Discover the Unique SpaceTime Blade Clock by Urwerk

If you ever dreamed of owning a lightsaber that also tells time, the independent Swiss watchmaker Urwerk has you covered. The company has unveiled a limited edition “SpaceTime Blade” clock that features vintage digital tubes showcasing an array of quirky time and astronomical measurements.

Urwerk is renowned for its eccentric and sophisticated timepieces and exotic case materials, designed to captivate attention and spark conversations. Now, the company is developing the SpaceTime Blade, a product that measures 1.7 meters (67 inches) in length, weighs 20 kilograms (44 pounds), and is primarily composed of a huge glass tube, making it completely unconventional for a wristwatch product.

According to Urwerk, the purpose of this timepiece is to evoke early medieval clocks, which were unexpectedly elaborate and aimed to replicate various celestial motions. Regarding SpaceTime Blade, it not only displays time and date but also shows the distance Earth travels in a day and a year.

The base of the SpaceTime Blade is a crown-shaped pedestal made of bronze, using a lost wax casting technique that dates back to ancient Greece. In this process, a problematic item is first carved out of wax, enabling intricate detailing. This wax original is then encased in plaster or some other molding medium. Molten bronze is poured in through a series of small holes, replacing the wax as it melts away. Once cooled, the mold is opened, and the bronze piece is polished, buffed, and then coated with a layer of copper dust.

However, the standout feature is the handcrafted domed glass tube containing eight Nixie tubes used for display. Nixie tubes were a popular form of digital display production method from the 1950s to the 1970s, before the development of LCDs and LEDs.

Within the Nixie tubes of the SpaceTime Blade, each device consists of a sandwich of steel cathodes shaped like digits, each 0.1mm thick, held in a metal anode cage, sealed in a low-pressure glass bulb containing a mix of neon and argon gases. When current passes through one of the metal digits, it emits an orange-red glow. It may look a bit outdated, but the company claims the display changes at a rate of up to 500 times per second.

It can function, but each Nixie bulb requires assembly of 88 handcrafted parts. The SpaceTime Blade comprises a total of 1446 components. With the accompanying remote control, the SpaceTime Blade can display hours, minutes, and seconds; hours, minutes, seconds precise to a hundredth of a second; day, month, year.

Notably, this clock can also demonstrate how many kilometers Earth has rotated on its axis in a day or around the sun in a day or year to date.

Co-founder of Urwerk, Felix Baumgartner, stated: “We will continue to explore the relationship between time and space. As early as the 19th century, Gustave Sandoz created a clock that counted down not in hours but in kilometers, making this relationship visible. This entirely original instrument reminds us that we are just passengers on Earth’s spaceship, hurtling through the galaxy at astonishing speeds. It’s this concept that we now interpret through the ‘SpaceTime Blade,’ making our journey visible; converting the 940 million kilometers we travel around the sun each year into hours, minutes, and seconds.”

If you desire one, the SpaceTime Blade is limited to 33 units, each priced at 55,000 Swiss Francs (approximately 61,000 USD).

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