Iron Digital and Electronic Device Design · 2023
Snyearth Intuitive Global Clock
- A' Design Award 2023 Iron Winner in Digital and Electronic Device Design
- Awarded April 15, 2023
- CLIENT: Zhejiang University
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 42,042
- Verification code 01F2FA31A8 · Verify this award
About Snyearth Intuitive Global Clock
Snyearth is a world clock that displays the time of cities on a levitating globe. A single touch on a city location shows the local time of that city on the tray below. When two or more cities are selected, the time difference between them is displayed automatically. A translucent ring window with full-color LED lights reflects the colors of the sky in each time zone. Inside the globe, a directional light source simulates the alternation of day and night. The levitation is achieved with permanent magnets, electromagnets and Hall sensors.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Snyearth provides a new way of displaying world time. User can intuitively observe the current time of any city in the world. As time goes by, the colorful time wheel reflects the light and shadow of the sky at the current moment,Meanwhile, the lights inside the globe simulate the alternation of day and night. When in use, Snyearth only needs a simple touch to display the accurate local time of the selected city.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Dimension: 200mm x 200mm x 150mm
Battery capacity: 4000mAh
Power supply mode: USB type-c
Input: 5V / 2000mA - Tags
- World clocks, Home electronics, Smart products, Maglev, Lamps
- Production Technology
- The gravitational force is provided by permanent magnets, while the repulsive force generated by the electromagnets in the base is controlled precisely and in real-time using three axial Hall sensors to achieve stability of the levitating part in all directions.
Full-color LED lights are placed at the right place under the translucent ring window to achieve a colorful and natural transition display effect, and a directional rotating light source is used inside the globe to ensure a realistic simulation of the earth's day and night effect. - Design Challenge
- The biggest problem encountered in the design process of this project is the internal structure design. Due to the use of maglev technology, the internal components must be arranged in a reasonable position to avoid electromagnetic disturbance, and also need to keep the shape as compact and simple as possible, so several iterations of the structure arrangement were made during the design process to complete the existing structure scheme.
- Project Duration
- The project starts in Shenzhen in May 2022 and ends in Hangzhou in September 2022.
- Operation Flow
- When using it, the user can touch the corresponding city location on the globe to display the local time of that city in real-time on the tray below. And if more than two cities are selected by the user, Snyearth can also automatically display the time difference between the cities.
- Research
- Firstly summarized and analyzed the existing world clocks, and found that the existing world clocks are in a single form, and it is difficult to read the time. The product iteration was carried out through the double diamond model. Last, a control experiment was conducted on the product prototype and the traditional world clock, and the results showed that it can help users get time zone information more quickly and intuitively, and also received higher scores on the interactivity dimension.
- Inspiration
- The current way of displaying the world time is often a combination of multiple traditional clocks, which is not intuitive enough, and the time difference between different places cannot be represented visually. It is also not possible to view the region where you wish to view the time at will. The design is inspired by the hovering globe, and by displaying the world time on the globe, the time of different regions can be displayed more intuitively.