Futuristic Nixie Tube Watches Powered by Vacuum Fluorescent Displays

There are a myriad of differently-styled Nixie tube clocks that can be bought outright, or assembled from a kit, and while they are still satisfying to stare at, they’re not exactly new. Engineers and hobbyists have recently started to use those old tubes to create watches of varying designs that look a far cry from their side table brethren. Los Angeles-based Handcrafted Workshop has designed several watches that use the VFD form of tubes, which they state are the first in the world to do so.

While VFD tubes look incredible, they’re not exactly easy to implement in a watch design as they require power for the filament, the anode, and the segments, which is difficult to achieve with limited space. Handcrafted Workshop managed to overcome that space limitation and produced a pair of Futuristic Nixie Tube Watches that use several different versions of the VFD tubes.

The Space watch is outfitted with a pair of IV-6 VFD indicator tubes that display hours and minutes, and two IV-15 tubes for the seconds and AM/PM, which are packed into an aluminum alloy machined housing with a sapphire glass face. Their other offering, Cyber, offers a more futuristic look and comes equipped with IVL 2-7/5 VFD tubes enclosed in a rectangular aluminum alloy case.

According to its makers, the watches offer ten days of use before needing to be recharged and use a “soft start” to power on, which they say, “will light up softly and beautifully, which will allow to maintain the health of the lamps for a long time.” Handcrafted Workshop is currently crowdfunding a limited amount of Lite (plastic) versions of their Futuristic Nixie Tube Watches on Kickstarter with pledges of $190 or more, which have a shipping date of September of this year.