This Arduino-Compatible Clock Upgrade Lights the Time with an Eye-Catching LED Strip

Pseudonymous maker "Bakedbananas" has created an illuminated analog clock with a difference: it features individually addressable RGB LEDs that, courtesy of a real-time clock (RTC), follow the physical clock hands as they move around the face.

"[I] combined an RTC module with some addressable LEDs to make my analog clock visible at night," Bakedbananas explains. "[The] light corresponds to [the] minute and hour hands. The idea behind this was just to illuminate the clock hands so you can tell the time at night."

While the RGB LEDs are visible around the face of the clock, the electronics are hidden around the rear. A Wemos D1 Mini Arduino-compatible microcontroller, which interfaces with the RTC module in order to light up the LEDs corresponding to the position of the hour and minute hands — providing, of course, both the RTC and the physical clock have been set to the right time.

The project's creator has some ideas for expansion, too — and not just integrating the LEDs' color-changing capabilities, presently missing from the code. "What I'd really like to do, since this uses a D1 Mini, is integrate it with Home Assistant and use that to automate it," Bakedbananas writes, "but I hit a roadblock there. If anyone knows how to incorporate .ino code into HA I could use some guidance.

"This project would be way easier if the number of LEDs was a multiple of 60," Bakedbananas adds. "My clock fit 84 LEDs which was like 1.4 LEDs per minute. Also if you can start the LEDs at 12, and run them clockwise that will help a lot as well. I had to re-index the LEDs because mine started at 6 and ran [counter-clockwise]."

Bakedbananas has promised a more detailed guide in the future, but for now has offered more details in the project's Reddit thread.