We are a group of enthusiasts who love old computers and hardware. We also love old technologies that were created by people for people, there is some kind of magic in them. When you turn on an old computer and listen to the knocking of a hard drive or copy data to a floppy, the computer seems to speak to you with these sounds. We love nixie tubes because they bring warmth into our lives and remind us of the good times when devices had soul and style. It is very sad to see when some technologies are forgotten. We want to truly revive the production of IN-16 tubes and present you our first product Quantum Watch!

The era of Nixie Tubes ended in the 90’s. The LED replaced them very quickly with its cheapness and ease of use, losing its “soul”. Although production stopped (in 1993-95 the last batches of these lamps came off the assembly line) equipment and the process of manufacturing remained on paper and in people’s memory. In search of these technologies, we came across the largest as we understood plant that produced Nixie Tubes located in Ukraine. In 2021 we visited Ukraine and find the people who still remember how to produce these tubes.  We also received documentation (this is a treasure) for the production of nixies. It was also very interesting for us to look at the equipment for the production of tubes, equipment is 70-80% preserved and is able to work after minor repairs and upgrades.

■Quantum Watch

We made many attempts and mistakes and tested a large number of designs, before came to a form that satisfied us both visually and practically. This design of the watch allows you to highlight the lamps in all their beauty and keep the compact size, as well as protect them from scratches and damage from falling (or careless use).

Quantum Watch is made according to a unique design and modern technologies, and not similar to all other tube watches available in the market.

A unique style that includes a combination of “steampunk”, retro-futurism and the most modern. A style that is unlike any other, emphasizes your personality and character. Popularity and trend that is and always will be.

Designers who worked on this project were able to create what is not noticeable at first glance, the design of the back of the watch.We pay attention to details, so wearing comfort is very important. The back cover of the watch has a special design that sits comfortably on your hand.  We tried many designs before we got the perfect one.

Each Quantum Watch has a serial number encoded in binary form.  We did this  because it reminds us of the days when people programmed in Machine Codes, it has a soul.

■Features

Quantum Watch have compact dimensions of 40*54*16.6 mm and in combination with unearthly design, they are number one in the uniqueness of design among tube watches.

Many manufacturers of Nixie watches have decided to use wireless charging, but our watch has enough charge for 20-25 days and up to 10+ days with the accelerometer ON.  Greater autonomy eliminates the use of wireless charging, no need to be charge every day,  and it increases the battery life. We have installed an easy-to-use magnetic connector that fits harmoniously into the design and looks futuristic.

Quantum Watch is available in the following materials:

■ Heavy Duty Aluminum (Polished and Red);

■ Titanium 4Al-3Mo-1V (Black color);

The watch is made on the 5-axis machining center, it allows you to mill aluminum and high-strength titanium (Ti) alloys.  Each watch is made of a solid piece of metal. The resulting surfaces after this processing are very accurate (to 0.0001 mm) and provides a perfect fit of the case parts to each other.  We use titanium screws in a watch.

Quantum Watch use accelerometer to display time.  Nixie Tubes light up when you press the button or raise your wrist to wake and activate them.  The Watch detects the movement of your wrist. Nixie lamps will show you time with their warm nixie light.

Wearing a quantum watch on your hand, you will feel it is not something extraneous, but an extension of your hand.

■Menu

If you want to  setup the tilt function or switch time format (12 or 24) or setup the time you can easily do it by going to the watch menu.   Just hold down the button to open menu.  Switching between items is possible by clicking.

■ Setup Accelerometer

Displaying ’11‘ means the accelerometer is enabled, display ’00’ means the accelerometer is disabled:

■ Switch time format

Displaying ’12‘ mean the USA time format, displaying ’24‘ mean the EUROPE and ASIA time format:

■ Pressing the button scrolls through the menu:

Quantum Watch also have:

■ Indicators of hours and minutes, or am/pm (green illumination on top of the tubes);

■ The backlight at the bottom of the lamps will blink if the battery is completely discharged;

■ Energy saving mode that starts when the discharge is up to 20%, the brightness of the lamps is reduced by 40%, which allows to save the charge;

■ Deep sleep mode, if the watch is not moved for more than 1 hour, a deep sleep will be initiated, in this mode the watch can work for more than 30 days.  After a deep sleep, the watch must be woken up by pressing a button;

■ Watch stores the position of the accelerometer settings even when the battery is discharged. No need to enable this function every time after charging. When you charge the watch, tilt function will turn on automatically if it was turned on before.

■Developing

The development process started a few years ago and it was very exciting for us. We learned a lot during the product development process. We spent a lot of time and put our souls into this project.

■About Tubes

Communicating with some peoples who worked at the Gasotron factory in the past and who sell lamps, we learned a lot of interesting information. The sale of old nixie lamps is a big industry these days,people hunting for lamps, looking for them in old military warehouses, old labs in educational establishments, and just on eBay and another places. China buy old soviet tubes very strongly, they buy tubes in very large quantities (perhaps they want to create a monopoly). We understand that our campaign will affect this market, disrupt the supply chains of old tubes or affect the final price, so we expect some hatred from those who sell old lamps and make money from it. Also, these people hunted for equipment for production. In fact, the equipment was dismantled from the factory in the 90s and partially preserved. For a long time, everyone thought that the equipment was lost forever, but such information was released on purpose in order to sell old lamps from warehouses for decades. But time does not stand still, the lamps ran out and we managed to find out that the equipment still exists. Now it’s not a secret. Thus, after a long search and communication with a huge number of people, we got the result.

■ We were provided with a small batch of lamps produced in Ukraine in 2021 as proof that the equipment works:

Back side of new-made nixies:

These tubes are not perfect, the equipment needs to be improved and upgraded, some operations were done manually, but imagine, the tubes work!

■For comparison, old tubes that were made in the Soviet Union:

Back side of old-made nixies:

You can see that the new-made tubes are smaller, which is good:

Summarizing all the above, it is possible to create new tubes. It’s hard but real. We traveled to Ukraine in 2021 to meet these people in person and negotiate about it. We want to make this deal, we only need money to buy equipment, so we launched this project and we hope for your support. 

 ■Stretch Goals!