Ziniko mk.4 Menu Reference

24-hour or 12-hour time. This also picks the temperature unit — 12-hour mode shows °F, 24-hour shows °C.

Order of the fields when the tubes show the date.

Hour of day. Shown with AM/PM if Display format is 12-hour, but stored as 24-hour either way.

Minutes. Seconds are reset to zero on every press, so you can set the clock against a time signal.

Day of the month. The weekday is worked out for you and is what workdays only alarms use.

Four-digit year.

Month, shown by name.

Offset from GMT, applied to time that arrives from GPS or NTP. It has no effect on a clock you set by hand. Changing it re-syncs as soon as you leave the menu.

Daylight saving rule. The clock applies the changeover itself; pick the region whose dates you follow.

Which time sources the automatic hourly sync may use. It runs at five minutes past the hour. When both are allowed and both are available the GPS receiver wins — it is local and its timestamp has not been through a Wi-Fi round trip.

Sound on the hour. The selected chime plays once while you are on this item, so you can hear what you are picking.

First hour that may chime.

Last hour that may chime, inclusive. Setting the end earlier than the start gives you a window that runs across midnight.

Whether the alarm is armed, and on which days. On on workdays skips Saturday and Sunday.

Hour the alarm goes off, shown in whichever format the clock is using.

Minute the alarm goes off.

Playback level. Every press replays the current melody at the new level, so you are judging the real thing rather than a number.

Which of the twelve tunes to wake to. It plays once when you land on the item and again each time you change it, and stops when you scroll away.

How many times the melody repeats before the alarm gives up. It replays every 30 seconds, so three repeats is about a minute and a half.

Backlight effect while the alarm rings. Random gives each tube its own colour, Equal moves them together. The tubes show the effect live while you are on this item.

Tube brightness. Automatic dims the display through the night instead of holding one level. The ends of the scale are set by Min. and Max. brightness in menu 4.

How a digit changes to the next one. All six tubes count 0–9 while you are on this item so you can watch each option.

How the colon tubes behave between seconds. Previewed live.

Cathode anti-poisoning. At 59 minutes past each hour every tube runs through all ten digits, which keeps the rarely-used cathodes from clouding over. Worth leaving on.

What the RGB LEDs under the tubes do. Normal is one colour across all six; Gradient runs a two-colour ramp along the row.

Which of the sixteen colour presets to use. The same number means a flat colour in Normal mode and a two-colour ramp in Gradient mode, so the list changes meaning with the mode above.

Slow brightness movement on the backlight. Smooth is a steady swell, Heartbeat a double pulse.

Blanks the tubes overnight to spare them. The clock keeps running; only the display goes dark.

When the tube saver blanks the display.

When it lights them again.

Use the PIR sensor to light the tubes only when somebody is in the room. Independent of the tube saver — both can blank the display.

How long the tubes stay lit after the last movement.

Short beep on every key press in the menus.

Whether hours before ten are shown as 09 or as a blank tube and a 9.

What the tubes cycle through besides the time. The date appears at 20 seconds past the minute and the temperature at 40 seconds, each for ten seconds before the time comes back.

How often that cycle runs — every minute, or as rarely as every ten. Has no effect while Display what is Only time.

Firmware version and hardware revision. The version tune plays while you are on this item, unless Welcome sounds is off.

Which time sources are answering right now — a source counts as live if a good sentence has arrived in the last ten seconds. A right key here syncs the clock immediately from whichever source is available, GPS first.

Asks the Wi-Fi module for the time and waits for it. Press a right key to start; press any key to give up. The tubes keep running throughout, so a clock with no module fitted never looks frozen.

Once connected this shows the clock's IP address — type it into a browser on the same network to reach the settings page. During first-time setup it alternates every 2.5 seconds between Setup portal and the portal's own address, which is what you need if the captive portal does not open by itself.

The supply coming in at the barrel jack, measured before the regulator. Reads No sense line on a board without the divider fitted.

Contrast of this display. There is no trimmer on the board, so this is the only adjustment. It changes as you press, in steps of five.

The start-up tune at power-on and the version tune on the FW version item. Turning it off silences a preview already playing.

The dimmest the tubes are ever driven — where step 1 of Brightness lands. Moves in tens, and is held at least 900 below the maximum.

The brightest the tubes are ever driven — where step 8 lands. This is a hardware limit, not a preference: too high will damage smaller tubes, which is why neither limit can be changed from the web page.

Which tube the trim below applies to, numbered 1–6 from the left.

Which cathode in that tube. 0–9 are the digits; 10 is the temperature symbol, which only exists on tube 6.

Per-cathode brightness trim, for evening out a digit that sits brighter or dimmer than its neighbours — usually a worn one. All six tubes show the selected digit while you are on this item so you can compare them. Saved when you leave the menu.

Factory reset. Hold both right keys together to confirm — a single key does nothing. Every setting returns to its default and the clock restarts.