Try out the Nokia Lumia on-screen clock on any Windows Phone

By Rich Edmonds
published

We recently looked at Nokia’s double tap to awake and on-screen clock, features that are coming to the Lumia 920 (PR2.0). But what if you happen to be using a Windows Phone from HTC, Samsung or other Lumia phones? An app is available on the Windows Phone Store that emulates the on-screen clock and while it's not the full solution, it's a cool effect to see how the clock looks.

Here's our exclusive video of Nokia's double tap and on-screen clock:

The app emulates the above features, but instead of double tap to wake the device, the gesture will close the app and return the user to the app list. It's basic in functionality but gets the job done and provides a rather cool experience. You can download Nokia Lockscreen from the Windows Phone Storefor free (both Windows Phone 7.x and 8). Thanks, Ahmad, for the tip!

QR: Nokia Lockscreen

Rich Edmonds
Rich Edmonds
Senior Editor, PC Build

Rich Edmonds was formerly a Senior Editor of PC hardware at Windows Central, covering everything related to PC components and NAS. He's been involved in technology for more than a decade and knows a thing or two about the magic inside a PC chassis. You can follow him on Twitter at @RichEdmonds.

63 Comments
  • really interested to see what the battery drain will be with that on-screen clock. probably would like that amoled screen from the 928 instead right now.
  • If your phone is on the pocket it will not turn the clock on because the proximity sensor recognizes that. Other than that I don't really know how it will gonna work also :/
  • I think we wount see the clock feature in the upcomming release. LCD and this clock cant be realiced without draining the battery fast. To prevent fragmentations in terms of features they will skip it for the amoled phones too.
  • And what so far suggests Nokia is overly concerned with fragmentation?
    For the record it doesn't seem to dent the battery life much on the 925 from what I can tell
  • I still didn't understand how they think to enable this feature on the Lumia 920 without draining the battery in a couple of hours, considering the 920 has an LCD display and not an AMOLED/OLED.
    Mmmh...
  • When the LEDs are black (as most of them will be) the power consumption will be considerably lower, I imagine Nokia will have engineered the phone so that the CPU will still be in sleep mode
     
    It will put a dent in the battery life but maybe not as much as people think
  • For AMOLED, that is true. However it requires more power for LCD to block out the backlight so battery life drain is a valid concern for Lumia 920.
  • That was kind of their point...it might be fine/better for the 928 with the AMOLED, but for the 920 with the LCD the backlight is either on or off, regardless of what color the LCD pixels are twisted to.  They might be able to make it a little better by lowering the brightness of the backlight when in the clock mode, but it's still going to be constantly on.
  • I understand that this will shorten the battery life, but I still don't think it will be as bad as its made out to be, there are plenty of things Nokia could do to make it use very little battery.
    For a start, I'm using this app right now and the black on the screen is extremely dark, darker than the lowest brightness on the OS with black background, Nokia could also put the screen down to just a few Hz refresh rate which should also save power. Turning the screen off completely when in pocket would also save battery.
    I think that when the Nokia version is released it will use about 10-20% more of your battery per day if its on a desk for say 4 hours of the day.
  • As a benchmark/test I've had this app going for about 45 minutes now, and only lost 2% this is with music for part of that as well, not bad if you ask me
  • There is NO WAY you only lose 2% battery with backlight on for 45 minutes. That would mean you can leave your screen on for 37.5 hours. Your battery meter must be off. Let it run for longer and see what the battery drop is then 
  • OLED's use 2-3 times more energy to display white than an LCD screen. Also, OLED's have a considerably shorter life span than LCD's, especially blue. This makes burn in a problem with AMOLED screens. The benefit to using OLED's is that they use less power than LCD in most situations. Just don't display white all the time or have a static image.
  • But these always-on things only light up a few pixels at a time and the clock moves around the screen randomly every minute to prevent burn-in. An OLED will allow you to constantly show the clock and have the battery last all day. With an LCD you can not have the backlight on all day or your battery will drain in less than 10 hours.
  • Spotted a Samsung Ativ S yesterday, It's the first one I had seen. That phone looks a beast
  • Believe me it is!!!
  • That app is very very pointless
  • Agree
  • I agree not hard to just click the lock button real quick.
  • Disagree. Makes a good clock for wireless charging stand, I plan on using this a lot. Pair it up to Nokia accessories/NFC and it's golden.
  • It's amazing. Never used the side button on N9 with the double tap. As long as it's reliable its as natural as it can be. 
  • This is the app of apps! Very much needed for everyone
  • Lol a clock is 'the app of apps'? The bar must be pretty low then :P
  • Lol :D
  • It's obviously a joke Mr. Obvious LOL!!
  • You don't mention the source! Good!
  • This app is useless.
  • Really useless... Why will someone use this app' ?? If it was something that could be seen like on the Nokia Lumia 920, okay... But it isn't !
    And how will the battery drain be with that option activated on a Samsung Ativ S, HTC Titan, HTC 8S, Nokia Limia 920 when that option is activated (like on the video) ??
  • The app is available for other devices but it's only built into Nokia devices when the PR2.0 update is released.
  • I like it, just wish the gesture to unlock it wasn't a double tap, feels clunky...
    Maybe the clock could be a swipe from the left of the home screen, and swiping there would lock your phone, as well as hitting the power button... Then add transitions when you lock the phone where it would show your lock screen and move right to show the clock (like the kids corner but in the other direction)
  • It already shows the clock on the lockscreen, why would you want to unlock and then swipe, instead of just a double-tap?
  • No, this is different. A double tap just doesn't feel right...
    My idea is on the clock screen, swipe to the left to the regular lockscreen, and then up to your homescreen.
     
