Flip Clock: Fullscreen Retro Clock for Your Desk
A flip clock puts the hour and minute on separate cards so you can read them from across the room. Leave it fullscreen on a spare screen or an iPad and the page stays awake.
How to use
Open the page and two cards fill the window: hours, then minutes. There is no colon between them. A thin hinge line runs across the screen at the middle of the cards, and each card is split so the digit reads as one piece. Move the pointer or tap the glass if the bars have faded. Press F for fullscreen on a desktop, or use the expand button in the top bar. Press S for settings. Seconds are off, so the face updates once a minute. Turn seconds on when you want a third card.
Set it up on an iPad or second screen
A flip clock works as a screensaver on a second monitor or an iPad on a stand. Put the browser window on the spare display and press F, or set the iPad at the back of the desk. In Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen, and open the clock from the new icon so the browser bars stay hidden. The page asks for a wake lock, which keeps the screen on while this tab is open. iPadOS can still sleep from its own Auto-Lock timer, so set Auto-Lock to Never on a device you leave running. For a lobby or a kitchen, turn on Guided Access under Settings, then Accessibility, and start it with a triple-click of the side button. At night, open settings and set Dim to 40.
Customize it
Style is already Flip on this page. Card style can be Classic, Minimal, or Glass. Classic adds a soft shade on each half and a line along the split. Minimal is flat. Glass is translucent with a blur, which needs something behind the page to show through. Flip animation plays the fall and the settle. Turn it off, or set the flip parameter to 0, and the number changes in place. The hinge line can be hidden. Hour format, AM/PM, date, and time zone work the same way as the digital clock. Theme and font are shared across tools on this site, so a theme you saved earlier still wins when you come back. Values that match these defaults stay out of the link.
| Setting | URL param | Allowed values | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| Style | style | Digital (digital), Flip (flip) | Flip (flip) |
| Card style | card | Classic (classic), Minimal (minimal), Glass (glass) | Classic (classic) |
| Flip animation | flip | On (1) or off (0) | On |
| Hinge lineThin line across the screen at the cards' middle. | hinge | On (1) or off (0) | On |
| Seconds | seconds | On (1) or off (0) | Off |
| Blinking colon | blink | On (1) or off (0) | Off |
| Layout | layout | Stacked (stacked), Inline (inline), Minimal (minimal) | Stacked (stacked) |
| Hour format | format | 24-hour (24h), 12-hour (12h) | 24-hour (24h) |
| AM/PMShown on 12-hour clocks. | ampm | On (1) or off (0) | On |
| Leading zero09:05 instead of 9:05 on a 12-hour digital clock. Flip hours are never padded. | zero | On (1) or off (0) | On |
| Date | date | Off (off), Short (short), Long (long) | Off (off) |
| Time zone | tz | local, or an IANA time zone name | local |
| Theme | theme | Midnight (midnight), Carbon (OLED) (carbon), Paper (paper), Forest (forest), Dusk (dusk), Ocean (ocean), Aurora (aurora), Terminal (terminal), Graphite (graphite), Porcelain (porcelain) | Graphite (graphite) |
| Font | font | System (sans), JetBrains Mono (mono), Space Grotesk (grotesk), Fraunces (serif), Bebas Neue (condensed), Orbitron (digital), Condensed Bold (flip) | Condensed Bold (flip) |
| Scale | scale | 50–150, step 5% | 100% |
| Dim | dim | 0–80, step 5% | 0% |
| Burn-in shiftNudge the display a few pixels so a static clock does not mark the screen. | shift | On (1) or off (0) | On |
Keyboard shortcuts
These keys work when focus is not in a text field. The shell handles fullscreen, settings, hiding the bars, and this list. Press T to switch between 12-hour and 24-hour time. Press D to cycle the date: off, short, then long. The date sits under the cards when it is on. Press the question mark whenever you need the full list again.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| F | Fullscreen |
| S | Settings |
| H | Hide or show the interface |
| ? | Keyboard shortcuts |
| Esc | Close |
| T | Toggle 12-hour and 24-hour |
| D | Cycle the date style |
Why flip clocks are easy to read from across a room
Each card holds one part of the time, so you are not parsing a string of digits and colons. The hour is one block and the minute is the next. The type is tall, condensed, and high contrast against the card. On a 12-hour face the hour drops the leading zero, so 1 sits in the middle of the card, and AM or PM sits in the lower left of that card only. A 24-hour face shows 13 with no badge. The split through the middle of the glyph is the hinge, which is the shape people already know how to read. The cards are large, few, and still.
FAQ
How do I use this as a flip clock screensaver on an iPad?
Open the page in Safari, tap Share, and choose Add to Home Screen. Launch it from that icon so the address bar stays hidden, then leave the iPad on a stand. The page requests a wake lock while it is open. iPadOS can still lock from Auto-Lock, so set that timer to Never. For a shared room, start Guided Access with a triple-click of the side button. At night, set Dim to 40 so the backlight softens.
Can I add a seconds card?
Yes. Press S and turn Seconds on, or add seconds=1 to the address. A third card appears and flips every second. Turn it off again and the face returns to hours and minutes, updating once a minute. Seconds are off on this page by default because a card that moves every second is more motion than a desk usually needs. The hours card still flips only when the hour changes.
Why does the hour show 1 instead of 01?
Flip hours are never padded. A 12-hour face shows 1, not 01, with AM or PM in the lower left of the hours card when that marker is on. Minutes and seconds stay two digits, so 5 past is 05. A 24-hour face shows 13 with no badge. The leading-zero setting still applies to the digital clock. It does not put a zero back on a flip hour.
Will leaving the cards up all day mark the screen?
A bright static image can mark some OLED panels if the same pixels stay lit for months. Burn-in shift is on by default. The cards nudge a few pixels and never repeat the previous offset, so the wear does not sit in one spot. The move is small, and the time stays readable from across the room. Set the shift parameter to 0 if you want the cards fixed. A lower Dim value also eases the panel at night.
Does it keep the right time after the network drops?
The time comes from the device clock, not from a request on each tick. Once the page is open, losing the network does not stop the cards. A reload needs the page to be available, from the network or from the copy the browser kept. Theme, font, and the flip settings are stored in this browser. There is no account. Clearing site data for this host removes the saved look.