Clock Thing 3 Notes

Notes on use of Phillip's Clock Thing 3 (https://is.gd/f0MLrw).

User Manual

File PhillipsClockThing3_vN.pdf is the current user manual. For a clock that usually has only one input in the form of the daylight savings switch, you would think there is little that you need to know. But on the other hand ...

Software Updates

This software update is to be performed on a desktop or laptop PC. It has been demonstrated (Sept-2025) on a Linux system running the Brave browser and a macOS system running the Safari browser. It relies on a Javascript based tool so it should almost run anywhere that has Javascript (check this if it doesn't run).

Overview and preparation

1. you will open the Adafruit WebSerial ESPTool web page in a new browser tab, and use it to perform the update. Open this link in a new tab;
2. we need four binary files for the update so open this ClockThing3 cloud storage area  (https://is.gd/jpMTHl) in another new tab, and then click and download all four .bin files (remember the download location);
3. plug the clock into a USB port of your computer.

Procedure

We first connect the Adafruit ESPTool to the plugged-in clock. Locate the connect button in the top right (see next image) and click it.

A drop down menu appears to allow selection of the computer port attached to the clock. Select one with a name like USB Serial ("ttyUSB0" on Linux, "cu.usbserial-1420" on macOS) or similar, and press the blue Connect as shown next. The ESPTool will establish communications with the clock and display its ID info such as "Chip is ESP32-S3" etc.

After ESPTool recognises the clock, the web page will change and provide text entry fields to allow us to specify the files to download - see the next image.

However, if the initialisation fails and you see a message about an error opening the port, refresh the web page in the browser and try again.

You now need to enter these offset numbers for each selected file:

0           esp32_lcd_clock.ino.bootloader.bin

8000     esp32_lcd_clock.ino.partitions.bin

10000   esp32_lcd_clock.ino.bin

e000     boot_app0.bin

i.e. enter the number in the left column (above) and then click on "Choose a file" to choose the corresponding file in your download area. When you have entered details for the 4 files, your browser page will look like the top part of:

You can now press Program and wait. When the process finishes, you should see the messages in the lower dark screen part of the previous image. Finally, reset the clock by unplugging it and then plug it back into its power supply or the computer so it restarts.