Analog clock displays with digital drivers?

[Stephen Tashiro]

Are their clock mechanisms (for DIY clock makers) that have analog displays (i.e. moving hands) but use digital components to automatically keep correct time?

[Michael Schuch]

Most all battery powered clock movements are digital quartz drives with analog hands.

If I was going to buy a clock mechanism to build a clock I would get an "Atomic" clock movement. These use the RF signal from the the national atomic reference clock in Colorado (I don't know where the central or eastern atomic reference clocks are located) to always set the hands on the clock to the right time. They will even self adjust for DST. I have a few of these clocks in my home and I just replace the AA battery every couple of years and NEVER have to worry about setting the time on them.

https://www.amazon.com/Movement-Electric-Controlled-Clockwork-Scanning/dp/B082J22JRN/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=atomic+clock+mechanism&qid=1654564050&sprefix=atomic+clock+me%2Caps%2C502&sr=8-6

I guess they are also referred to as radio clocks but I have always called them "Atomic Clocks". :)

I would also suggest looking for movements that are advertised as being "silent". Regular quartz movements can be kind of noisy in a bedroom since they make a small "chuck" sound every second.

[Lee DeRaud]

If you want a truly DIY approach, just run a standard gear train with a stepper motor controlled by an Arduino, then just let it get the correct time over WIFI once a day or so to adjust itself.

INRS. :)

[Rod Sheridan]

That works great until regions differ in when they adopt DST.

[Lee DeRaud]

That works great until regions differ in when they adopt DST.
The question of determining the local timezone is already an issue, but it looks like there are some solutions available:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/55901/web-service-current-time-zone-for-a-city

[Brice Rogers]

I bought a mechanism (battery powered) that is quartz controlled and includes a pendalum and grandfather clock-type chimes. Even thought the clock mechanism included a small pendalum, I wanted to use a full size actual GF clock pendalum (which requires more power) so I bought a heavy duty pendalum mechanism. I bought the hardware/electronics from Clockworks dot com. It keeps "reasonable" accuracy - - it gains about 2-1/2 minutes a year. It was surprisingly inexpensive for what it does.

[Mike Henderson]

Most all battery powered clock movements are digital quartz drives with analog hands.

If I was going to buy a clock mechanism to build a clock I would get an "Atomic" clock movement. These use the RF signal from the the national atomic reference clock in Colorado (I don't know where the central or eastern atomic reference clocks are located) to always set the hands on the clock to the right time. They will even self adjust for DST. I have a few of these clocks in my home and I just replace the AA battery every couple of years and NEVER have to worry about setting the time on them.

https://www.amazon.com/Movement-Electric-Controlled-Clockwork-Scanning/dp/B082J22JRN/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=atomic+clock+mechanism&qid=1654564050&sprefix=atomic+clock+me%2Caps%2C502&sr=8-6

I guess they are also referred to as radio clocks but I have always called them "Atomic Clocks". :)

I would also suggest looking for movements that are advertised as being "silent". Regular quartz movements can be kind of noisy in a bedroom since they make a small "chuck" sound every second.

The transmitter is WWV in Fort Collins, C (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWV_(radio_station))O. Radio stations west of the Mississippi have "K" as the first letter of their call sign. WWV used to operate in Maryland but moved to Ft. Collins in 1966 and kept their call sign.

I agree about those "radio clocks". Most of my clocks are that type so that I don't have to adjust them.

Mike

[Kev Williams]

My daughter gave me a Harley Davidson wall clock, it has a continuous-sweep second hand, but I'm guessing that it's just for show and not actually sweeping exactly 1 minute per rev... After typing that, I had to go check, I watched the minute hand with a magnifying glass, and it's not 'ticking', it's continuously moving... The thing keeps pretty good time but I'll never know HOW good because it burns thru batteries pretty quick...

[Bill Dufour]

The radio clocks take two days to update when the time changes. They update at like 1:00 Am every night the time changes at 2:00am so they wait for the next night to update.
there is talk of dropping daylight saving time.
Bill D.