This Rorschach Alarm Clock is filled with Ferromagnetic “Creatures”

If we’re not using our smartphones, most of us have alarm clocks counting down those treasured minutes of final sleep the use of both analog dials or LED shows. however designer Zelf Koelman of the Eindhoven college of expertise has created a new roughly alarm clock, one where the time bubbles up from the bottom like a monochrome lava lamp.

The Ferrolic is an alarm clock which uses ferrofluids—a liquid that is extremely sensitive to magnetic fields—now not just to indicate the time, however to display a kind of ambient, Rorschach art. Koelman calls these ferrofluid bubbles ‘Ferrolic creatures,’ and on the clock’s web site, describes how it works:

in the front, the show has a basin comparable to an aquarium by which Ferro Fluid can transfer freely. behind the scenes highly effective electromagnets enable Ferollic to persuade the fluid’s shape, to select it up and transfer it around. each modules, the basin and the electronics, sit down stable in an aluminum body.

Ferrolic can be “hackable,” so new information and animations may also be created and transmitted by way of a web app that connects to the clock. “on this manner users can assign “the creatures” to display time, text, shapes and transitions,” Koelman writes.

The finished product is not just a timepiece; it is a enchanting piece of side table artwork. only 24 gave been made up to now, and they’re somewhat expensive—round $eight,300 a piece. but when you need a Ferrolic clock of your own, you might be in good fortune: the authentic website online hints that a Kickstarter for the instrument might be down the road. imagine my ferrofluid obsessed fingers crossed.

[by means of Boing Boing]