This Harry Potter Weasley Clock Actually Works in the Muggle World
Bryan Dole's clock uses Life360, Raspberry Pi, and Home Assistant to track the whereabouts of family members.
It has become apparent in recent years that author J.K. Rowling has some very problematic viewpoints, but there is no denying that her Harry Potter series of novels is packed full of interesting and fantastical ideas. One particularly curious item in the Potterverse is the Weasley Clock, which has hands that indicate where each member of the family is currently located. It might, for example, point Ron’s hand at “school” to tell the family that he is currently at Hogwart’s. That fictional clock works magically, but Bryan Dole was able to make his own Weasley Clock that functions in the muggle world.
Dole's contraption works in exactly the same way as the fictional Weasly Clock. It has hands for each of his family members and those will point at some portion of the clock face to indicate where in the world they are. This works in conjunction with a service called Life360. Each member of the family downloaded the Life360 app to their smartphone and the app keeps track of where they are so that family members can keep tabs on them. Users can setup geofenced areas for work, home, school, and other locations. The Life360 is designed for safety and convenience, but also works perfectly for a real world Weasley Clock.
Like many other great projects, this one started at an antique store. There, Dole purchased a beautiful grandfather clock that looks the part. He removed all of the original clockwork mechanisms and replaced them with a beautiful gear mechanism that makes it possible to position each of four 3D-printed hands independently using servos. Those servos are controlled by a Raspberry Pi. The Life360 data is sent to the Pi via Home Assistant software using MQTT messages. Custom software monitors those messages and positions each hand according to the geofenced location of the corresponding family member. It’s completely unobtrusive, because the Life360 service utilizes the smartphones that everyone already carries with them. And, yet, it is still able to faithfully recreate the magic of the Weasley Clock.