17, 2015 – Arrive by 12/24/2015.
UPS 2-day (USA orders): Place orders by Friday 11am ET – December 18, 2015 – Arrive by 12/24/2015.
UPS overnight (USA orders): Place orders by Monday 11am ET – December 21, 2015 – Arrive by 12/24/2015.
Please note: We do not offer Saturday or Sunday service for UPS or USPS.
Friday, Dec. 25, 2015, Christmas, no UPS pickup or delivery service.
Friday, Jan. 1, 2016, New Year’s Day, no UPS pickup or delivery service.
United States Postal Service, First Class and Priority (USA orders): Place orders by Friday– December 11, 2014 – Arrive by 12/24/2015 or sooner.
USPS First class mail international (International orders)): Place orders by Friday – November 20, 2015. Can take up to 30 days or more with worldwide delays and customs. Should arrive by 12/25/2015 or sooner, but not a trackable service and cannot be guaranteed to arrive by 12/24/2015.
USPS Express mail international(International orders): Place orders by Friday – December 5, 2015. Can take up to 15 days or more with worldwide delays and customs. Should arrive by 12/24/2014 or sooner.
Gift Certificates are always available at any time.
When in doubt contact us!
