The Harry Potter films are full of fascinating gizmos – with the Weasley family clock, seen in the Chamber of Secrets, a firm fans’ favourite.
And now the magic in the movies has become reality – because tech wizards have invented a real-life version, called the Eta Clock.
The Weasley clock has nine golden hands containing pictures of the Weasley family and showing whether they are at home, school, lost, or even in ‘mortal peril’. The Eta Clock does the same thing – but using GPS rather than magic.
The Eta clock allows the owners to check up on exactly where their friends and relatives are and even track them to different countries
The clock is inspired by the time-piece in the Weasley household, pictured, which has nine golden hands containing pictures of the Weasley family and showing whether they are at home, school, lost, or even in ‘mortal peril’
The whimsical timepiece has several coloured hands that each represent a different person.
But rather than pointing to numbers the hands point to locations, such as home, work, gym, abroad, hospital, school or airport, depending on where the person is.
In order to connect people to the Eta Clock device, friends and family must download an Eta Clock app, create an account and add locations in their mobile app.
The clock uses those locations to determine where your family and friends are located throughout their day. The hands then mimic their movements.
Rather than pointing to numbers the hands point to locations, such as home, work, gym, abroad or airport, depending on where the person is. In order to connect people to the Eta Clock device, friends and family must download an Eta Clock app, create an account and add locations in their mobile app
The Eta clock is designed by husband and wife team Kristie and Eric D’Ambrosio Cornell, who are both MIT-trained engineers.
It is available to buy via their Kickstarter campaign and a pledge of $250 means that you will get a mini version of the clock, delivered later in 2018.
Or if you pledge $2,000 or more, you can work with the designers to get a completely customised clock.
Writing on their Kickstarter page, the pair said: ‘Our connections with those who matter most should manifest in the physical world and feel personal.
‘As inventors and technologists, our mission is to bring modern technology into the homes of everyone with a human-centric approach to connected devices.
‘As craftsmen and artisans, we believe that experience should be beautiful.’