  • I love cool little apps like these!
  • Good to see new apps but its not for me. The only thing I could see myself using it for would be a nightstand clock. If the screen stays on all night will that shorten its life? I have the HTC 8X that stays on the wireless charger unless my cat moves it.
  • I will use this app. As my Lumia 920 sits on its charging plate at night. Its a nice clock to have rather than having to unlock the phone to see the time.
  • ^This...but will it shorten the battery life?
  • A little, but with the 928 OLED screen it will cause that area to burn away faster.
  • I would assume the clock moves from time to time.
  • I'm very interested in double tap to wake in my Lumia 520. Does it requires the screen to be always on?
  • I'm still old school and wear a wristwatch. App is useless to me.
  • I'm trying this on my 820 right now.  It looks very nice, and since it moves the time around, any problem with burn-in should be limited.  I prefer a gesture to the side button, but will have to see.  I would prefer something other than double tap, but we'll see.
    Yeah, for any phone that uses masking rather than specific illumination for the display, this is potentially a major power sink, which is too bad.  But for those with amoled screens, it could be very useful.  I look forward to Nokia's full implementation.
  • Still feel like webOS did the lock screen sleep state better than anyone. When the Palm Pre was docked and charging you would get a time display as well as lock screen notifications and widgets. So you'd have the weather, your emails subjects, text messages and whatever else you wanted always visible and updating as the device was charging. If you answered a call while the Palm Pre was docked it would automatically go into speaker phone, if you picked the phone off the dock it would switch to the earpiece instead. The people who designed webOS were brilliant, too bad the OS technical performance was so bad with memory leaks and Palm had no chance of creating a big ecosystem.
  • Palm did have a big chance of creating a large ecosystem, they just didn't have the hardware to match the software at the time. The hype surrounding its launch was huge at the time. webOS was a fantastic OS, it's a shame it never took off.
  • This is sooo true.
    I miss my webOS and my Pre3. And why can't Microsoft do multitasking effectively on Window Phone?
  • Hell, updates are few and far between I'll take one when I can get one. Got nothing but love for you Nokia remember 7 came before 8 :)
  • And 8 ate 9
  • Remember the Nokia Symbian 60 Series OS? N-Gage QD, 6600 and some 7xxx had this feature. and that feature was pretty good IMO, you dont have to wakeup the phone to view time.. its great that Nokia is bringing small little features from Symbian over to WP OS. those days I didnt have data services but my n-gage QD could last upto1-2 days depending on games i play. I dont think battery drainage should be an issue with this feature enabled. the backlight is always off until you press any button. not sure how guys are bringing this feature in .. awaiting.. :)
  • So who in the usa will be getting the 928? I heard there ain't much difference between it and 920 other than the flash and the display.
  • How do I enable this feature on Lumia 920 ?? It seems like I can only get that by opening the app itself, and when I lock the screen, nothing happens. D:
  • Same here
  • Me to
  • It's somewhat cool, No complaining here..
  • My Treo pro has that and it stays on all day
  • Can someone help me please, i have a question about the Lumia 920....
  • Go to the forums...
  • I hope Nokia port the Nokia Sleeping screen application to WP.. its awesome. You can put whatever you want on your screen as a stand by screen
    Like a Grateful Dead bear ..
    http://i.imgur.com/THjVTK1.jpg
     
     
    or just type anything ..
    http://i.imgur.com/iI2NHx0.jpg
  • Is that a 928 in the video?
  • Hi,
    Dunno about WP8, but as for WP7.x that's really good mean to keep the WiFi alive. Anyone noticed ?
  • this app looks nice. but is it just an app which shows the time and when you double tap exits out of the app.. Basically the cell is on all the time.. So this is just a simulation and nothing else. :(. Good effort though.
     
    Waiting for the actual feature.
  • Hm, on my Nokia 820 the three capacitive buttons stay lit all the time. This needs to be fixed
  • Be great when its finally implemented into the system
  • Pointless. I guess I expected too much from the app.
  • Yeap, that's Windows Phone for you; always making pointless apps and features. I'm still waiting for true phone functionality like a third screen, start screen background and all the usual stuff that people really want, enough wit the B.S already!
  • I use a PIN lock after 15 minutes so this is useful to me to keep the phone from sleeping/locking when plugged in. Arnold Vink's version is better tho because it shows battery level and temp. http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/timeme/ef6099f2-41dd-4bad-9fa1-8f4143386194 Pin 'Display Sleeping Screen'. Don't bother with the clock tile, it's just a demo for his developer unlocked version which will update every minute but which I found unreliable. He's working on a WP8.1 version which will not require developer unlocking.