Cuckoo Clocks as we know them started being made in the Black Forest region of southwest Germany sometime around the mid 18th century.

Early Cuckoo Clocks Using the Shield Design

Early Shield-Design Cuckoo Clock

Early Cuckoo Clocks were primitive clocks in which the clock gears were actually constructed out of wood. (C’mon – how accurate can a clock with wood gears be?)

Of course, what makes the Cuckoo Clock so distinctive is that, when the hour strikes, a small figure of a cuckoo bird usually comes out of a small wooden door in the clock, moves its body or wings and then makes a “cuckoo-like” sound.  This is a feature which could be found even in the earliest Cuckoo Clocks…and for obvious reasons: if it doesn’t have a cuckoo, it can’t be a Cuckoo Clock.

Cuckoo Clocks are kind of fascinating, at least the first few times you see them, but we can imagine that having this blasted little mechanical bird create a repeating cuckoo sound every hour, on the hour could drive you nuts over time!  (Most modern Cuckoo Clocks in fact offer an option to turn off the hourly cuckoo chime, which is a good thing…a very good thing.)

The first Cuckoo Clocks were, however, much less decorative than the Cuckoo Clocks we’re familiar with today. So much so, in fact, that, taking a look a these early Cuckoo Clocks today, the uninitiated would likely not even recognize them as Cuckoo Clocks at all.

Later Cuckoo Clocks were usually constructed with a highly decorative forest scene or hunting scene depicting life in the woods of Germany, or some kind of rustic outdoors scene.

But all of this was pretty much missing in the earliest versions of Cuckoo Clocks, which were simple painted wooden shields (”Schilduhren” in German, meaning Shield Clocks) with the clock face appearing on a painted shield or round clock face, and with the clock parts all located behind this “shield”.

Typically, there was a small wooden door above the shield out of which the bird would spring when it was time to chime at the top of the hour.

Bahnhäusle or Railroad House Cuckoo Clocks

Bahnhäusle or Railroad House Cuckoo Clock

In about 1850 Cuckoo Clocks changed dramatically from the Shield-type Clocks that preceded them.

“Bahnhäusle” means something like “railroad house” in German, and these new kind of Cuckoo Clocks had a much more detailed and elaborate frame around the clockwork and clock face.

The idea is that the more elaborate frame around the clock face was supposed to resemble the small sheltering structures in which railroad guards would stand. The frame of the small house surrounding such newer Cuckoo Clocks was usually decorated with some kind of plant or forest decoration (such as vines), and such clocks are instantly recognizable as typical “Cuckoo Clocks” today.

At this time, detailed scenes in decorative woodwork began to be depicted on Cuckoo Clocks. Such scenes usually showed forest, hunting or even religious imagery. Examples of the decorative woodwork found on Bahnhäusle Cuckoo Clocks might be the carved head of a deer at the top of the clock, or even small figures of forest workers surrounding the clock face.

Swiss Chalet Cuckoo Clocks

Swiss Chalet Style Cuckoo Clock

Also very familiar for Americans are the “chalet style” cuckoo clocks which came even later.

Swiss Chalet Cuckoo Clocks simply replace the design of the small “railroad house” frame around the clock with a house resembling a Swiss or Bavarian chalet. These kind of Cuckoo Clocks usually have “A Frame” style roofs.

Chalet Cuckoo Clocks come originally from Switzerland, and, because they are so familiar, many Americans mistakenly think that Cuckoo Clocks originated in Switzerland instead of Germany…which is not the case. Don’t be mistaken: Cuckoo Clocks, as we know them, come from the Black Forest of Germany and not from Switzerland!

Cuckoo Clock Summary

So that was, extremely simplified, a basic introduction to the subject of Cuckoo Clocks:

1. They began as simple panel or Shield Clocks with little decoration.
2. Cuckoo Clocks were then further developed into the  “railroad houses” with lots of wood carvings that we’re familiar with today.
3. They were then even further adapted into Swiss or Bavarian Chalet style clocks.

But the cuckoo bird has always been the most important element of such clocks, belting out the cuckoo sound at the top of the hour.

The vast majority of Cuckoo Clocks have always been wall clocks, but there are also mantel clock versions of Cuckoo Clocks which are designed to rest on shelves or mantels instead of being hung on walls.

These days Cuckoo Clocks are still extremely popular.

All you have to do is to take a vacation in the Black Forest region of Germany to discover that selling Cuckoo Clocks to American tourists remains a big part of the local tourist trade in the region!

