In the early 2000's, Sharper Image brought a new novelty clock to market that hadn't been seen before outside of a few very niche applications. It was christened the "Suspended Animation Clock" which carried on after it's tenure with Sharper Image had ended, and is even carried on in some knockoffs today. There are many variations on this clock (including a few that are still produced today) but I really want to talk about the "Art of Timekeeping" edition which followed after Sharper Image, as that's the one I have.
I'll update photos here with my own once I've had a chance to dig it out of storage. In the meantime, here are a few photos pulled from the web for illustrative purposes.
The clock's name is from the illusion that the "animation" is "suspended" in midair between the two "arms" of the clock. It achieves the illusion of "floating text" by way of an electromagnetic motor that moves an LED-capped wand back and forth at tremendous speed. Then, by changing the configuration of flashing LED lights based on it's position, and our eyes' persistence of vision, it gives the illusion that the illuminated text is floating, as the dark, narrow wand is moving too fast to really see.
The clock's little "menu" in the center allowed the thing to be programmed in a variety of ways, including 12-hour time, 24 hour time, a complete calendar, a preset custom message for pretty much every "major" holiday, and room for at least 4 user-generated messages with an editor that's right "on" the display that is surprisingly easy to use in my opinion. Once set the clock display alternates randomly between the time, date, and any messages in a variety of animated ways- scrolling, flashing, one where the numbers appear one at a time, and more. It does have an alarm function as well, though I have to say the repurposed PC-style beeper speaker isn't terribly pleasant, and probably the worst part of the clock overall.
I got mine in 2008 as a school prize for their magazine drive, and the clock ran continuously from the day I got it home until 2016 or so when my acute lack of space really began and it's been in storage since then. For a "novelty" clock with an electromechanical gimmick that definitely should have failed years and years ago, I'm beyond impressed with the thing that it still works.
It does have a couple design flaws; nothing too serious, but worth noting all the same.
The first is that the rapidly-moving metal wand in the middle of the clock is unguarded- there is absolutely nothing to stop some curious person from reaching their hand into it, as my cousin did in 2010 or so. They weren't seriously injured or anything, but the speed at which the wand moves was sufficient to break their skin. This is one of very few clocks that can injure you by touching it, so it's best to put this somewhere that the curious won't be tempted to put their fingers into it. While I was pleased the thing fired right back up after the event, we took care to unplug it prior to family gatherings in the future.
The second is that the box may be correct that the motor is silent, but the clock is definitely not. Due to the nature of it's operation, as the wand travels back and forth, it "snaps" through the air, producing a very distinct "popping" sound, not unlike a tiny 2-stroke engine puttering away. It's not deafeningly loud or anything, but in an otherwise quiet room it is noticeable, and it never stops so long as the clock is running as it's literally the sound of air being batted away by the wand.
The third flaw is that as a standalone "clock" or timepiece this thing is actually kinda terrible. If you (like me) have several messages programmed into it, and have all the animations enabled, then it can take ages to cycle through the various things it can display to get to what you want to read off of it. If you just want to see the time, you might have to quite literally wait for it to come back around to it, and then wait some more as it displays the time in the slowest animated way possible if you've been so lucky to get that one. It looks great, but if you're actually planning on using it as a time piece, it's an objectively poor choice.
As for other variations, this same clock also came in white and silver with either blue or red LED lights. Another somewhat smaller variation of the clock was released a few years later, which I remember haunting the American retailer Best Buy the most, where it was sold for a (in my opinion ludicrous) $99 or so.
After that, these clocks moved on and today can still be bought new from various importers using what appears to be the same principle and perhaps even molds- but whether they are as good as their forerunners I can't rightly say. I do see that they're now called "message clocks" in searches now, perhaps to get around a possible copyright or trademark on the "Suspended Animation" name, but it does appear to be the same sort of operation.
All that said, this is a unique sort of clock- a genuine leftover from the late 2000's, and I'd say a solid addition to any "unusual clock collection" out there.
Thanks for reading my extended rambling!
I'll update photos here with my own once I've had a chance to dig it out of storage. In the meantime, here are a few photos pulled from the web for illustrative purposes.
The clock's name is from the illusion that the "animation" is "suspended" in midair between the two "arms" of the clock. It achieves the illusion of "floating text" by way of an electromagnetic motor that moves an LED-capped wand back and forth at tremendous speed. Then, by changing the configuration of flashing LED lights based on it's position, and our eyes' persistence of vision, it gives the illusion that the illuminated text is floating, as the dark, narrow wand is moving too fast to really see.
The clock's little "menu" in the center allowed the thing to be programmed in a variety of ways, including 12-hour time, 24 hour time, a complete calendar, a preset custom message for pretty much every "major" holiday, and room for at least 4 user-generated messages with an editor that's right "on" the display that is surprisingly easy to use in my opinion. Once set the clock display alternates randomly between the time, date, and any messages in a variety of animated ways- scrolling, flashing, one where the numbers appear one at a time, and more. It does have an alarm function as well, though I have to say the repurposed PC-style beeper speaker isn't terribly pleasant, and probably the worst part of the clock overall.
I got mine in 2008 as a school prize for their magazine drive, and the clock ran continuously from the day I got it home until 2016 or so when my acute lack of space really began and it's been in storage since then. For a "novelty" clock with an electromechanical gimmick that definitely should have failed years and years ago, I'm beyond impressed with the thing that it still works.
It does have a couple design flaws; nothing too serious, but worth noting all the same.
The first is that the rapidly-moving metal wand in the middle of the clock is unguarded- there is absolutely nothing to stop some curious person from reaching their hand into it, as my cousin did in 2010 or so. They weren't seriously injured or anything, but the speed at which the wand moves was sufficient to break their skin. This is one of very few clocks that can injure you by touching it, so it's best to put this somewhere that the curious won't be tempted to put their fingers into it. While I was pleased the thing fired right back up after the event, we took care to unplug it prior to family gatherings in the future.
The second is that the box may be correct that the motor is silent, but the clock is definitely not. Due to the nature of it's operation, as the wand travels back and forth, it "snaps" through the air, producing a very distinct "popping" sound, not unlike a tiny 2-stroke engine puttering away. It's not deafeningly loud or anything, but in an otherwise quiet room it is noticeable, and it never stops so long as the clock is running as it's literally the sound of air being batted away by the wand.
The third flaw is that as a standalone "clock" or timepiece this thing is actually kinda terrible. If you (like me) have several messages programmed into it, and have all the animations enabled, then it can take ages to cycle through the various things it can display to get to what you want to read off of it. If you just want to see the time, you might have to quite literally wait for it to come back around to it, and then wait some more as it displays the time in the slowest animated way possible if you've been so lucky to get that one. It looks great, but if you're actually planning on using it as a time piece, it's an objectively poor choice.
As for other variations, this same clock also came in white and silver with either blue or red LED lights. Another somewhat smaller variation of the clock was released a few years later, which I remember haunting the American retailer Best Buy the most, where it was sold for a (in my opinion ludicrous) $99 or so.
After that, these clocks moved on and today can still be bought new from various importers using what appears to be the same principle and perhaps even molds- but whether they are as good as their forerunners I can't rightly say. I do see that they're now called "message clocks" in searches now, perhaps to get around a possible copyright or trademark on the "Suspended Animation" name, but it does appear to be the same sort of operation.
All that said, this is a unique sort of clock- a genuine leftover from the late 2000's, and I'd say a solid addition to any "unusual clock collection" out there.
Thanks for reading my extended rambling!
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