Aside from giving us the Mad Max films and dang-good biscuits, Australia has also given us a number of world-changing inventions including the black box, the ultrasound scanner and WiFi technology – which has personally allowed me to while away hours in my favorite coffee shop. Now, Sydney-born Duncan Helmers wants to revolutionize the way we read time with his Blub Uno.
For many people, telling time is supposed to be an instantaneous process; you look at your phone, you see the time; you glance at your watch, you see the time. But for the adventurous, getting a little more out of a typical experience is a necessity. For those adventurous few and and anyone else looking for a unique time-telling conversation piece, the Blub Uno just might be your solution.
The Blub Uno is a minimalist tube clock made from machined aluminum, glass, bamboo and powered via USB. Perhaps the most striking feature is that it’s made of a single Nixie Tube — a cold-cathode tube introduced in the 1950s as a way to display numbers digitally before the advent of more modern technologies like LCD. The tube displays the numbers giving off a beautiful warm orange glow. The unit runs off of a simple wall plug and the time is easily set using only two buttons.
With the Blub Uno, designer Duncan Helmers wanted to create a clock that holds its own as a beautiful product, rather than just an object of traditional time-telling function and aesthetic. Rather than showing the time all at once, it tells the time one number at time, so that 12:30pm looks more like 1… 2… 3… 0…
An included remote control allows users to change the clock’s backlighting color and to select a display mode of direct, fade, or crossfade. While the standard Blub is machined from solid aluminum with a clear anodized finish to retain the natural beauty of the material, there is also a black aluminum limited edition model.
In the middle of March, Duncan was successfully able to raise the AUD 57,505 on Kickstarter he needed to put the design into production. The Blub Uno will then join the original Blub on the Blub Online Store for those looking for a new desk accessory.
