This Holographic Clock Doesn't Require Special Eyewear

Remember 10-15 years ago when every manufacturer seemed to believe that we all desperately wanted 3D TVs? Everyone hated them, because most of them required special glasses to work. The models that didn't require glasses sucked. There are two big lessons we learned from that: nobody cares about 3D movies or TV, and people hate having to put on special eyewear just to watch their programs. Taking that lesson to heart, Fiberpunk designed this nifty holographic clock that doesn't require special glasses to view.

True holographic displays, like the kind you see in sci-fi, are not really possible with our current technology or understanding of the physics of light. For such a display to work, you would need to emit light from a single point in a volumetric medium. You would need to be able to do that for the entire volume, controlling each point individually. We can get kinda close by energizing points with lasers, but those lasers are beams and not points — so we haven't got it right yet.

But there are several ways to create a similar effect. The most economical is to utilize simple refraction or reflection, in the same way as a HUD (Heads-Up Display) or holographic red dot sight for firearms. That's how this clock works. The actual screen is in the base and it emits like upwards, where it refracts through a prism towards the front where the viewer should be. This yields an effect that makes it look like the image is floating above the base. This is a good choice, because it works with a conventional display and an inexpensive prism.

The base contains an ESP32-based development board and a screen. That screen is either an OLED or an LCD — it isn't clear because the Fiberpunk website uses both terms. Based on the cost, resolution, and color depth, we assume that it is an LCD. Above the display is the beam-splitter prism, which provides the refraction. The 3D-printed base looks nice, in a streamlined minimalist way.

The cool part is the firmware, which provides a few different functions. It can display a static image or video, with the time and date overlaid on top. It can also accept a 3D model in STL format, which it will use along with user-set parameters to generate a video of that model rotating. That mode is neat, because it makes the most of the holographic display. When viewed from the optimal angle, it really does look like a 3D hologram.

If you want one of these, you can build it yourself or buy it for $34.99 from fiber-punk.com.