It is 8:55 a.m. your time, five minutes before the standup, and you are doing the math again: Tokyo is fourteen hours ahead, so it is 10:55 p.m. there — late enough that you quietly hope Kenji logged off early. Two tabs later, a quick phone check confirms it, and you lose half a minute you did not plan to lose. Multiply that by every async message, every "is now a good time?" ping, every scheduling thread, and a distributed team spends a surprising amount of its week simply confirming what time it is somewhere else.
Families run the same loop. When your parents are in one city, your sister in a second, and you in a third, even picking a dinner hour for a group call means opening a converter and reading it twice. The fix is not another app you have to open. It is making the answer ambient — visible before you need it, every day, without touching a screen. That is exactly the job a dedicated world clock display does, and it is the setup this article builds.
The Times Gate fits this role because of its shape: five independent 128x128 LCD screens, each one configurable as its own widget through the Divoom app. Clock widgets are part of that official widget lineup, so you can keep several cities on screen at once — a small timezone wall sitting right beside your keyboard. Here is how to design one, where to put it, and — just as important — what this kind of display does not do.
The official clip above shows the Times Gate running clock and data widgets side by side on a real desk. Watch it once before you plan your layout — it is easier to assign screens when you have seen how the five panels actually sit together.
Why a Physical Timezone Wall Beats a Browser Tab
Let's be fair to the free options first: your phone already has a world clock, your operating system probably has one too, and a browser tab can do the same job. If you check another city's time once a week, that is genuinely all you need, and a dedicated display would be overkill. The calculation changes when timezone checks happen many times a day, every day — which is simply what working across continents looks like.
Three things shift when the information moves from an app to an always-on screen. First, the lookup disappears entirely. A glance takes under a second and costs nothing: no unlocking a phone, which means no notification catching your eye mid-focus, no tab switch that turns into a five-minute detour. Second, the answer is there before the question forms — you adjust your message tone at 8:55 because you already saw it is nearly midnight in Tokyo. Third, and this is the one software cannot do at all, the screen is shared. In an office or a shared room, everyone reads the same reference at the same time, the way the big multi-city clocks in airport lobbies have done for decades.
That last point matters more than it sounds. Coordination friction is rarely about one person's math error; it is about two people holding two different assumptions. A shared physical reference removes the assumption gap at the source.
Assigning the Five Screens to the People You Coordinate With
Because each of the five screens runs its own widget, you are not cramming cities into one crowded face — you are assigning panels. One sensible layout for a remote team: dedicate one screen to each city where a teammate lives, and use the fifth for your own local time. Four collaborators in four cities plus home, all visible in a single glance. If your team spans more than four places, rotate the panels by priority — the cities you coordinate with daily get permanent screens, and the occasional ones share a panel or wait for a quick app check.
For a family spread across time zones, the logic is even more personal: one screen per person's city. "Mom's city says 6:40 p.m., so calling now works" becomes a half-second read instead of a calculation. A third option is the mixed desk: two or three city clocks plus a weather or calendar panel, for people whose days are only partly about other time zones.
None of this is fixed. Screens are reassignable in the app, so the layout can follow your projects — swap in a launch city for a quarter, then swap it back out. Think of the timezone wall as a living dashboard, not a static installation.
Building It in the Divoom App
All of the configuration happens in the free Divoom app, not on the device itself. The shape of the flow is simple: choose a clock-style widget from the app's widget library, assign it to one of the five screens, then set the city behind it. Repeat per panel. Divoom's library includes thousands of community-designed clock faces, so the timezone wall can look like a clean minimal dashboard or full pixel art — that part is taste, not function.
Two practical notes keep the setup stable. Give the Times Gate a steady Wi-Fi connection, because clock and data widgets receive their information through the app's services over the network. And if anything about the widget options looks different from this description, trust the app: Divoom keeps updating the library, so the in-app choices are always the reference. Our clock and widget setup guide walks through the same configuration flow in detail if you want the longer version.
