Super-thin, meter-long e-ink clock makes time gorgeous

In 1997, the MIT Media Lab spun off a company called E Ink that promised to change the way the displays on our electronics look. Since then, e-ink displays have primarily shown up on e-reader devices like Barnes & Noble's Nook and the Amazon Kindle. They've also worked their way into some watches and cell phones as well. Unlike other types of display, e-ink doesn't work with a backlight. Instead, it relies on millions of tiny black and white capsules suspended in fluid to flip around to create text. This results in a display that looks very paper-like.

Now a former E Ink employee, Andy Mitchelides, has launched a Kickstarter campaign to bring e-ink to a wall clock that definitely adds a wow factor to time telling.

The timepiece is called the ClockOne and was designed by Mitchelides' company Twelve24 in conjunction with designer Chris Lenart from Lenartstudios. It gets its name because it's 1 meter long and uses one battery that provides power for one year.

It measures just 5 millimeters thick (less than the thickness of a pencil), weighs only 5 pounds and is mounted with a simple self-leveling magnetic bracket. The clock is made from what Twelve24 says is "the largest die-cut E Ink display ever made."

In keeping with its clean, simple aesthetic, the clock is set with two buttons that placed as the colon separating the hour and minutes, and a small switch converts it from normal to military time. The E Ink display makes it look almost like the numbers are printed on their acrylic frame -- until they change.

The $400 early-bird clocks are already gone and in just two days, the campaign has raised over $40,000 toward its $200,000 goal. Buy you can still snag a ClockOne for $500 (about £314, AU$580), which is still a $100 discount off the expected retail price. The clocks are available in five colors: pink oasis, mai tai, bright moss, blue sky and snow white. A sixth color named battleship is planned as a stretch goal.