i feel like i've been waiting for this one for months i might even have ordered it last year
i'm not sure but anyway it's finally arrived now and over the years i've reviewed plenty of clocks
that use nixie tubes this one well it's another clock but just wait and see first off got to say
very professionally packaged sometimes it can make a difference if you're gonna send something as a
gift whether it comes in a brown cardboard box or something a little bit more like this you'll find
a usb power adapter in the box of course it's the usual five volts it's a one amp output on
this but it's got a two pin plug so i'm just going to swap it out for one of my own the socket on the
clock itself is usb-c right now this is what the digits of the clock are going to be displayed on
these are tiny lcd ips panels the screen on these measures three centimeters diagonally
across and once this protective film is removed you can see they've got a nice matte finish there
are six of these in total one for each digit on the clock now the base that they plug into feels
well constructed it's got a metal frame around the outside and plastic panels on the top and the
bottom so assembly is just a matter of slotting the six display panels into the base being careful
not to get fingerprints on the screens and then they're covered up with these glass domes there's
a key in the bottom of these that aligns with the appropriate slot on the base and with that done
it's just now a matter of plugging in the power and here's something you don't see every day
six synchronized boot screens on a clock but that looks pretty cool once it's booted up although my
first job here is to set the time we'll come back to it more in a moment so all the controls are on
the top right at the back there pressing the power button turns off the display but doesn't
completely power off the clock it doesn't reboot it but moving on pressing the mode button brings
up this menu which is largely self-explanatory and it makes setting the date and time very easy
so many of the clocks are bought in the past have pages and pages of cryptic options only described
by a digit rather than a word and you have to refer back to a poorly translated manual to
figure out what you're doing so it's nice to see something this simple for a change and i should
mention that the time and all the settings are retained by a battery backup and there's an allen
key provided in the box that enables you to access the button cell which is located underneath the
top perspex cover to display the date you press the left arrow button and then you press it again
to get back to the time but let's just look at it for a moment because the effect looks
pretty good on camera but in person it really is quite convincing of course that is as long
as you're looking at the clock face on if you go off axis the illusion is shattered but you
may be wondering why not just get a proper nixie clock instead well of course i have plenty of
times but this does something that none of my other clocks can do you can change that display
so this one is called punk and it's one of three options that are available inside the clock the
third one being this which i think is supposed to resemble stenciled numbers my personal favorite
though is definitely the nixie clock look alike now you may have spotted that on the reverse of
each display is an rgb led the placement of these means that they don't shine onto or obscure the
display instead they illuminate everything that's behind them so you get the best results by putting
the clock up against a light coloured wall now i know these things divide opinions so thankfully
if you want they can be turned off but there are some other options in here as well for example you
can adjust the brightness of the leds i've got to mention though that the screen brightness itself
can't be altered that's just set but if we go through some of the other settings for these
leds well rainbow mode that one cycles through the colors with all the panels synchronized together
and then there's chase mode which washes colors across from the left to the right there's breath
mode which i think should probably be breathe mode which pulses a single color of your choosing and
then finally you can adjust the speed of each of these effects from one through to nine or pleasant
through to extremely irritating personally i prefer to put it into the chase mode and have the
speed set to minimum but hey in true shopping channel fashion that's not all if you connect the
clock's usb port up to a computer that's running windows and download the appropriate software
package you have access to a further 20 or so different designs that you can upload to the clock
now once uploaded the new display will appear in position number three that's labeled diy under the
style menu and as well as swapping out all the digits if you go and look at the date display
sometimes you'll find that the text boxes that were on there have been overwritten with other
images as well to me though this nixie display looks even more realistic than the one that's
built in but i'm going to go through a few more while i mentioned that you can only upload one
custom display to the device at a time but it does get retained by the clock even after a full power
cycle but yet again that's not all because you aren't limited just to the options that you've
got provided you can also create and upload your own custom displays and it's incredibly easy to
do this you just have to look for the folder that the application resides in in there you'll find a
folder labeled img in there you'll find some digits delete the ones that you don't want to
replace them with your own now the files that you create the images have to be the exact same
as the original so a resolution of 135 by 240 file type bmp bit depth 24 so once you've created the
digits that you want to replace in the clock then label those up as zero through to nine put them in
that folder click compile image in the application and then click upload so here's my first attempt
and yes it does need some work i think those digits could benefit from being darker perhaps
if they were blue as well but you get the idea you can have your own personalized clock display
and i should mention that this device will retain your custom display until you override it with a
different one yes even after a power cycle here's another one i made and this was just by using a
large character from a font for each image it took all of 10 minutes although again it would look
better with a black background rather than a gray one but you're only limited by your imagination
and what you can fit on that display it might make a novel gift if you were to load it up say
with a load of custom digits before wrapping it up and giving it to someone you only need
10 photos to create your own custom clock so to round this up yes i've shown everything it does
now it doesn't dim at night it doesn't have an alarm it doesn't automatically set the time and
yes i do wish the usb port was located on the back rather than the side now at the time i'm putting
this video together these are going for around 110 to 150 us dollars or 80 to 110 pounds now you'll
find affiliated links in the video description i did buy my own but if you do click through there
and buy one because you like what you've seen then i will get a bit of commission for each one from
whichever retailer you choose but anyway that's it for the moment as always thanks for watching