In the articles FibonacciClock – An Unusual Time Indicator, FibonacciClock—Assembly other Fibonacci Clock - Programming is described how to build your own Fibonacci Clock.
Just in case you want to give away your self-made FibonacciClock, it is practically to also hand over a manual. For this case, here comes a small manual. 🙂
Safety instructions
I know the following hints are always a bit annoying and seem unnecessary. But unfortunately, many people who knew it "better" from carelessness lost their eyes, fingers or other things or hurt themselves. In comparison, a loss of data is almost not worth mentioning, but even these can be really annoying. Therefore, please take five minutes to read the safety instructions. Even the coolest project is worth no injury or other annoyance. https://www.nerdiy.de/en/sicherheitshinweise/
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Fibonacci Manual
The FibonacciClock represents the time by the first five elements of the Fibonacci sequence.
The "dial" of the clock consists of five squares which represent the first five Fibonacci numbers (1, 1, 2, 3, 5).
The hours are represented by red squares and the minutes by green squares (this color assignment can also be changed). If a square is needed to represent hours and minutes at the same time it is blue. White squares must be ignored. In order to read the time now, the values of the respective squares must be added together and multiplied by five in the case of the minutes. For the hours, the red and blue squares must be added together and for the minutes, the green and blue squares. The minutes are thus displayed in only five minutes steps.
There are several display types for the same time. These are selected at random.
For example, there are 16 different ways to display 06:30.
In addition to the standard color palette, other color palettes can also be set.
Display of the Fibonacci Clock

In order to read the time of the FibonacciClock a few basics must be explained first. On this picture you can see the distribution of the display of the Fibonacci watch. This is divided into five areas. Each of these surfaces has the specified significance. The large red surface marked with a "5" has the value five, the next smaller green glowing surface the value three, the next smaller blue luminous surface the value two and the other two surfaces each the value one.
Read off hours
If you pay close attention, you will surely notice that this is perfectly suited to represent the numbers 1 to 12 which perfectly fits to display the number of hours of a clock.
If, for example, only the area with the value five is lit, it is just five o'clock. If, in addition to the area with the value five, the area with the value two also lights up, these must be added together. This would then correspond to the time seven (2 + 5) o'clock.
In this way it is possible to display all times from 0 (no area illuminated) to 12 (all areas light up).
Read off minutes
All right, now we know how to drain the hours and "calculate" but how do you know now the number of minutes of the displayed time?
Now the different colors come into play. As you may have noticed, the areas glow in either blue, red or green.
And now you can also show the minutes. For example, the watch indicates whether the current weight is just for the number of hours, just the number of minutes, or both.
If an area is red, its value may only be taken into account for the number of hours.
If a surface glows green, its value may only be taken into account for the number of minutes.
On the other hand, if an area is blue, its value must be taken into account for both the number of hours and the number of minutes.
But we are not finished yet, the number of minutes read must now be multiplied by five.
And there we are already at the first small disadvantage of the clock.
Apart from the fact that you need - just at the beginning - a bit longer to read the time, the minute can only be displayed in five-minute increments. This means that 08:43 clock is not shown as 08:43 o'clock but as 08:40. The display thus always rounds off to the previous value divisible by five.
Display examples of the time
ATTENTION: If the clock displays different colors than indicated in this example, then a different color palette is most likely set. How this is switched on or is described in the section "setting".
Cconnection
The clock is powered by a micro USB cable (standard cell phone charging cable) and a corresponding USB power adapter (5V/1000mA).
After connecting the clock, it will take about five seconds for the clock to be displayed.
Overview of connections

Underneath are the buttons with which the clock can be set and operated.
Settings
The clock can be set using the buttons or touch areas on the back.
Set mode
The Fibonacci watch has three different operating modes. The first displays the time using the procedure described above. In the second there is a color change on all luminous surfaces. In the third mode, a color change takes place on each individual illuminated area.
The mode can be changed by pressing the "Mode" button. As a result, no time display is possible in the two color change modes.
set hour
Hold down the "Hour" button and press the "+" or "-" button.
Set minutes
Hold down the "Min" key and press the "+" or "-" key. The minutes are always adjusted in 5-minute increments. So 0.5,10,15,20 …, 50,55,0. (Smaller steps can not be displayed) Therefore, it is advisable to set the minutes when the current "minute time" is just 0.5,10,15,20 ..., 50,55,0.
A direct exact adjustment is otherwise possible via the serial interface. Information about this in the section "Serial interface".
Adjust the brightness
Hold down the "Brightn" key and press the "+" or "-" key.
Set color palette
In clock mode, either press the "+" or "-" key.
Overview of the adjustable color palettes
No. | Surname | color nothing | color minute | color hour | color both |
1 | RGB | White | Green | editor | Blue |
2 | Mondrian | White | editor | Green | Blue |
3 | Basbrun | White | editor | light yellow | lime green |
4 | 80's | White | salmon | Ice white | Pink |
5 | pastel | White | salmon | mint green | light blue |
6 | Modern | White | salmon | light blue | light green |
7 | Cold | White | Violet | Turquoise Blue | ice-blue |
8 | Warm | White | light orange | Green | citrus yellow |
9 | Earth | White | light pink | mint green | Blue |
10 | Dark | White | light pink | mint green | Blue |
Set transitional period of color change
While one of the color change modes is set, either press the "+" or "-" button.
Display on or off
Hold down the "Minute" key and press the "Hour" key.
Setting the timer
The timer can only be set via the serial interface.
You can set the switch-on hour and minute as well as the switch-off hour and minute. In addition, the timer can be switched on or off separately.
The description of the commands can be obtained by entering an unknown command or the command "commands".
Serial interface
In addition to the setting option via the keys, the setting can also be made via the serial interface. To do this, the clock must be connected to a computer via a micro USB cable (for example, what it is powered on).
With a terminal program (for example "HTerm" or the terminal program integrated in the Arduino IDE), the clock can then be addressed at 115200baud. When the clock receives an unknown command or command, it automatically sends all possible commands with the appropriate explanation. All commands must be terminated with a line break (CR). This can be set in the terminal program.
If you have ideas for improvements or additions please let me know by commenting. 🙂
Have fun with the project
I hope everything worked as described. If not or you have any other questions or suggestions, please let me know in the comments. Also, ideas for new projects are always welcome. 🙂
P.S. Many of these projects - especially the hardware projects - cost a lot of time and money. Of course I do this because I enjoy it, but if you appreciate that I share this information with you, I would be happy about a small donation to the coffee box. 🙂