Modern clock makers also continue to be inspired by Cuckoo Clocks, offering new designs of Cuckoo Clocks that incorporate the original designs with far more modern elements.

So, we hope we didn’t drive you, uhhh, Cuckoo with our little foray into Cuckoo Clocks here.

And we hope most of you still prefer online clocks to the cuckoo variety.

Tags: alarm clock blog, Bahnhäusle clocks, chalet clocks, chalet cuckoo clocks, cuckoo clock, cuckoo clock history, cuckoo clocks, railroad house clocks, Schilduhren, shield clocks

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We recently wrote about how Digg gave Online Clock our first big break.

But in addition to Digg, we have to be thankful to the large legion of bloggers who have written about OnlineClock.net over the years.

To the best of our knowledge the first blog to write about Online Clock was the Spanish-language technology blog GenBeta:

GenBeta Logo - The First Blog to Write About Online Clock!

And, regarding the first version of Online Clock that they wrote about, it was a lot different from the clock that we all know and love today!

Back when we first launched we played around with the idea of creating an all-Flash Online Alarm Clock. However, once we decided on a Freemium business model (a free, advertising-supported service), we realized that online ad delivery was extremely important. Suffice it to say that if you have an all Flash site, or a site that’s mostly built in Flash, it’s more difficult to incorporate advertising into your content.

We knew from the beginning that, if we didn’t generate ad revenue, we couldn’t afford the powerful servers that host Online Clock, and couldn’t afford to pay any further marketing costs…all of which are necessary evils.

So, take a gander at the earliest version of the Online Alarm Clock on record in this screenshot of the original GenBeta post entitled, “Online clock, tu reloj online con alarma“:

What’s amazing to us, looking back at this blog entry, is that it’s dated March 28th, 2006. As you can tell by our domain’s WhoIs information, we actually registered our domain first on March 26th, 2006…just four days before this blog post was published! Those guys at GenBeta found us in a hurry, and we’re thankful for that. In case you’re wondering, on the same day the domain was registered, the first version of Online Clock actually went live.

We know what you’re thinking, “What kind of a crazy, cigar-shaped Online Alarm Clock was that?!”.

And you’re right…it was kind of goofy, as you’ll note from the screenshot of the blog post above. Thank god we soon ditched this early version and latched onto the lean, mean, black clock machine everyone now knows and loves!

If you’re interested in taking a closer look at this earlier version of our Online Alarm, the original blog post is still online…or you can read it translated into English here. (Yes, it’s short, but as with many things in life, it’s not the size that matters!)

We hope some of you have enjoyed this little trip down Online Clock Memory Lane.

We love OnlineClock.net and we love reminiscing about how we got started!

And to all our friends at GenBeta, we say: Gracias!

Tags: alarma, clock history, online alarm clock history, online clock, online clock blog, online clock history, onlineclock, onlineclock.net, reloj, reloj con alarma

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Hey Clock Fans, it's time for a little alarm clock history lesson!

Alarm clocks are something we all take for granted, but who invented the alarm clock?

The best knowledge we have on this subject indicates that alarm clocks were invented at around 250 BC in ancient Greece.

In ancient Greece there were of course no alarm clocks as we know them. Instead they had created a kind of water clock. Water clocks used a regularly dripping stream of water to measure time. The alarm function was set off when a lever triggered a kind of whistling sound.

Besides water clocks, the other earliest kind of clocks on record were sundials.

The sundial: looks kinda nice, but don't depend on it to wake you up in time for work. (Then again, it has some disadvantages, too...)

Everyone knows that sundials measure the time based on the position of the sun; many of us still have sundials in our gardens to this day, simply because they look neat and are useful as well as decorative. Sundials, however, had no alarm mechanisms. “So if they had no alarm function, what the heck are sundials doing appearing in this post?”, you might ask. To that I would reply, “Hey buddy, go write your own blog!,” simply because I’m unable to think of anything wittier at the moment. Ok, I digress…

So when we refer to alarm clocks, actually we have in mind the first mechanical alarm clocks, and the first of these were invented probably sometime in the 14th century. The first mechanical alarm clocks were not for home use, however. Instead, these were striking clock towers on public display.

Towers with clocks on them sometimes had devices which would strike off the hours so that everyone in a town or village would know what time it was. Many of us have clock towers near where we live that still strike off the hours each day.

The Clock Tower Alarm Clock: how'd you like to get a wake up call from one of these babies next to your pillow?

