The folks over at Tokyo Flash are at it again with yet another crazy LED watch design that inspires both awe and confusion. This latest optical illusion watch design makes use of the famous (or infamous?) magic eye phenomenon to display the time. Of course to most onlookers the zig-zag pattern will make no sense, but if the owner can train himself to see the time displayed behind the pattern he will be sure to both astound and annoy friends and family.
As a child, I remember uttering my first swear words as a result of those frustrating magic eye pictures. My father told me it was a rabbit, but no matter how much I relaxed my eyes I could never make the picture appear.
I never liked rabbits anyway...
Needless to say I won't be buying this latest watch from Tokyo Flash. But that's not to say that readers out there who have mastered the required Jedi mind-trickery can't pick up one. I confess, I am a little jealous that I can't make these illusions work. And if you hope to induce that same sort of envy among your friends with this LED illusion watch, then perhaps this is just the thing. I suspect this is why the company made the display green!
Even if you can't manage to see the optical illusion, Tokyo Flash has built in a sort of dummy switch that allows you to display the time regularly with the push of a button. Try your hand using the picture below and see if you can decipher the numbers 05:36. Once I was told what to look for, I managed to visualize the time without a problem.
If optical illusions are not your thing, Tokyo Flash has a number of other cleverly designed watches available that we've covered here on Gizmag. So far the company has managed to communicate time via LEDs on a street map watch, an equalizer watch, and even a stained-glass pattern watch. My personal favorite to date is this creative little pocket watch which looks uber modern while retaining an old-style form.
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:p
This watch, however, displays the time by having positive sloped lines outline the number. The background is differentiated by using negative sloped lines.
The technique the watch uses is form of similarity grouping where is mind focuses its attention to parts of the image with a common pattern. It\'s one of Gestalt\'s 5 principles of how humans see the world... and how it can be tweaked.