Claims
- 1. A wall clock of the analog type with hands to indicate the hour and minute; said wall clock comprising:
a housing; a battery to supply power to the wall clock; a dial disposed in the housing, said dial containing indicia for the hours, said dial being generally transparent; an illumination module with front and rear surfaces, said illumination module disposed in the housing with the front surface of said illumination module disposed behind and adjacently to the dial, said illumination module having an edge with a recess defined in the edge; and a light source disposed in said recess to provide illumination into said illumination module; said edge of the illumination module having light reflective properties to reflect light about the interior of said illumination module and out the front surface of the illumination module and through said dial to provide illumination exterior to said clock.
- 2. The wall clock in accordance with claim 1 wherein said illumination module is of generally ovate shape with an enlarged end, said recess is defined in the edge of the illumination module at the enlarged end.
- 3. The wall clock in accordance with claim 1 wherein said light source comprises one or more light emitting diodes.
- 4. The wall clock in accordance with claim 1 wherein said rear surface of the illumination module has light reflecting properties.
- 5. The wall clock in accordance with claim 1 wherein said rear surface of the illumination module has an engraved surface to improve light dispersion within and out of the front surface of said illumination module.
- 6. The wall clock in accordance with claim 1 wherein a light reflective material is disposed adjacently to the rear surface of the illumination module to reflect light within and out of the front surface of said illumination module.
- 7. The wall clock in accordance with claim 1 wherein said illumination module is formed of a clear plastic material.
- 8. The wall clock in accordance with claim 1 further comprising a light sensor to sense the ambient lighting conditions, to activate the light source when the ambient lighting conditions are below a predetermined threshold, and to deactivate the light source when the ambient lighting conditions are above the predetermined threshold.
- 9. The wall clock in accordance with claim 1 further comprising:
a programmable time control to program the time that the light source will be activated and to program the time that the light source will be deactivated.
- 10. The wall clock in accordance with claim 1 further comprising a dimmer control to control the amount of illumination provided by the light source to the illumination module.
- 11. The wall clock in accordance with claim 1 wherein said rear surface of the illumination module has an engraved surface to improve light dispersion within and out of said illumination module.
- 12. The wall clock in accordance with claim 1 further comprising:
a second recess defined in the edge of said illumination module; and a second light source disposed in the second recess.
- 13. The wall clock in accordance with claim 12 wherein said second light source is of a different color than said light source.
- 14. The wall clock in accordance with claim 13 wherein said second light source is a red color and is activated when the battery needs replacement.
- 15. The wall clock in accordance with claim 1 further comprising:
a battery icon to indicate the level of charge remaining in the battery.
- 16. The wall clock in accordance with claim 15 wherein said battery icon has a plurality of bars to indicate the level of charge remaining in the battery.
- 17. The wall clock in accordance with claim 16 wherein said battery icon has a plurality of bars to indicate the level of charge remaining in the battery, with all of said plurality of bars activated when the battery has full charge and none of said plurality of bars activated when the battery has insufficient charge remaining.
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
[0001] This patent application is a non-provisional application of prior U.S. provisional patent application Serial No. 60/387,977, filed on Jun. 12, 2002, and is a continuation-in-part application of U.S. patent applications “Clocks Having Diffusion Reflector Lighting”, Ser. No. 10/304,329, filed on Nov. 26, 2002 and Serial No. 60/334,428, filed on Nov. 30, 2001, the rights of priority of which are hereby claimed for this patent application.
Provisional Applications (1)
|
Number |
Date |
Country |
|
60387977 |
Jun 2002 |
US |
Continuation in Parts (1)
|
Number |
Date |
Country |
Parent |
10304329 |
Nov 2002 |
US |
Child |
10459793 |
Jun 2003 |
US |