Internet Time is a decimal time concept released in 1998 by the Swatch corporation. Instead of hours and minutes, the mean solar day is divided into 1,000 parts called .beats.

The idea behind Internet Time was to provide a timezone free hour system for the “new” late ninetees online community and Swatch even released Beat Watches using this curious system.

Circuit

Solder header pins to the nrf52840 and snap to the round display. There is nothing else to solder this time :)

How to calculate beats

The solar day is divided into 1,000 parts called .beats How do we do that?

With a simple formula

Beats=(3600 UTC+1 hour + 60 minute + seconds)/86.4

Let’s try with an example. UTC+1 time is 3.30

3600x3 + 60x30 + 00/86.4 = ( 10800 + 1800)/86.4 = 145

Showing text in the Round Display

#include <TFT_eSPI.h> #include "NotoSansBold36.h" TFT_eSPI tft = TFT_eSPI(); tft.loadFont(NotoSansBold36); tft.drawString("My Text Here", xPosition, yPosition);

Showing images in the Round Display

Even when Xiao TFT Round display is able to display colors I’ve decided to use black and white images for specific aesthetics.

I have created round images with Dall-e, saved as PNG, converted PNG to array with

https://notisrac.github.io/FileToCArray/ (select treat as binary option)

Then I have displayed the PNG with PNGdec library

rc = png.openFLASH((uint8_t *)charly, sizeof(charly), pngDraw); if (rc == PNG_SUCCESS) { rc = png.decode(NULL, 0); tft.startWrite(); tft.endWrite(); } void pngDraw(PNGDRAW *pDraw) { uint16_t lineBuffer[MAX_IMAGE_WIDTH]; png.getLineAsRGB565(pDraw, lineBuffer, PNG_RGB565_BIG_ENDIAN, 0xffffffff); tft.pushImage(0, 0 + pDraw->y, pDraw->iWidth, 1, lineBuffer); }

Real Time Clock

One interesting feature of the Round Display is the Real Time Clock. Before code upload, UTC+1 time should be edited. Then Real Time Clock is updated and it could also be maintaned when you cut the power since the Round Display has a battery.

To check UTC+1 time use https://time.is/UTC+1

Then edit the hour using this line:

uint8_t h = 13, m = 44, s = 40;

Code loop

Inside code loop, the background image is loaded, then hour is obtained from RTC and converted to beats using the formula.

3d printed stand

You can use a soldering helping hands stand with magnifier glass for a Cyberpunk look (see the video below) or you can 3d print this stand that will fit a cilinder Power Bank of 21cm radius.

Demo video

Where to go from here

Xiao Round is touch, so you can configure alarms or switch between regular time and beats. The nrf board has a PDA mic and accelerometer, so information from there could be used to display information on screen