Antique clocks are a problem because you have to wind them

[cimorene]

I think a clock that chimed every hour would be really helpful to me. It would be like having an alarm that goes off once an hour, but totally benign, instead of making me jump like an alarm. It would be nicer if the church belltower did - belltower chimes are the best ones, I think. Meanwhile lots of clocks don't even tick now, which I find very annoying, because I like to listen for the ticks and count them.

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

I am so with you.

I have a wonderful old mantel clock that belonged to my great grandfather. I haven't wound it in a while but I definitely used to use it. It has quarter hour chimes and a beautiful soft TICK.

[cimorene]

I would probably wind one occasionally if I had it, but I could never remember it regularly with the adhd. Maybe I could find an electric hard wired one with a chime though and just have an electrician to put it in.

[ursamajor]

I loved hearing the bells from the church down the street every quarter-hour when we lived in Cambridge. Far away enough that it was background noise, but loud enough that we could hear them and feel like part of the flow of time. It reminded me of the small clock my grandparents had that played those bells.

At some point, I had downloaded a Westminster Chimes app for my phone, but I think it's gotten offloaded to save storage space. It was lovely to have, though.

Maybe someday we'll have a mechanical clock that plays the chimes again. (On a related note, I actually want to restore our house's original wired doorbell functionality, especially with one where we could make the chimes play what we want.)

[cimorene]

Yes, I spent a lot of time on a university campus in my childhood and I loved the chimes!

[cimorene]

We just hired an electrician to install a doorbell for us. Very worth it! He did the whole thing and brought the device with him (bc we said just the standard kind please) and he was done very quickly.

[isilya]

One of the crazier elements of my crazy upbringing was that my parents collected Significant antique clocks. There were at least two grandfather clocks in each public room, and probably upwards of sixty clocks in total. They all kept different time and had different kinds of ticking sounds and chimes/gongs/melodies--some chimed every 15 minutes! And then because the time was different on them all (and wrong on every single one) sometimes the chiming/gonging cacophony announcing the hour would continue over 15 minutes.

To this day I cannot bear the sound of ticking.

[cimorene]

Hahaha omg! That sounds wild. Like being in a clock museum!

[yvannairie]

I've definitely seen Raspberry Pi's used to drive simple chimes in conjunction with a clock that may or may not tick, but I don't know how much technical expertise something like that would be to set up. If you have a spare phone, it would probably be easier to make alarms for each hour, and give it a chime like ring for alarms.

[cimorene]

That does sound plausible but... I like the idea of an analog clock with a percussive chime better. That would be so much trouble to arrange, though.

We have an antique clock that doesn't tick already though, and an antique weather station, and just looking at them as so pleasing.

[barbaratp]

Eu tenho um relógio antigo de pilha, ele faz tic tac mas quase não ouço porque a geladeira é barulhenta. Aqui os sinos da igreja tocam as 18h em ponto para chamar para a missa. Eu também gostaria de ter relógios que avisassem as horas, antigamente era tão comum. Eles cantavam os badalar suave de casa hora e você nem precisava olhar para onde estavam para se posicionar no tempo.

[cimorene]

Exactly! That's what I want it for, but the sound is also pretty.

The church tower in our town only chimes for weddings and funerals and for Sunday services.

[barbaratp]

Aqui os sinos da paróquia de santo Antônio algumas ruas abaixo toca todo dia às 18h o que eu adoro. Domingo também toca de manhã, mas nunca prestei atenção em qual bora exatamente