Regarding the first small mechanical alarm clocks, many attribute the first alarm clock of this kind to inventor Taqi al-Din in the Turkish empire. He wrote a book back in 1559 describing how he’d built a kind of mechanical alarm clock.

Another early mechanical alarm clock was invented by Levi Hutchins from New Hampshire, USA. Mr. Hutchins created an alarm clock that always went off at 4:00 a.m., since he wanted to wake up at this time each and every day; but his alarm clock was not available for sale.

Which brings us to the subject of commercial alarm clocks: when were the first alarm clocks manufactured for sale?

The first patent for an alarm clock dates back to 1847 and was awarded to French inventor Antoine Redier. The Seth Thomas Clock Company was awarded a different patent in 1876 for its small bedside alarm clocks, and these probably became the first smaller alarm clocks for home use that were actually manufactured.

So, by the late 1870s, alarm clocks for the home had become popular and were being sold in larger quantities. One of the first alarm clock manufacturers in the entire world was the company Westclox.

This brings us, more or less, to the present day and age.

The most significant recent innovation regarding alarm clocks happened of course in early 2006, when the online alarm clock was invented, thus beginning a new chapter in alarm clock history!

To that we can only say: hey Alarm Clocks, you rock !

Main Sources:

Wikipedia
ClockHistory.com

Tags: Alarm Clock History, alarm clock invention, alarm clocks, clock fans, clock history, clock towers, history of alarm clocks, online clock history, sundials, water clocks

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But frankly…what’s up with that?

Why don’t clocks run from right to left instead?

Why do we simply take this for granted? I mean, what if we all just decided to wake up one day and have our clocks run counter-clockwise, from right to left, instead?

Well, just hold on a second, Junior – let me take a short break, and I’ll get right back to you with the answers.

There. I’m back.

The deal with clockwise is, you have to remember that our first clocks were the direct descendents of sundials. Sundials were of course used to measure time by tracking the movement of the sun in the sky.

Also, the first clocks were created in the northern hemisphere, where the sun indeed traveled from the left to the right in the sky.

The earliest clocks attempted to copy the movement of the sun and were thought of as being mechanical versions of sundials. Since the sun moved from left to right for the first clock inventors, it just made sense to make clocks move in this direction too.

Did you know that Online Clock also has an analog alarm clock?

Now then…clock’s ticking…time for me to run (clockwise, of course).

The Red Dots Appear to Move Counter-Clockwise. The Yellow Dots Appear to Move Clockwise. But Which Direction Will You Lose Your Lunch In While Staring At This?

Tags: alarm clock blog, analog alarm clock, Analog Clock, clock history, clocks, clocks run clockwise, clockwise, history of clocks, online clock, sundials, why clockwise

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Ever wondered how we got to the point of being able to measure time accurately using clocks?

One of the huge discoveries for the development of accurate clocks was the invention of Pendulum Clocks by Galileo in the second half of the 17th century¹.

Until the invention of Pendulum Clocks, minutes couldn’t be measured accurately using the primitive clocks that were in existence.

Doing research on the subjects of time and the history of clocks, I unearthed a fascinating story about how Galileo came upon the idea of using pendulums in clocks to more accurately measure time.

He got the idea while sitting in church.

It was the Pisa Cathedral, to be exact.

Galileo was sitting in the cathedral and was fascinated by the swinging movements of the chandeliers hanging high overhead from the cathedral’s ceiling.

While observing the back and forth motions of these swinging chandeliers, Galileo noticed that, although the angle of the swinging movements changed over time, the amount of time required for the pendulum to swing in one direction and then return to its original starting point (known as the period of a pendulum) appeared to remain constant.

Et Voilà!

A light bulb went off in Galileo’s head and he began working on all kinds of possible applications of pendulums, including the idea of using pendulum clocks to accurately measure time.

Long Before the Invention of the Online Clock, People Stared at This

Some of the first useful applications of the idea of pendulum clocks included the invention of the metronome and the use of a device to measure the human pulse in medicine (a pulsometer).

Although Galileo worked extensively on pendulums during his life time and did indeed design the world’s first pendulum clock, it was not until 1656, many years after Galileo’s death, that Christiaan Huygens, a Dutch mathematician, actually created the first working pendulum clocks.

Today we know that pendulums are not as accurate at measuring time as Galileo had originally thought.

But the invention of pendulum clocks was a huge step forward in the development of accurate clocks.

