Apple Watch’s failure to catch on tells us most people probably don’t want to wear full-on smartphones on our wrists, but that doesn’t mean standard analog watches couldn’t use a bit of modernization. These concepts for technology-augmented timepieces include hybrid digital-analog designs, watches that communicate with your car, wrist-launched camera drones and a smartwatch Darth Vader would love. Some are cool ideas, some need work and others are downright terrible, but they might give us an idea of what’s to come in terms of wearable technology.

Nixie Wearable Camera Drone

Launch a camera zone from your wrist anytime you want with ‘Nixie,’ which uses motion-prediction algorithms and sensors to guide itself along four pre-programmed paths to capture full HD photos or video from the air. Weighing less than 0.1 pounds, it can connect with a smartphone for easy data transfer. Th idea is that the camera can capture whatever you’re doing and then fly right back, whether you want to take a quick selfie or record some kind of stunt. Mimicking the look of a wrist watch, it’s an interesting piece of wearable tech for sure, with one problem: it doesn’t tell the time, so if you like wearing a watch, you’ll have to double up.

Luxury Smart Strap for Analog Watches by Montblanc

If you can’t bear to part with your analog watch, but wish you could upgrade it somehow, this one’s for you: the Montblac e-Strap, which adds a 14.2-millimeter-wide OLED screen to the inside of your wrist. Connecting to a smartphone via Bluetooth, it works as a remote camera trigger, controls for a music player, incoming text and call alerts and physical activity data collection. It also has a ‘find me’ function in case you’re prone to misplacing your phone.

Simple, Elegant Watch Tells Time with Color Gradient

This watch needs no hour hand, using a color gradient to indicate the time. ‘Hidden Time’ by Jiwoong Jung has a minimalist look that’s constantly shifting as the minute hand makes its rounds, with the hard line between black and white telling you what hour it is.

Darth Vader’s Watch by Devon

What would Darth Vader wear? Los Angeles watchmaker Devon answers that question with its Star Wars watch, with a silhouette calling to mind the villain’s helmet, a strap modeled after his Sith gloves and a stand that makes it look like a TIE fighter. If you want one for yourself, you might have to do something villainous to get it: the price tag is a hefty $28,500.

Smell the Time with ‘Scent Rhythm’

‘Scent Rhythm’ doesn’t care exactly what time it is so much as it wants to help your body ease into each phase of the day naturally, aiding your circadian rhythms through the release of four different fragrances. Detecting a certain scent will give an a general “feel” of the time every six hours, activating our natural sense of time, called chronoception. The smells were specifically selected and timed to amplify the rhythms that help govern our sleep and waking cycles. First comes coffee, then a library-like smell of paperback books, then whiskey and tobacco, and finally chamomile. Like the idea? Designer Aisen Caro Chacin offers plans to build your own.

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Time For New Technology 13 Modern Wristwatch Designs

Sundials and hourglasses were two of the earliest ways humans developed to mark the passage of time. As better technology has emerged, we’ve all but dropped these reliable gadgets in favor of fancier, more accurate timepieces. But some designers are bringing back the old standbys in unusual and impressive ways – these are hourglasses and sundials with a 21st century twist.

(images via: Walyou)

The hourglass goes digital in the SandTime wristwatch, a very stylish timepiece that displays either numbers or a digital representation of falling sand on its face. And unlike strapping an actual hourglass to your wrist, this option actually looks quite cool.

(image via: Technabob)

The same concept is at work in the KWID watch, but this one is aimed at keeping kids aware of the passage of time. By giving a graphic representation of time passing (i.e. falling sand) and including the option to view the time in number format as well, the watch teaches kids how to tell time on their own.

(images via: Digital Sundials International)

Old-fashioned sundials display the time by casting a shadow on a number. These elegant digital sundials display the time by letting the sun shine through two specially-designed filters which result in numbers being displayed on the sundials’ faces. The brilliant designs are sold in both northern and southern hemisphere varieties to give accurate time readings no matter where you are in the world.

(images via: Amazon, Amazon, Yanko Design)

Using a small hourglass to tell you how much time is left until that pot roast can come out of the roasting pan is cute and everything, but it won’t exactly shake you from your TV-induced reverie. For that, you need these digital hourglass timers, all of which combine the aesthetic of an hourglass with the convenience (and sound capabilities) of a digital timer. The next time you’re baking cookies and the bottoms get a little blackened, you won’t be able to blame it on not hearing the timer.

(images via: Yanko Design)

The Hourglass Lantern is a rather abstract version of the 21st century hourglass idea. It is a lamp that starts out lit on the top half and the light “trickles” to the bottom. Although it probably won’t help you keep track of time in any precise kind of way, it is a lovely rethinking of the ancient design, recasting it into a different type of role in the home.

(image via: Dornob)

The Digital Sundial is a wall clock that strays from the expected hands-inside-the-frame configuration of a clock. Instead of a face with numbers and hands pointing to those numbers, the clock displays a plain face and projects bright red laser beams onto the flat wall around it to show time, temperature, date and a slew of other data. The Digital Sundial goes centuries beyond the basic single function of the traditional sundial.

(image via: Gearfuse)

The brilliant LED Hourglass is a student project that uses a 3D array of LEDs to simulate the falling of sand from top to bottom. An integrated accelerometer tells the device which end is on top and the red lights reset themselves accordingly, then begin to “fall” slowly.

(image via: Engadget)

Although a full-scale overhaul of the traffic light system may not take place in our lifetimes, this Hourglass Traffic Light concept seems like it would be ideal for just such an overhaul. The tri-color system tells you just how long you have to wait for every phase of the light: how long you have to get through the green and yellow lights, and just how many more seconds you can fiddle with your phone before the red light changes back to green.

Tiny colored figures balance delicately on the hands of watches are the latest imaginative creations from surrealist designer Dominic Cox, who is also known for his hooks made of hardened unwashed paintbrushes and a hilarious nose stylus for one-handed smart phone use. Commissioned by Dezeen, the ‘Moments in Time‘ series tackles themes like protest and surveillance.

Painted in shades of red and gray and protected by glass domes, the scenes include recreations of the infamous UC Davis protest in which peaceful students were pepper-sprayed by a bored-looking cop. Says the artist, “I find it disturbing when people in positions of power abuse it and lose any sense of humanity. I was shocked to see the footage of the pepper spraying of people sitting in a peaceful protest at UC Davis. I felt a need to capture this incident in time.”

In another scene, a protester and a police officer embrace in a kiss, and a third features CCTV cameras watching over three oblivious photographers. Seven of Wilcox’s miniature works are currently on display at London’s Phillips de Pury gallery.

See many more of these watch works, as well as a video interview with Dominic Wilcox, at Dezeen.