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1500 BCE
Egyptian Water Clock
One of the first clocks used to measure time was Egyptian water clock. These clocks worked by being filled with water at the start of each day, which then flowed out over a fixed period through a small opening laterally near the bottom so that the time could be read from the hour scales in the inside of the vessel as the water level dropped. These clocks were very inaccurate, and surprisingly very complicated which allowed only some very educated people to use them so it quickly became obsolete. -
1200 BCE
Obelisks
Obelisks were Egyptian statues on the side of temples. People were able to tell the time by using the sundial-like pattern created by their shifting shadows. The obelisks were heavy and very hard to make not to mention there were only a couple of them in Egypt making it restricted for certain people. The clock also only worked when the sun was up rendering it useless in the night. Due to this and its scarcity as well as its difficulty to be created, it was rendered obsolete by many. -
332 BCE
Greek Water Clock
Greek inventor Ctesibius invented the first artificial automatic self-regulatory system by making a better water clock that needed no outside intervention between the feedback and the controls of the mechanism. There were issues with this device the first being that the water clocks needed regular adjusting to ensure that there were twelve hours per day and twelve hours per night. This clock was effective, it took up a lot of resources to make and soon it was made obsolete by better models. -
857
Lamp Clock
The oil container of the lamp clock featured markings along it so that as the candle burnt, the amount of oil left could be used to calculate the time. It worked both as a light and a clock at night. This clock was good for rich people who could buy these clocks but for the average class, such lamps could not be afforded. Also, you had to be an expert to be able to calculate the time using the oil, and not many people were making these clocks obsolete. -
1201
Medieval Sundial
After it's invention sundial was by far the most widely used tool for telling time in medieval and early modern Europe. Despite advancements in the second half of the 17th century with the advent of the pendulum and the balance-spring, the development of the mechanical clock from the 14th century forward by no means rendered the sundial useless. Sundials after the 18th century started to become less and less used until where sundials became pretty much useless in the 20th century. -
1337
Hourglass
A tool used to track the passage of time is an hourglass. It consists of two glass bulbs joined vertically by a small neck that permits a controlled flow of sand from the upper bulb to the lower one via gravity. The drawback is that for them to function correctly, they needed to be on flat surfaces. This hourglass is a brief time clock in terms of labor. Also, it is impossible to precisely calculate time using this which are all factors that made it obsolete with the coming of better clocks. -
1348
Astrarium
Giovanni Dondi dell'Orologio, a clockmaker, constructed a astronomical clock known as the Astrarium in Padova around 1348. The Astrarium, had seven faces and 107 movable components, displayed the positions of the sun, moon, and five then-known planets. It was the first mechanical clock too. But due to its complexity and difficulty to manufacture only a couple of these were seen around the world making them not known and when better mechanical clocks came around the Astrarium became obsolete. -
1402
The Advent of the Mechanical Clock
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Pendelum Clock
A pendulum clock is a timepiece that keeps time by swinging a weight called a pendulum. Since a pendulum swings back and forth at a specific time interval based on its length it is advantageous for timekeeping. The pendulum clock was the most accurate timekeeper in use from the time it was created by Christiaan Huygens. However, even though it dominated markets all the way up until the 1940s it was large and very expensive to acquire and it soon became obsolete due to the rise of alarm clocks. -
Flying Pendelum Clock (Ignatz)
A clock that has a flying pendulum escapement mechanism is known as a flying pendulum clock. One post is wrapped by a tiny metal ball that is attached by a thread, which unwinds before the process is repeated on the second brass post. Thermal expansion is a key cause of mistake in this pendulum clock; as temperature varies, the pendulum rod's length adjusts, changing the rate . Due to this the pendulum clock was becoming obsolete until it became a rarity in the era of digital and alarm clocks. -
Grandfather Clock
A grandfather clock is a tall, weight-driven pendulum clock with the pendulum held inside the tower or waist of the case. This clock has quite a lot of flaws which brought it off the market with the first being that the pendulum must occasionally be tuned in order to show the right time. These clocks were soon overrun by better, and smaller clocks but they remain an icon in society but it's big size which was its biggest attribute turned into its ruin as people started liking smaller clocks. -
Alarm Clock
The alarm clocks main purpose is to wake people up after a night's sleep or a little nap or for an occasion. Many alarm clocks emit sounds, while others emit light or vibrate. Alarm clocks when made, were absolutely taking off but, many people found the clock distracting and stressful however, this was not what made it go obsolete. When phones came out many of them had alarms as a function and thus making alarm clocks useless as they already had an alarm built in their phone saving them money. -
Self Winding (Automatic) Watch
An automatic watch, commonly referred to as a self-winding watch is a mechanical timepiece that, when worn commonly, uses the wearer's natural motion to wind the mainspring, negating the need for regular winding. This clock unlike the others is not obsolete but it is used for a different purpose than it was intended. The use of this watch once was to tell the time but now it is a fashion statement and even though these watches aren't as popular as they were then they are still being worn. -
Quartz Clock
Quartz watches and clocks employ an electrical oscillator that is controlled by a quartz crystal to keep time. Quartz clocks and watches are at least an order of magnitude more accurate than mechanical clocks because to the crystal oscillator, which generates a signal with extremely exact frequency. The quartz clock isn't as popular as it was in the 1980s as it fell a little with the founding of phones but it remains a popular commodity on the market and I wouldn't call it "obsolete" just yet. -
Phone Clock
The phone clock is what everybody uses now as even students in class look towards their phone instead of the big quartz clock hanging in the class. The phone clock offers many things that clocks in one. It offers a stopwatch for timing, a world clock and they even offer alarms to wake you up in the morning. All you have to do to check the time on this clock is to touch your phone. This type of clock has put every other one in complete obsoleteness and I don't see that changing any time soon.