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It’s no secret that most of us use smartphones to check the time. This fact, sadly, makes an actual clock in houses and offices almost an obsolete item. But if you are into design and aesthetics, you will love these clocks that are unique and versatile.

Time Slider clock created by Sweden-based designer Hans Andersson combines the elegance of an analog clock with the readability of a digital clock. Although it looks like a digital clock, it doesn’t actually contain a digital display. Instead, it shows four sliders, which look like pixels and are actually 3D-printed frames. When time changes, one or more of the of eight vertical sliders move up or down to change the digits to tell the specific hour or minute.

Each digit contains three columns and five rows of pixel-like squares. An open square in a slider allows the bright red back plate to show, mimicking an “on” pixel, while a closed square only shows its own black surface, like an “off pixel.” It is made using an Arduino Mega 2560 board, a real-time clock (RTC) module, ULN2003 motor drivers, wires, and a power supply. All of the mechanical parts, aside from some fasteners and steel wire, are 3D-printed.

The design can be scaled up or down to the desirable size. The clock doesn’t have any buttons to set the time so it must be configured and code uploaded.

Task Time clock by Dominic is an elementary device but an ingenuous one too. It comprises a clock with a set of colourful magnets that can be used to assign tasks at certain times of the day. The design could be a great low-tech alternative to using a smartphone to tell time and access the alarm or the calendar. All the user needs to do is to set the magnets on the clock’s face as indicators of when they need to start a task and make a note of the task on the legend on its side.

The design is intended to be used both as a task clock for a manager and an educational toy for children learning how to read time. The child can use magnets as visual indicators to help understand how a day is split between story time, playtime, lunchtime, nap time, and home time.

Although SEEK has been conceived to reimagine the conventional computer mouse, it is also an unusual take on a table clock design. When Seoul-based product designer Juwon Lee of Dawn BYSJ noticed that most of the time (when not in use) a mouse sits useless on the table, adding to the clutter on the desk’s surface, he has devised an egg-shaped object that consists of two parts – a mouse and a clock – that generate decorative value when joined together.

The back of the clock is covered with the same fabric material and is of the same colour as the mouse, while its front has the same terrazzo-like surface as the bottom of the mouse. The embedded monochromatic display gives the piece a minimalist appeal. The two halves can be joined together when the work is done serving as a small ritual for ending the workday.

Both parts can be used separately, the clock standing on its own as a stylish desk decoration.