Hackaday

A hardware hacker modified a cheap quartz wall clock by gutting its movement and controlling the stepper motor with an ESP8266 microcontroller. The device syncs time via NTP over WiFi, adjusting the clock hands by speeding up or stalling the motor as needed. To handle power outages, an EERAM chip stores the current hand position, allowing the system to recover and maintain accurate time after power is restored. The project demonstrates how repurposing clock mechanisms enables creative applications beyond simple timekeeping.

The WalMart Atomic Clock