Independent research - University of Edinburgh
Living with The Present
The Present has one hand. It makes one revolution a year. Researchers at the University of Edinburgh asked long-time owners what that changed.
Read the research ↓The question
Can changing the scale of a clock change the way time feels?
Ordinary clocks are excellent at coordination: appointments, departures, deadlines. But their numbers naturally pull attention toward the close-up of time - the second, the minute, the hour.
The Present measures a different scale. The Year’s single hand travels once around its face over 365 days, making the seasons visible as one continuous movement. This project asked owners what it was like to keep that perspective in their homes over time.
How the research was conducted
Long-term owners answered in their own words.
A screened group of 57 long-term owners answered five open-ended questions about their sense of time, everyday use, changes in perspective, surprises, and anything else they wished to add.
There were no multiple-choice answers or scores. This public record excludes submissions that did not document a lived experience with a delivered Present. Every included response is reproduced verbatim.
What emerged
The responses return, again and again, to three ideas.
Perspective
Owners describe seeing the year, seasons, and larger cycles at a glance - time as a whole rather than a sequence of fragments.
Orientation
People use it to notice solstices, equinoxes, daylight, seasonal change, birthdays, gardens, sleep, and the passage of a year.
Pause
Many describe a gentler relationship with time: less urgency, more awareness of the moment, and room to notice change.
In their words
No summary says it quite like the people who live with it.
“A regular clock fragments time. The Present reveals time’s consistency and its holistic nature.”
“It helps us think in bigger pictures, and makes us more aware of seasonal rhythms.”
“It’s a view of the forest from above.”
“Projects a ‘feeling’ of time rather than a ‘report’ of time.”
“It’s like a pause button on the game of life for me.”
“The Present gives the moment a place.”
A note on the record
Every included response is reproduced exactly as submitted.
This public record is a screened owner-response record, not a dump of every survey submission. It excludes prospective-customer, unfulfilled-order, and other submissions that did not meet the owner-eligibility standard.
This is qualitative research: it records how a specific group of long-term owners described their experience. It is not a clinical study, and it does not claim that The Present produces a particular outcome for everyone.
All five questions and every eligible response
The five questions
What owners were asked.
Question 1A different sense of time+
What sense of time does The Present give you in comparison to a regular clock?
57 of 57 eligible owners answered
Question 2Everyday use+
Are there practical ways you use The Present - Year, Day, or Moon - to tell, mark, or track time in everyday life?
53 of 57 eligible owners answered
Question 3Working with time+
Has The Present enabled you to work with time differently than before?
50 of 57 eligible owners answered
Question 4The unexpected+
What has been most unexpected about living with The Present?
54 of 57 eligible owners answered
Question 5Anything to add+
Is there anything else you would like to add?
39 of 57 eligible owners answered