Motion-activated clock only turns on when commanded

While some of us can fall asleep anywhere from a noisy auditorium to a brightly lit train station, others are more picky, requiring quiet and darkness to fall asleep. [Craig Lindley] likes to minimize the light when he's trying to sleep and decided to build himself a simple clock that wouldn't disturb his sleep.

The basic concept was to build a clock that would only display the time on command. In this case, this command would be a hand gesture in front of the clock. The build is based on a Lilygo ESP32 T-Display unit, which combines the ESP32 with an LCD display and battery management system. The ESP32's WiFi connection provides accurate time by querying an NTP server. A passive infrared motion sensor is used to detect the movement of the user's hand in front of the clock.

While all kinds of clocks and clock radios are available, few are motion-activated. [Craig's] work is a great demonstration of building your own solutions to your problems. We've also seen other handy motion detection tricks before!