Here’s a neat way to tell time. Rather than using hands or digits, the Aspiral Clock consists of a slowly-rotating spiral track with a ball inside, and the time is indicated by the position of the ball. Neat!
This would also make a pretty kicking pet feeder- load up each ‘ring’ of the spiral with an appropriate amount of food, and watch it slowly fall out into their feeding dish.
[thanks, Stuart!]
6 thoughts on “Aspiral Clocks shows time, hypnotizes patient people”
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I think this looks very awesome but why is it $545 to buy one?
@”but why is it $545 to buy one”
I saw these on TV in the UK a few weeks ago (the designer was being interviewed about the clocks and making them etc..). Its $545 to buy one, because they are hand made by as far as I could tell, two people working out of one room, running their own business making them to order. (Its no different than say for example, commissioning an artist to paint you a picture, which would cost in the same kind of price range).
The value of a product isn’t simply the cost of its raw materials. To run any *viable* business, you also have to take into account a lot of other aspects of running a business, e.g. the costs of things like advertising, trade shows, etc.. etc.. etc.. so once you add up all costs involved and then see if you can sell anywhere near the required number of products to generate you a living wage income. That will tell you if you can even achieve a viable business, but then its a case of Supply and Demand, of working out how best to pitch your product, as the cheaper it is, the more you can sell, but perhaps you are targeting a small niche market which wouldn’t give you bigger sales no matter how low you made its price. Interestingly pitching to low changes the perception of your product which can reduce the number of products you sell rather than increase them. You need to create an expectation of value for money, a lot of people are put off anything that seems to near a price range they would label cheap junk. So you can go to low with the price of a product.
Pricing is a very tough choice and one that inexperienced business people seem to get wrong all to often by pitching to low to create a *sustainable* business (they can run for a while, then the first gap or drop in sales kills their business). (I know, I’ve learned the hard way by making the same mistakes myself, so its something I now try very hard to learn from others and its a mistake I keep seeing being made. We can all play price wars by undercut each other but it quickly pushes most products into non-viable businesses. The thing to learn is how to sell “value added†in that the creation process is part of the value in the product you create. Its part of the story of its creation. Some people will pay for hand made products and its here where we can compete with the bigger companies who don’t do hand made very well).
This question of what price to pitch a product at is a massive issue for all makers, artists, engineers and designers who want to gain some freedom by becoming self employed. I got the impression from the TV show interview it was very much a niche market product, but good on them for making a go of it. I don’t however believe viewers of this website are the target market for this product, its pitched more towards being a high value artistic concept market. (Personally I don’t go much for that market but I say good luck to them for trying).
Hmmmm, how could I make one of these? Surely it can’t be too hard…