Getting Started
| Page | Description |
|---|
| Status | The home page. Shows live readings from the clock — the time it is currently displaying, the ambient light level from its sensor, your network connection (IP address, signal strength, WiFi mode), and system health such as free memory and uptime. If something is not working, start here to confirm the clock is powered on and connected. |
| WiFi | Scan for wireless networks and connect the clock to your home network. Once a network is saved, the clock reconnects to it automatically every time it powers on, so you normally only do this once. |
| Configure | The main settings page, where you control how the clock looks and what the banner shows. All of its options are explained in the sections below. |
| Messages | Compose your own messages that scroll across the banner alongside the weather and news. Each message can have its own colour, an optional icon, and an optional start/end time so it appears only when you want it to. |
| Themes | Design the colour scheme used for the clock face — the digits, the separator dots, and the small labels — and have the clock rotate through several themes automatically. Available on hardware v4 and v5. |
| Help | This page. Use it as a reference for what every setting and feature does. |
General Settings
Basic preferences for the clock: its network name, how the time is shown, and which extra items appear on the banner.
| Setting | Description |
|---|
| Hostname | The name the clock goes by on your local network. Once set, you can open this interface from any browser by typing the name followed by .local (for example dotclock.local) instead of hunting for its IP address. The default is dotclock- followed by part of the device's unique MAC address. Use a short name with no spaces or special characters. |
| Timezone | Sets your local time zone so the clock shows the correct time. Daylight-saving changes are applied automatically on the right dates — you never need to adjust the clock by hand. |
| Language | Sets the language of the day-of-week and month names shown on the banner, and selects which regional news feed is used when news is enabled. It does not change the language of this web interface. |
| Font Style | Picks one of four dot-matrix typefaces for the time digits, changing the look of the numbers. Hardware v2 and v3 only. |
| 12-Hour Format | Switches between 12-hour time with an AM/PM indicator (1–12) and 24-hour time (0–23). Turn it on for the format common in the US and UK; leave it off for 24-hour time. |
| No Leading Zero | In 12-hour mode, drops the leading zero from the hour — so the clock shows 9:30 rather than 09:30. Has no effect in 24-hour mode. |
| Rotate 180° | Turns the whole display upside-down, for clocks mounted on a ceiling or hung the other way up. Hardware v2 and v3 only. |
| Show News | Adds scrolling news headlines to the banner, between the time and the weather items. The headlines come from a news source chosen by your Language setting. |
| Rainbow Clock Digits | Draws the time digits in a moving rainbow gradient instead of the solid colour from your current theme. The effect also applies to the clock's start-up and transition animations. Turn it off to return to a single theme colour. |
Weather & Info
The banner shows each item you switch on below, one after another. Every value is fetched automatically for your location — there is nothing to type in and no API key required.
| Item | Description |
|---|
| Temperature | The current outdoor air temperature at your location. |
| Humidity | The current outdoor relative humidity, as a percentage. High values mean damp, muggy air; low values mean dry air. |
| UV Index | The current ultraviolet radiation level from the sun. Higher numbers mean a greater risk of sunburn and a stronger case for sun protection. |
| Precipitation (mm) | How much rain or snow is expected during the current forecast period, measured in millimetres. |
| Precipitation % | The chance that rain or snow will fall (0–100%). This is separate from the amount above — show the probability, the amount, or both. |
| Wind | The current wind speed at your location. |
| Weather Alerts | Official severe-weather warnings for your area, such as storms, heat, or flooding. This item appears on the banner only while a warning is actually in effect, so most of the time it stays hidden. |
| Sunrise / Sunset | Today's sunrise and sunset times, calculated from your location's latitude and longitude. |
Adaptive Brightness
The clock has a built-in light sensor and constantly adapts the panel brightness to the room — bright in daylight, dim at night — so it stays readable without dazzling you in the dark.
