Nearly every clock I've seen uses two or three buttons to set the time: hours, minutes, and sometimes seconds. This works, but can be rather slow for times such as 2:53. It requires the user to press the minute button 53 times, or hold it down while it ticks along uncomfortably slow.

A ten minute button would make setting the time much faster and easier. 2:53 would only require ten button presses: two for the hour, five for the ten minute digit, three for the one minute digit. This would be especially useful in kitchen timers, which require setting with every use.
-- Aq_Bi, May 16 2010

Midnight or noon are usually the best times to set an alarm.
-- rcarty, May 16 2010


Good idea, but I think your invention may already be surpassed. A clock on the oven in my apartment has a unique method.

When you push the button in intervals it increments by 1min. If you hold the button it increments by one minute then starts incrementing by 15, then hours. The increment setting is controlled by how long you hold the button in.

In this fashion you only need one button and the interface is 100% intuitive. I have seen this implemented on other devices, but i cant recall them specifically.
-- EricNutsch, May 16 2010


As [Eric] pointed out, many/most electric digital clocks nowadays advance slowly at first, then faster if you hold the button down. Electronically more complex, but mechanically simpler, and electronic complexity comes cheap.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 16 2010


I just turn the nice brass knob on the back of mine.
-- xenzag, May 16 2010


ooooh me to, only its chrome and on the front.
-- po, May 16 2010


We love it when you talk dirty ...
-- 8th of 7, May 16 2010


My microwave has a button for each positional digit on the 4-digit seven-segment display - tens's of minutes, single minutes, ten's of seconds and seconds.
-- zen_tom, May 17 2010


My microwave has a ten minute button.
-- Bad Jim, May 17 2010


Bah... You mean you're still using buttons? Mine reads my thoughts, and then confirms 'tea, earl grey, hot.'
-- RayfordSteele, May 17 2010


//Bah... You mean you're still using buttons? Mine reads my thoughts, and then confirms 'tea, earl grey, hot.'//

Unfortunately it then realises that it is a microwave oven not a tea making machine.
-- Bad Jim, May 17 2010


... and then produces a cup of something that is almost (but not quite) entirely unlike Tea ...
-- 8th of 7, May 17 2010


...every ten minutes...
-- xxobot, May 18 2010



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