ChronoBloom v2.35.0

Hand contrast, and the nudge stops asking to be dismissed.

The hour hand now reads as one color everywhere it appears, deep dimming no longer turns orange petals green, and the petal-depth seams stop going green with them. A hand-contrast trial sits behind a wall switch so three candidate mechanisms can be compared on real hardware.

The button acknowledgment of a focus nudge is gone. It is a reminder nudge, not an alarm to be called off: the acknowledgment is looking up and letting it change what you do next, which happens in the room and not on the device. The buttons set the time and nothing else. Every nudge is identical now, so the tenth asks the same way the first did.

Docs: the ring mapping is corrected. Seconds and minutes share the outer 60, the way they share one track of marks on a real clock, and the hour hand is an arrow-shaped spoke across the 24 and the 12. The web UI moved to the top of the README with a screenshot, and the print guide gains the desk-versus-wall back plate choice.

Flash it from the browser at https://maestro8484.github.io/ChronoBloom/flasher/, or put the plain .bin through the clock's own /update page. The zip holds the 8 inch V13 print files and the 15 inch set.

ChronoBloom v2.32.0

Sacrificial-pixel support removed, so every build is now the same 97-LED chain. Flash from the browser at https://maestro8484.github.io/ChronoBloom/flasher/ or attach the plain .bin to the clock's own /update page. The zip holds the 8 inch V13 print files and the 15 inch set.

ChronoBloom v2.31.5

First tagged release. The clock has been running on my wall for a while; this is the point where the repo caught up with it.

Easiest way to install

Go to the browser flasher, plug the board in over USB-C, click Install. Chrome or Edge on a desktop. No toolchain, no account, nothing to set up. That page already serves this version.

The files below are for people who want them directly.

Which file do I want

chronobloom-8inch-v2.31.5-merged.bin is the whole image including the bootloader. Flash it at offset 0 with esptool, or point any ESP Web Tools page at it. This is the same image the browser flasher uses.

chronobloom-8inch-v2.31.5.bin is the app only. Use this one on the clock's own /update page once it is already running.

Both are built for the 8 inch build with public defaults, so there are no WiFi credentials baked in. You set those in the browser on first boot.

What is in it

Time zone is set in the web UI and applies immediately. No compiler, no reflash. A new clock asks you for it up front rather than showing a confidently wrong hour.

Focus nudges escalate if you ignore them, and pressing either button tells the clock you saw it.

Auto brightness is two sliders now: how dim the face goes in a pitch dark room, how bright it goes in full daylight. The light sensor glides it between them.

Petal depth is a dial from 0 to 100, and all three rings shade to one shared profile so the whole face reads as petals instead of just the middle ring.

The mood palettes travel colour from the outer rim inward instead of being one flat wash, and they hold their saturation.

Plus a unified Save with confirmation, bigger touch targets on a phone, and plainer wording throughout.

Building it yourself

git clone https://github.com/Maestro8484/ChronoBloom.git
cd ChronoBloom
pio run

That builds the 8 inch. Pass -e esp32c3_v3_15inch for the 15 inch, which is still experimental.

Worth knowing

The web UI has no password. Anyone who can reach the clock on your network can change every setting and push firmware to it. That is a deliberate trade for something that lives on a wall and gets set up once, but keep it on your home network and do not port-forward it.

If an update ever leaves it unable to boot, there is no automatic rollback. Plug in USB and use the browser flasher again.

Credit

The original NeoPixel Ring Clock was Steve Manley's, in 2015. His 3D printed design is why this exists. Details in the NOTICE file.

Firmware Apache 2.0. 3D files CC BY 4.0.