There are pen lights and night lights that use the new super-bright light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Each light is a combination of color LEDs, and a digital dimming circuit produces rainbow hues. My idea is to group four of these multicolor lights, in a sort of digital clock, one light for each "digit’, but no actual numerals. A separate LED indicates am/pm if desired. This may be for a watch, wall clock, an entire wall...
How to tell time using colors:
Use the electronic resistor code. Black, Brown, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Violet, Gray, and White, correspond to 0 through 9 in sequence. In this case black is "light’s out". To display 12:30, the lights would be brown, red, orange, black.
-- Amos Kito, Dec 03 2002

LED rainbow hue illuminated displays for crystal figurines http://www.crystal-...m/index.cfm?Cat=334
One of these may be used as one "digit". [Amos Kito, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]

LED Clock Applet http://techhouse.br...u/~deigen/th/clock/
This clock is similar to my idea. You can tell the time "to the nearest ten minutes". [Amos Kito, Oct 05 2004]

I like the idea, but it seems like it'd be a jumble of color that'd be tough to read.

I'd rather have one that swept through the hues. Put red at 6:00 AM, yellow at noon, blue at 6:00 PM and purple at midnight, and let all other times be the proper place along the gradient. Gives a nice sense of time as smoothly flowing, rather than arbitrarily divided and subdivided. Maybe have a more specific digital readout that can be turned on/off for those people who have appointments to keep, though.
-- bookworm, Dec 03 2002


Bookworm’s idea would work much better for universal recognition. But if the colors were displayed individually, the on looker would find it difficult to interpret without a reference point (color scale) or prior knowledge of the color "code".
-- edzspace, Dec 03 2002


//have one that swept through the hues//
Sure, why not? Just flip a switch, and all lights operate in unison. There may be a slight learning curve.

//grey light//
And brown is tricky. After a little experimentation, it looks like "pink" and "cyan" can replace grey & brown. If I deviate from the resistor color-code, I can re-sequence the hues, as well. Maybe at certain times, you'll get the good ol' red white & blue. Or blue-white-red... vive la France!
-- Amos Kito, Dec 03 2002



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