Recreating A Popular Faux-Nixie Clock

You’ve likely come across “Nixie clocks” online that swap the classic cold cathode tubes with similarly sized LCD panels. These panels can display animations or images that mimic Nixie tubes or even show entirely different visuals, offering a cheaper and easier alternative to the real thing. It’s a clever hack, and that’s what makes it appealing.

Trung Tran appreciated the concept but preferred to create his own custom version rather than buy a pre-made clock. His design uses an ESP32-S3 microcontroller, which connects to WiFi and syncs the time via the Network Time Protocol (NTP). To ensure accuracy over time, a PCF8563 real-time clock (RTC) module is used. The six displays are connected to a custom PCB backplane and can show any desired digits or graphics, allowing for customization of fonts or even entirely different animations, as seen in a demo where the panels display the “digital rain” effect from The Matrix.

While not much technical information has been released about this project yet, the Open Source Hardware logo on the PCB and the “Part 1” label on the project page suggest that more details will likely be shared in the future.

For now, this project demonstrates a creative way to blend retro aesthetics with modern technology, offering the freedom to experiment with various styles and animations in place of traditional Nixie tubes.

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