I don't really need a clock to keep track of my family, seeing as all six hands are probably pointed at "watching Netflix" or some variation most of the time. But if we ever happen to live a little further on the edge, I can take the lead of this guy who recreated Molly Weasley's clock from Harry Potter and formatted it for Muggle use. And no, the clock isn't just a pretty looking recreation you'd find in a prop museum on a studio lot — the clock is crazy functional, and works so well that Arthur Weasley would probably burst into tears if he ever laid eyes on it.
Reddit user tbornottb posted his achievement and explained how it all went down, breaking it down for those of us who do not have godly powers of technology. A quick recap of Molly's clock in the books, in case you've forgotten: rather than tell time, it's hands each represent a member of the Weasley clan, and the hand points to whatever their current location is (at work, at school, in mortal peril, etc). Our Muggle hero started out by buying and gutting out an antique clock to get the aesthetic of the Weasley family's clock, and then, in the words of Matt Damon in The Martian, he "scienced the sh*t out of it."
A friend of his used his specs in Illustrator to print out the design to create a clock face capable of accounting for all five members of his family. He then fit the clock with an particle photon connected to an addressable LED strip, which basically gave him the ability to transmit signals between the clock and a phone. Using the app "If This, Then That," he defined the different zones that qualified as "work" and "home" and other areas, so that whenever a family member entered one of those zones, it would transmit back to the clock and prompt the hand to change to reflect their movements. The LED screen at the bottom even lights up to let him know whenever someone is on the move.
And yes, it's way too technical for an ordinary plebe like me to consider making, but the important takeaway here is that this is possible. We have the technology. And honestly, if I were this guy, I'd be patenting the bejeezus out of it, because as a member of a large-ish family myself, this looks convenient AF. Sure, it might not be so handy for those cliché teenage sneak-out-the-back-window years, but it will for sure come in handy when you're trying to figure out which family member to pester to buy milk on the way home or if you want to know where the heck they are when they're not answering your texts. WEASLEY SWAG.
Images: Warner Bros; Giphy