This is a process which continues to this day, as we continue to fine-tune atomic clocks into devices capable of measuring time with an accuracy of up to 10^-9 seconds per day.

Now that’s accurate!

But don’t forget how we got here:

It’s all because Galileo got bored one day in church.

Tags: alarm clock blog, Alarm Clock History, Christiaan Huygens, clock history, galileo, galileo pendulum, galileo pendulum clocks, pendulum clock, pendulum clocks, pendulums, Pisa Cathedral, Time

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Big Ben Prepares for Its 150th Birthday

Big Ben became officially operational on September 7th, 1859, so this year, 2009, represents the clock’s 150th birthday!

One of the most famous clocks, Big Ben is, according to Wikipedia, the largest free-standing clock tower in the world. Big Ben stands over the Houses of Parliament in London.

Big Ben has four clock faces and is known worldwide as a symbol for London and Great Britain. Its chimes can sometimes be heard on the BBC’s radio programs – they have a distinctive sound you’re not likely to forget.

Here are some quick facts about Big Ben:

1. ‘Big Ben’ was originally the name of the largest bell within the clock (though today we usually refer to the entire clock and clock tower by this name).
2. Big Ben has four clock faces.
3. Each of the four faces of the clock is 23 foot square.
4. Big Ben contains a total of five clock bells.
5. ‘Big Ben’, the largest of the clock’s bells, is 7 and a half feet tall and weighs 13 tons.
6. The tower of Big Ben stands 316 feet high.
7. The numbers on the clock are each 4 feet tall.
8. Big Ben is always lit at night, but a special second lamp is lit whenever Parliament is in session.
9. Big Ben is the world’s largest four-faced chiming clock.
10. Despite heavy bombing during World War II, Big Ben continued to run accurately and chime on the hour.

But why is Big Ben called ‘Big Ben’?

There are two theories to explain this, though no one is 100% certain how Big Ben got its famous name.

Here are the two most likely theories:

1. It could be named after Benjamin Caunt, a heavyweight boxing champion popular at the time Big Ben was erected…the boxer’s nickname was ‘Big Ben’.
2. It could be named after Sir Benjamin Hall, who was in charge of the installation of the Great Bell (the largest of the clock’s five bells and the bell which is actually known as ‘Big Ben’).

This is one magnificent clock, and we hope that all of Online Clock’s users will join together in wishing Big Ben a very happy birthday!

Great Britain has a wide array of celebrations planned this year to honor this clock’s 150th birthday.

For more information on Big Ben and all of its 150th birthday celebrations, we urge you to check out the UK Parliament’s Big Ben Website.

Tags: alarm clock blog, alarmclockblog, big ben, big ben 150, big ben birthday, big ben london, chiming clock, clock bell, clock chimes, clock tower, clocks, london clocks, onlineclock.net, uk clocks

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How many of the clocks in your home are radio controlled?

When I mention radio controlled clocks, I’m not referring to clock radios like the one we make available for you to use in your web browser. Instead, I’m of course referring to clocks which update and synchronize their time settings based on radio signals they receive.

These days we take it for granted that our clocks synchronize the time with radio-broadcasting time servers. But this technology was, until recently, limited to the realm of expensive scientific instruments before it became adopted for popular use in our homes.

This post will attempt to summarize, in a nutshell, the history of radio controlled clocks.

1. Early versions of Time Signals are sent via Telegraph, predating radio controlled clocks.
2. November 1898: Engineer Sir Howard Grubb describes the new concept of the radio controlled clock in a speech before the Royal Dublin Society, predicting this device at least 100 years before it’s first created.
3. 1903: United States Navy broadcasts the world’s first time signal from the United States Naval Observatory (USNO) site in Washington, DC.
4. August 9, 1904: Regular, Repeated Time Signals begin to be sent from the Navy Yard in Boston.
5. Over the next few years, the US Navy begins sending time signals from a large number of different cities, including Arlington Virginia, Cape Cod, Newport, New York and Norfolk Virginia.
6. 1907: The First Time Signal is sent from outside of the United States, broadcast from station VCS in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
7. 1910: the French Bureau of Longitudes begins broadcasting time signals twice daily from its station located on the top of the Eiffel Tower.
8. 1913: The U.S. Navy radio station called NAA begins broadcasting time signals from Arlington Virginia in Morse Code. These were the first time signals that became a bit well-known.
9. 1924: the “Six-Pip” (the sound itself is more of a “peep”) system of BBC begins in London. These six audio tones are still used today by the BBC and are one of my favorite things about listening to BBC Radio.
10. 1923: The National Bureau of Standards (NBS, which later was renamed NIST) begins regular time signal broadcasts in short wave from its station called WWV in Washington, DC.