| Setting | Description |
|---|
| Min Brightness | The lowest level the display is allowed to dim to in a dark room (16–128). Raise it if the clock fades too far and becomes hard to read at night; lower it if it is still too bright to sleep beside. |
| Day Start / Night Start | Two hours (0–23) marking the beginning and end of "daytime". Full brightness is only permitted within this window; outside it, the display is held closer to Min Brightness. Set these to roughly when you wake up and when you go to sleep. |
| Night Theme | Outside the daytime window, the clock automatically switches to a softer, lower-contrast colour palette that is easier on the eyes in a dark room. Turn this off to keep the same colours around the clock. |
| Turn Off When Dark | Rather than just dimming, the display turns off completely when the light sensor reads almost no light — for example when you switch the room lights off at night. It comes back on by itself as soon as light returns. |
| Daytime Min Only | Applies the Min Brightness floor during daytime hours only. At night the display is then free to fade darker than the minimum, for the dimmest possible night-time glow. |
Connectivity & Location
Network and regional settings. These rarely need changing once the clock is online.
| Setting | Description |
|---|
| WiFi Region | The regulatory domain for your country. It sets which WiFi channels the clock may use, keeping it compliant with local radio rules. If you are unsure, choose World (00), which uses the most widely permitted settings. |
| Enable IPv6 | Turns on IPv6 networking alongside the standard IPv4. Most home networks work fine without it, so leave it off unless you specifically need IPv6. |
| Location | Your latitude and longitude, worked out automatically from the WiFi networks the clock can see around it. This is what the weather forecast and the sunrise/sunset times are based on — there is nothing to enter by hand. |
WiFi Setup
Use the WiFi page to connect the clock to your home network for the first time.
| Step | Description |
|---|
| 1. Scan | Open the WiFi page. The clock scans for networks nearby and lists them with the strongest signal at the top. |
| 2. Select | Tap the network you want to join. A panel opens showing the network name and a box for the password. |
| 3. Connect | Type the password and press "Connect". The clock joins the network and remembers it, so it reconnects on its own every time it restarts. |
| Fallback AP | If the clock cannot reach any network it has saved — for example after you change your router's password — it creates its own temporary WiFi network named after its hostname. Connect a phone or laptop to that network, open this interface, and set up WiFi again. |
Custom Messages
Create your own messages that scroll across the banner together with the weather and news — handy for reminders, greetings, or anything else. Up to 32 colours are available; the palette itself is defined on the Themes page.
| Field | Description |
|---|
| Text | The words that will scroll across the display. Longer messages take more time to scroll past, so keep them reasonably short for a snappy banner. |
| Color | The colour the message is drawn in, picked from the 32 saved colour slots. The whole palette is shown at the bottom of the Messages page. |
| Icon | An optional small picture shown just to the left of the text, chosen from the clock's built-in icon library. Leave it as "No icon" for text only. |
| Start / End DateTime | Optionally limit a message to a specific date-and-time window — handy for a birthday or an event. Leave both fields empty and the message shows at all times. |
| Saving | Press "Save Messages" to write your whole list to the clock; changes appear the next time the banner cycles around. Use "Reload" to discard unsaved edits and fetch what is currently on the device. |
Colour Themes
A theme is a set of four colours used by the clock face: the time digits, the separator dots, the small labels, and the values beside them. Build several themes and the clock rotates through them automatically. Hardware v4 and v5 only.
| Setting | Description |
|---|
| Enabled In Rotation | Controls whether a theme takes part in the automatic rotation. Only enabled themes are shown on the clock; disabled ones stay saved but are skipped. |
| Night Rotation | Marks a theme to be used during the night-time window instead of the daytime set. For this to take effect, the Night Theme setting in Adaptive Brightness must be turned on. |
| Preview | Tap any colour swatch on a theme to send it straight to the clock, so you can see it on the real display without saving first. |
| Reorder | Use the up/down arrow buttons on each theme card to change the order the themes appear in during the rotation. |
Data Sources
Everything shown on the banner is fetched from public online services. No personal information is sent from the clock — only your approximate location is used, and only to request the local weather forecast.
| Source | Provider |
|---|
| Weather | Current conditions and daily and hourly forecasts from the Google Weather API. |
| Weather Alerts | Severe-weather warnings from the Italian Civil Protection (DPC) bulletins and shapefiles, and the Meteoalarm Atom feed for the rest of Europe. |
| DPC Alerts | CAP and Vigilanza warnings taken from the official DPC daily hydrogeological and meteorological bulletins. |
| Earthquakes | Recent earthquake data from the USGS Earthquake API. |
| International News | Headlines from the BBC World News RSS feed. |
| Italian News | Headlines from the RaiNews RSS feed. |
| Spanish News | Headlines from the El País RSS feed. |
| French News | Headlines from the France24 RSS feed. |
| Malayalam News | Headlines from the Asianet News API. |