What a World Clock Display Does Not Do
This section is what keeps the setup honest, because a timezone wall is a specific tool with a specific job. It shows you what time it is in the places you care about — continuously, at a glance, for everyone in the room. It does not do the things that live one layer up in complexity.
It is not a meeting scheduler. There is no calendar integration and no overlap math: the display will not tell you that 9 a.m. your time is 5 a.m. for a teammate, or flag that a proposed slot lands on someone's Sunday. It also does not track daylight saving rules in any documented way we can point you to — city times come from the time zone data behind the app's clock widgets, and if a reading looks off around a DST changeover, re-selecting the city in the app is the first move. How time zones and their offsets work in general is a genuinely interesting rabbit hole, and the Wikipedia entry on time zones covers it if you want to go deeper.
One more expectation to set: Divoom has not published exact numbers for how many cities a single clock widget can hold, so if your team spans a dozen locations, build the layout you want in the app and let the app itself show you the limits. Our editorial policy is to keep capability statements like these tied to what the product materials actually say — which is also why the boundaries above are stated plainly instead of smoothed over.
Where the Timezone Wall Works Hardest
Placement decides whether this setup becomes a habit or decoration. At a home office desk, the sweet spot is directly under the monitor or beside the keyboard — somewhere in your permanent eyeline, so the glance happens without moving your head much. The Times Gate is sized for exactly this zone, and its edge lighting keeps the panels readable without stealing attention from the work screen.
In a shared office, put it where the whole team passes or gathers. This is where the shared-reference effect pays off: nobody asks "wait, what time is it in Berlin?" out loud ever again, because the answer has been on the wall all morning. A small shelf near the coffee machine works surprisingly well.
At home with family across time zones, the logic flips from productivity to presence. A screen in the kitchen or living room keeps the far-away cities quietly visible all day — a small but steady reminder of when to call. Physical multi-city clocks have played this role in households for a long time; the world clock page has the history if you are curious. The modern version just happens to double as pixel art. If a shared family surface sounds closer to your case than a desk dashboard, a display like the Times Frame serves one city's time alongside photos — a different shape of the same idea.
A quick reality check before you commit: if you confirm another city's time only occasionally, your phone's built-in world clock is the right tool and costs nothing. The timezone wall earns its desk space when the check happens many times a day, or when more than one person needs the same answer at the same moment. That distinction, more than any feature list, is the real buying signal.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many time zones can the Times Gate show at once?
Times Gate has five independent screens and supports clock widgets, so multiple cities can stay visible at the same time. The exact number of cities a single clock widget holds depends on the widget options currently available in the Divoom app, so check the app for the layout you want.
Does the world clock keep working without Wi-Fi?
Times Gate is designed to receive its data through the Divoom app over your network, so keep it on a stable Wi-Fi connection for normal behavior. If the connection drops, treat the screen as showing the last state it had rather than a live feed.
Where do I configure the world clock screens?
Everything is configured in the free Divoom app: pick a clock-style widget, assign it to a screen, and choose the city. Our clock and weather widget guide walks through the same setup flow step by step.
Does it handle daylight saving time changes automatically?
City times are driven by the time zone data behind the app's clock widgets. Divoom has not published detailed documentation on daylight saving handling, so if a city reads wrong around a DST changeover, re-select the city in the app and check again. The product manual page covers general setup if you need it.
Is Times Gate the right pick if I only want clocks?
Only if you also want what else it does. Times Gate is an information display that happens to run clock widgets alongside weather, calendar and data panels. If all you need is one simple clock, a basic clock or your phone's world clock feature is the smarter spend.
Put the Cities You Care About on One Desk
The timezone math your team does by hand every day is exactly the kind of work a screen should absorb. Once the cities you coordinate with are sitting beside your keyboard — always on, readable by everyone in the room — the checks stop interrupting anything, and the "what time is it there?" messages quietly disappear from the chat. Pick the cities, assign the five screens, place it where your eyes already go, and let the wall do the arithmetic from tomorrow morning onward.
Divoom Times Gate
Five independently configurable screens that can carry world clocks, weather, calendar and data widgets side by side — the timezone wall this setup is built around.
View Times Gate
