Beautiful retro displays make this watch an eye-catcher

Since they first appeared in the 16th century, a common design language for watches has developed. Whether worn on the wrist or in a pocket, watches are relatively slim from front to back, with the display mounted on the dial. Given the requirements of human anatomy, this is understandable. Still, this is not the only way to arrange things, as demonstrated by this very cool LED matrix watch with a display mounted on the edge.

Admittedly, the unique form factor of this watch was not really the point of the entire project. Rather [Vitali]The design of was driven by several factors. First, there were the extremely cool Hewlett Packard HDSP-2000 displays with four 5×5 LED arrays shining through the transparent cover of a DIP-12 package. The cover also reveals the shift registers that drive the arrays, complete with gold bonding wires.

The main attraction for [Vitali]However, the challenge was working within the limitations of the ATtiny85 he chose to power the clock. The limited IO of the MCU required hardware multiplexing, which was no easy task given the limited resources and space available. He still managed to fit everything in, with the unique edge-mount display coming from the LEDs bridging the space between the two main boards. Everything fits into a beautiful wood veneer case, although we think it looks good without it too. [Vitali] put it through its paces in the short video below.

Hats off to [Vitali] for a great looking project that has pushed its boundaries. We just love these displays too; of course, it’s not the first time we’ve seen them used in a similar way.