Nixie Star Tube Clock with New and Easy Replaceable IN-14 Tubes - Motion Sensor - Visual Effects - Gift Idea - Premium Gift Packaging

Do you have a nerd in your life? I’m not talking about your garden variety geek, I’m talking about a real nerd’s nerd- someone so hopelessly beyond remission as to find the discussion of old Soviet technology an appropriate dinner table topic. If you know a nerd like that- or, like myself- *are* that nerd, this is the gift for you. I never would’ve anticipated spending $200 on a small decorative clock. In fact, even if you had explained what this was to me and told me that it was well worth the price of admission, I probably still would’ve scoffed at the thought. Let me tell you, this thing is worth the price. I have been casually searching for a good nixie clock implementation for a few years now, but was always disappointed to see that anything in this price range usually contained a partially or entirely plastic build. I figured if I was ever going to spend the money, I was going to do it right. I added the popular PastIndicator to my wishlist and moved on with my life. When I randomly decided to pick up my search again a couple of months ago, I was enthralled to find this option on the market. Handmade, pretty, affordable? What’s not to like? I’m always a little bit skeptical of Amazon’s ability to be an effective middleman for low quantity, delicate gadgetry like this. It would’ve been super disappointing if Firefly (which is seemingly either a small team or maybe even just one guy!) went to the trouble of building this thing and then it got smashed on the way across the pond. Luckily, not only was this not the case, I was shocked to find the product packaged in a custom wooden box almost as beautiful as the clock itself. It even came with multiple layered foam inserts formfitting around each tube to make sure that they didn’t get jostled around in transport. The clock was entirely plug-and-play, after re-seating one of the tubes because it had started to drift in the socket during shipping. The seller even went to the trouble of figuring out my time zone and pre-setting the time and date, which is an incredibly nice gesture considering how easy it is to do myself. Little touches like that speak wonders for the care that’s taken in the rest of the product manufacturing, and instill a lot of confidence when buying something like this sight unseen. There’s two similar listings on Amazon right now, one priced at $180, and one priced at $200. They look to be the same other than this one, the $200 one, appearing in the photos to be manufactured with slightly darker wood. I was a tad bit disappointed upon opening the box to find the wood was lighter than I expected, but the grain was beautiful and the clock itself impressed me so much that I can hardly dock a star for that. I’m glad to pay a $20 “tip” to support something this cool. There are plenty of settings that you would expect such as being able to modify parameters surrounding the “slot machine” mode and motion detection to avoid cathode poisoning. You can also choose to show the date every couple of minutes, 12 versus 24 hour time, blue LEDs lighting up on the PCB (Yuck! Lol, glad it’s turned off out of the box...) and much more. The motion detection itself I have not had a chance to try yet, but I will report back if it doesn’t function as expected. Overall I really could not be more impressed with this thing, and if you’re on the fence about it or comparing it to more expensive nixie clocks I would definitely give it a shot before forking over a kidney for the PastIndicator, as beautiful as that thing looks. Highly impressed. Buy it while it’s still being made!

It arrived early, so I had the birthday boy open it early after 2-3 weeks. It come on with east coast time loaded which meant the clock had kept time unplugged So, the guy I gave it to is a hardware nerd. He immediately started to look at the tubes themselves and stated they were made in the 80’s in Russia. Also, there are a lot of options for setting up the clock. The processor driving this clock isn’t from the 80’s. By the way, the birthday boy had made a kit like this when he was a child, but this one was far better in his opinion. Finally, the kit has a motion sensor. However, it took him two minutes to realize the motion sensing is achieved by the clock carefully controlling the voltage to the Nixie tubes. If the current wavers, then there is motion. So, this is a weird attribute of neon when light levels change. It’s very cool this clock has an AtoD and a DtoA. It would have been simpler to put a motion sensor out there. Instead the designer went for coolness. It’s a delightful piece of engineering.

I purchased this for my massage studio. I love the ambiance it adds to my room. It’s made in Ukraine so that’s a plus to me. I was tired of hearing my clock ticking and this one is totally silent. I little hard for my old brain to follow the instructions to set it, until I watched a great YouTube on how it’s done. Beautiful and well made. Several clients have made positive comments on the addition to my decor.

The wood of this lovely clock is a bit lighter than the pictures but still looks great and is a fun way to see the time. It has a motion sensor to help preserve the tubes and you can also set it to a fixed timetable to only be on between 7am and 10pm. That timing doesn't work for me but I am happy with the motion sensor instead. Worth the money for such a unique timepiece and slice of history. Made in the Ukraine, so it's another good reason to buy it. There might be a wait for shipping, but totally worth waiting for.

The product is beautiful and works well... EXCEPT it does not keep time. It loses about 5 minutes a day, which isn’t really forgivable for a modern, electric clock. I believe it’s due to a problem with the electrical frequency of the design (I’m in the US with a 60 HZ power supply). Regardless, after trying to contact the seller twice through Amazon to figure out how to remedy this problem, only to be met with silence. Sad. Edit: Apparently we had a communication error in earlier correspondence attempts. The vendor saw this review and sent us a replacement along with a shipping label for the defective one. I am happy to report it is the same quality construction and the electronics are working now. Definitely a five star purchase that we will treasure and be proud of for many years to come!