Word Clock & Fibonacci Clock Selector

There are three different word clock designs, built with:

• A bare ATMEGA328 chip with white LEDs
• An Arduino Nano Every
• An Arduino Nano ESP32

The last two support WS2812 RGB and SK6812 RGBW LEDs. All designs support Bluetooth control, a rotary encoder as backup, a DS3231 RTC for accuracy (±20 s/year), and a LDR light sensor. The Nano ESP32 also supports a built-in web page and Wi-Fi/NTP time.

With spare RGB(W) LED-strip you can also build a Fibonacci clock — a constantly changing Mondriaan-style painting that displays time in three colours.

• Fibonacci Mondriaan clock for ESP32-C3 and S3
• Fibonacci clock for Arduino Nano (includes 3D-printable stick design)
• Latest Fibonacci clock for Arduino Nano ESP32

The first word clock designs have been running for over 10 years. They use an 11×11 character grid, white 2835/3528 LED-strips, an ATMEGA328, and shift registers. Later designs moved to WS2812/SK6812 LED strips and an Arduino Nano (30×30 cm).

The four-language clock uses a 25×25 character grid. Because the French front plate required a 12×12 grid, all single-language faces were redesigned and expanded. These 12×12 clocks use an Arduino Nano Every or ATMEGA1280 with SK6812 or WS2812 strips, in standard sizes of 25×25 cm or 50×50 cm.

Since 2023, the Arduino Nano ESP32 (with onboard Wi-Fi and BLE) is used in the latest designs. Software supports English, German, French, and Dutch.

All clocks are designed on PCBs made with Fritzing (available as Fritzing and Gerber/ZIP files). Gerber files can be uploaded to a manufacturer like PCBway. KiCad can also be used, though no conversion between KiCad and Fritzing formats is currently available.