← TrendWatcher
Hacker News
5/10

Metrika

A clock app for desktop and smartwatch that displays time in any of five alternate systems (decimal, 24-hour, hexadecimal, 360-degree, Swatch internet) with focus timers measured in the same units.

Target user

Productivity tinkerers, watch-face collectors, and design enthusiasts who enjoy novelty time systems

Features
  • Five rendered alt-time systems with live updates (decimal 10h/100m/100s, 24h, hex base-16, 360-degree, Swatch .beats)
  • Focus and break timers that respect the chosen system so a 'decimal Pomodoro' equals a 144-minute block
  • Shareable 'time-of-day' cards in each system for posting on social
  • Watch face exports for Apple Watch and Wear OS
Why now

An HN discussion on alternate clock designs resurfaces the alt-time nostalgia just as customizable watch-face platforms (Apple Watch faces, Wear OS) and LLMs make new displays trivial to build.

Signals · overall 5/10
Demand
3/10

HN thread is modest (40 pts/22 comments) and the niche is small; BeatTime, dotBeat and a 'Geek Clock Tool' Chrome extension already serve alternate-time hobbyists, indicating limited mainstream pull.@Beat: Internet time on the App StoreGeek Clock Tool - SpWebGames

Whitespace
5/10

Existing apps each cover only one or two systems (BeatTime = .beat only, dotBeat = .beat only, Geek Clock Tool = many formats but Android/Chrome, no smartwatch focus timer), so a unified five-system desktop+watchface+focus-timer app has some white space, but the niche is already populated.BeatTime: Swatch Internet Time for Apple productsGeek Clock Tool: Explore Unusual Time SystemsLive Binary Clock - Online Hex & Decimal Time

Monetization
3/10

Facer has paid $1M to watch-face designers and top face apps see 1M+ monthly installs, but alternate-time novelty clocks (BeatTime, dotBeat, Geek Clock Tool) are predominantly free utilities; willingness-to-pay for a tinkerer novelty timer is weak.Celebrating $1 million in designer payouts and launching our ... - MediumTop Apple Watch Face Apps: Installs & Revenue | Watch Faces

Longevity
4/10

Alternate-time interest is a decades-old cult niche (Swatch .beat dates to 1998, decimal/hex time discussed since at least the 2000s); steady but not growing.Alternate Clock Designs & Time Systems

Feasibility
9/10

Trivial to build: open-source Swift/SwiftUI Apple-platform reference apps already exist (BeatTime GitHub), watchOS complication APIs are mature, and LLMs/skill code can render alternate bases with minor effort.GitHub - mulot/BeatTime: Apple multi platforms applications displaying ...GitHub - tadaHrd/decimal-clock: An alternate time system

Alternate Clock Designs and Time Systems · 40 points · 22 commentsHacker News · 2026-07-10 (14d ago)