Futuristic binary LED watch with dual displays

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Design submitted by Wilhelm from South Africa.

Wilhelm says: After some talk about binary watches here on the TF blog I came up with something different with a more sci-fi military style, the Target LED Watch.

A plain or black anodized steel casing and broad steel bracelet with a large crown gives it a military feeling. The module is either under 2 dark acrylic or 2 all steel faces with 12 LED’s, displaying the hours and minutes by the binary counting method of “1-2-4-8-16-32”, separately in each of the 2 displays.

I think this watch will suit the more younger active type of guy who likes activities like paintballing, or guys into their action pc games or sci-fi war movies.

The macho sci-fi military style and mysterious target like LED display will definitely made this watch a head turner for anyone wearing it.

15 thoughts on “Futuristic binary LED watch with dual displays”

  1. Only 11 lights to indicate full 24 hour time – now that’s efficiency!
    I don’t think it is possible to do it in less.

    I agree with Wilhelm, anyone interested in military time or binary time with a futuristic style this really grabs your imagination. It seems to reflect the old 12-5-9 style watch ethos of industrial future & thats great.

    Binary is a tough one generally as it doesn’t have wide appeal – despite it being an established numbering system. I like it myself & it works nicely here.

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  3. Im not the biggest fan of binary, usually it just baffles the hell out of me and the few times I do unstand it requires too much counting or adding. This version on the other hand does temp me, I like the simplicity and the industrial millitary look!
    Also the dials dont look too alien to people who like 12/5/9 or even analogue watches which may help with mass appeal.
    Fine work Wilhelm! 5/Y best of luck sir! 😀

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  4. Looks good, Wilhelm, and easy to read. I like that it looks like I’d be wearing two watches at the same time! Oh, I could do that now with the number I have and still wear different each day for the week (excessive collector?).

    I would make a couple of small suggestions:
    1. Make the display of the numbers and P an option (Easy mode?) – some may want this while getting used to the binary counting, but once used to this, it would not be needed.
    2. Remove the words ‘Hours’ & ‘Minutes’ from the case. Everyone is used to reading hours on the left and minutes on the right, so that is not necessary. This would also pave the way to displaying date too.
    I’d go for this watch anyway, but these tweaks would, I think, make it better still.

    Good luck and 5y.

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    • Like your suggestions. My idea was to make it look “busy” with all the numbers and words to create the idea of instruments in a cockpit of a military spaceship.

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  5. Hey, Wilhelm. I really like the stacked look of the two faces side by side. I’d like to see a unique LED color on each face, to further suggest two watches combined; say one amber and the other green?

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    • Thanks Xian. On the colour idea, IDK, I’m not too keen on such an idea. And somehow I think it will spoil the “serious cockpit instrument” feeling it has. But that’s me.

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    • The basic design concept for displaying the binary numbers (i.e. 6 lines spreading out to the corners of a hexagon (implied here)) may be the same, but the overall design is very different. I can’t see that anyone would think this is even an unintentional copy. I like both designs, and would be happy to have both – they are very different in my mind.

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      • Thanks a many Nev. I thought of designing an update on the Target with a military tank and only 1 hexagon in mind, but after I saw Sam’s I cancelled the thought.

        Its really tough coming up with something completely new, and most of the time one think you have a unique idea, but somehow somewhere your “idea” has already been design by someone else. Also, what I think sometimes happen is, you see someone’s idea, and unintentionally the idea made memories in your brain and months later you think of some something almost similar, as if that person’s idea was the spark for yours.

        In industrial design we learnt to do homework on other people’s ideas and then come up with one’s own. The thing is on this blog, there is already so many great ideas and all have the same idea in mind, to tell time on a small area of square mm’s. One needs to see other people’s ideas, its the only way to go forward. Funny thing is, for many many years a had this idea of designing a mini hi-fi with the idea of a motorcycle instrument dials and buttons like those pedal shifts on sport cars in mind, and last night I was thinking of designing a watch like that, and this morning I saw Peter’s motorcycle watch and I thought, gee man, he has beat me on this one, although not quite the same idea. 🙂

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  8. I like the binary reading method. I like the 4 lugs. I like having all the digits/PM/texts. It fit the theme! &, because of the shape, it can be easy to forget the # order. I don’t like the “metal face” version. The others are nice.

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    • 2 things I forgot to say: I have a binary watch. (battery been dead for a while) 2 row of lights & they engraved the # even if useless. Here, it’s useful to have them. & I would buy. (ok 3 things)

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