Whew! So that’s the mega-summarized history of radio controlled clocks, in a nutshell. We hope you all took notes.

Have you ever heard of NIST before? NIST stands for the National Institute of Standards & Technology and is the government office responsible for time broadcasts in the United States.

NIST - Operators of the Website Time.gov

NIST operates the very important time-related website known as time.gov. You can always access that site to get the accurate time for any time zone within the United States.

In addition to getting the accurate time via NIST’s time website, if you’re using Windows as the operating system on your computer you can easily get your computer to synchronize its time via NIST’s time server!  Just click on the clock in your status bar. Then look for the tab clock labelled ‘internet time’. Set your Windows clock to automatically synchronize its time from time.nist.gov: this is NIST’s time server.

And the greatest thing is…if you do this, the time you see on Online Clock should hopefully be not too far off from NIST’s time – because OnlineClock.net simply uses your computer’s own time settings. If you ever move from one time zone to another, just update the time settings on your computer; OnlineClock.net will instantly show you the correct time for your new time zone.

If you ever think that the time you see on Online Clock isn’t accurate, simply correct the time settings on your computer: all OnlineClock.net does is use the same time settings as your computer to show you the correct time.

Here’s wishing that all your clocks remain radio controlled: Pip Pip Pip Pip Pip PEEP!

Sources & Recommended for further research:
http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq/general/pdf/1877.pdf
http://www.nist.gov
http://www.time.gov

Tags: alarm clock, alarm clock blog, clock history, nist, online alarm clock, online clock, radio clocks, radio controlled clocks, Time, time server, time servers, time.gov

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I ask you: what’s the point of setting an alarm at a specific time, if you make it too easy for yourself to turn the alarm off, before doing what you need to do at your appointed time?

Most of the really interesting new alarm clocks being produced offer novel ways of making it harder for you to turn off your alarm, not easier!

Still, the Snooze Button is a feature found on many (lesser) alarm clocks …though, by design, not on ours.

For this reason we thought it’d be interesting to do a little research into Snooze Clock History to find out how the vile plague to mankind known as the Snooze Button came into being.

The Root of all Evil: One of The World’s First Snooze Clocks

Snooze Clock Timeline:

1. Lew Wallace, author of Ben-Hur, invents the Snooze Alarm (agent of Satan?)
2. 1956 – General Electric-Telechron first marks a Clock with a Snooze Alarm Function
3. 1959 – Westclox introduces the Drowse Electric Alarm Clock, the World’s first Snooze Clock with the rocking 5/10 minute Snooze option
4. 1963 – Westclox has several different models of Drowse (snooze) Clocks, each with separate dual Snooze Buttons to Snooze for either 5 or 10 minutes
5. 1969 – Westcox releases the “Minikin Drowse”, a simplified Snooze Clock with just a single Snooze Button allowing 7 minutes of extra sleep
6. 2000 – Westclox finally changes the names of several of its Snooze Clocks from ‘Drowse’ to ‘Snooze’

[Source , Source]

…and the world has never been the same, unfortunately.

Perhaps you’ve heard of the Me Generation? New Coke? The end of the 1960s? The Financial Crisis…and the Bird Flu? Yes – these and many, many more bad things are of course directly attributable to the advent of  Snooze Clocks.

The Snooze Button makes our lives too easy. It pampers us. It tames us. It tells us it’s OK to ignore everything, roll back over on the comfy side of the bed, and leave the problems of the world unattended to.

Seriously – when was the last time you made the world a better place by hitting a Snooze Button?

Not only that – some sleep specialists even believe hitting the Snooze Button could deprive you of much-needed REM Sleep:

“The idea of the snooze button itself disrupting sleep itself is possible,” posits Dr Christopher Li, a sleep medicine specialist.

[Source]

I rest my case.

If you happen to be afflicted by the Snooze Button Disease, however – do not dismay.

It is never too late to repent.

Save your soul now by joining our Anti-Snooze Crusade.

And switch to a reputable, god-fearing, non-snoozing alarm clock.

Go on now…make us proud of ya.

Tags: Alarm Clock History, alarms, clock history, clocks, onlineclock.net, snooze, snooze alarm clock, snooze alarm clocks, snooze button, snooze button history, snooze buttons, snooze clock history, snooze clocks

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