Telling the Time with Lasers and Mirrors

Finding out you're late was never so high-tech

The Reflectius Clock design concept will certainly please Rube Goldberg enthusiasts. But this is a relatively simple contraption made up of a single laser and rotating mirrors. The red laser beam bounces off or passes through mirrors, which constantly reorient to reflect (pun intended) the current time.

Each of the four clock digits have six visible mirrors (for a total of 36), continually rotating as the time changes. Even more mirrors are hidden underneath the clock-face, and they work together to route the laser from left to right, forming forks or even loops of light to accommodate 0 to 9.

The same angular aesthetics that define the Reflectius Clock’s timekeeping mechanism also apply to its exterior styling. The black glossy housing is asymmetrical yet geometric, its clean lines disturbed only by the two plus-minus rockers and the power cord sticking from the back.

This is a concept that sounds good, and looks even better. You can practically spend the whole day looking at the flash-based demo at Art Lebedev’s website, which shows how the mirrors move around. But just how much power would a laser-based clock consume? And wouldn’t the array of constantly moving parts limit the Reflectius Clock’s reliability? As there are no plans to even create a prototype of this concept, we’ll just have to wait and see.