Live demo — Bar Harbor, ME · sped up so you can see the tidal cycle

The modern digital tide clock

The tide, on your wall.

A battery-powered e-paper frame that shows your local tide all day long — rising, falling, and everything in between. No app to open, no website to bookmark.

Just glance.

Wavepane™ is a battery-powered tide display that shows the current tide level, next high and low tide times, today's weather, and your location on a 7.3″ color e-paper screen. It updates automatically over WiFi and runs on battery power for months at a time. Patent pending.

Three kinds of tide clocks.

There's a category most people don't realize is a category — yet. Here's the landscape, and where Wavepane fits.

Analog tide clocks

Look beautiful, but they drift by hours over a year and only work reliably on coasts with simple twice-a-day tides — mostly the U.S. East Coast. One rotating hand, no awareness of where you live, manual reset every few months.

WiFi LED tide displays

Pixel-art gadgets that pull live tide data anywhere in the world. They work — but they're devices, not decor. LED grids you look at, plugged into the wall, never confused with art.

Wavepane

The modern digital tide clock. The wave is the visualization — it rises and falls with the actual tide outside, and its crests grow or flatten with the live ocean swell at your coast. E-paper means it looks like a print. WiFi means it's accurate, anywhere in the world. Battery-powered means no cord, so you hang it like art.

“Tide tables are numbers. Tide apps are interruptions. Wavepane is a wave.”

See the full comparison →

How it works

  1. 1

    Plug it in

    Charges from the cable you already use for your phone. One charge lasts months.

  2. 2

    Connect to WiFi

    Scan the QR code on screen with your phone, pick your network, type the password. About 30 seconds.

  3. 3

    It finds your beach

    Wavepane locates itself from your WiFi connection, picks the closest tide station, and starts tracking. No accounts, no subscriptions, no setup.

  4. 4

    It just runs

    Wakes up once an hour, sips a few seconds of power, redraws the wave, goes back to sleep. Months between charges. Quiet, simple, durable.

Designed for the wall

E-paper display

Crisp 7.3" six-color panel. Readable from across the room. No glow, no glare, no eye strain — just ink on a surface.

Months of battery

The device sleeps 99% of the time and only updates when the tide actually changes. A 2500 mAh LiPo lasts approximately 6 months between charges.

Auto-locating

No GPS chip, no permissions, no friction. Wavepane figures out where you are from the WiFi network you connected to, then picks the closest NOAA station.

Weather alongside

Current temperature, high for the day, and rain probability live at the bottom of the screen, so you can see whether the conditions match the tide window.

Hang it like art.

Every other digital tide display needs to live near an outlet — a cord trails down the wall, the device anchored to wherever the nearest plug happens to be. Wavepane is the only battery-powered digital tide display, and it runs for six months on a single charge.

So put it where you'd put art — somewhere it inspires you. Near the front door, so you glance at it on the way out. Visible from the kitchen where you make coffee. Beside the bed, in the hallway, above the workbench, on the wall of the back porch. Anywhere on the wall, no extension cord, no compromise.

Better than a tide clock.

Traditional analog tide clocks look beautiful — but they only model one wave of the dozens that shape a real tide, and they don't know where you are.

This matters most on the U.S. West Coast and the Gulf of Mexico, where tides are mixed semi-diurnal — two highs and two lows per day at notably different heights. An analog clock's single rotating hand can't represent that asymmetry. Wavepane plots the real predicted curve from your local NOAA station, the small morning high and the big afternoon high both shown exactly as they're coming.

Analog tide clock

  • One rotating hand on a fixed 12-hour-25-minute cycle.
  • Models only the M2 lunar harmonic. Ignores the sun, wind, coast shape, and dozens of smaller tidal components.
  • Drifts by hours over a year. Needs manual resetting every few months.
  • Doesn't know your location. Same dial in Bar Harbor and Big Sur.
  • $40–$100, depending on brand.

Wavepane

  • Uses real NOAA tide predictions for your specific tide station, accurate to the minute.
  • Updates automatically over WiFi. Never drifts. Never needs resetting.
  • Auto-locates from your WiFi network. Knows whether you're in Bar Harbor, Bali, or Big Sur.
  • Shows the whole shape of the cycle — not just one number — plus weather and the next high/low times.
  • Six months of battery. Designed to live on a wall, not a counter.

Where does Wavepane work?

Anywhere there's a tide station within reasonable distance and WiFi to reach it.

United States

NOAA's network of 200+ official tide stations covers the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts; Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Wavepane picks the closest station and pulls real, minute-precise predictions.

Internationally

Outside the U.S., Wavepane falls back to WorldTides — over 8,000 harmonic-prediction stations covering the U.K., continental Europe, the Caribbean, Mexico, Australia, Japan, India, and most of the world's populated coastlines.

Inland? You can still display tides for a favorite coastal region. The on-device setup includes a coast picker with major U.S. coastlines — Maine, Cape Cod, the Outer Banks, Florida, California, and more. Set it once and Wavepane shows the tide for that spot.

See the full coverage list →

Questions, answered.

How does Wavepane work?
Wavepane connects to your home WiFi, picks the tide station closest to where you live, and downloads the official tide predictions for the next several days. Once an hour it wakes up, redraws the wave on the screen, and goes back to sleep. You don't open an app or visit a website — the wall does the work.
Is Wavepane easy to set up?
Yes — about 30 seconds end-to-end. Plug it in. Wavepane shows a QR code on screen. Scan it with your phone, pick your WiFi network, type the password. That's it. No accounts, no app downloads, no pairing flows.
How does Wavepane know my location?
Wavepane detects your approximate location from the WiFi network it's connected to, picks the closest tide station, and starts pulling predictions automatically. No GPS, no app, no accounts. If you'd rather pick a specific coast or vacation spot, the on-device setup lets you choose manually from a list of major coastlines.
Where does Wavepane work?
Wavepane works on every coast NOAA monitors in the United States (Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands) and worldwide via WorldTides, which covers over 8,000 international tide stations. If you have WiFi and you're within reasonable distance of any coast, it works.
How often does it update?
Wavepane wakes up once an hour, refreshes the wave on the screen, and goes back to sleep. The change between hours is usually subtle — but over the course of a day, you'll see the whole tidal cycle play out. Tap the button on the back to force an immediate refresh.
How long does the battery last?
About 6 months on a single charge with the included 2500 mAh battery. The display only consumes power when the image changes (it's e-paper — like a Kindle), and the rest of the time the device is in deep sleep, drawing less current than a digital watch.
Are there subscription fees?
No. Wavepane uses NOAA's free public tide-prediction data in the U.S. and WorldTides internationally. There are no accounts, no subscriptions, and no required apps. Plug it in once, connect it to WiFi, and forget it.
What's on the screen?
The current tide level as a wave that rises and falls — with crest height driven by the live ocean wave forecast at your coast; the times of the next high and low tide; today's weather (current temperature, high, and conditions); and your location label. All on a 7.3-inch color e-paper screen, readable from across the room without backlight.
Why do the waves look bigger on some days?
The amplitude of the wave silhouette — how tall the crests rise above the water line — is driven by the real ocean wave forecast for the coast nearest you, refreshed hourly from Open-Meteo's marine model. A glass-calm morning reads as small, even crests; a windy day or a big incoming swell pushes them taller. So Wavepane tells you not only when the tide will turn but how rough the water will be when it does.
How is Wavepane different from a tide app?
A tide app interrupts. You pick up your phone, unlock it, find the app, wait for it to load — by the time you have the answer, you've forgotten what you wanted to do next. Wavepane is ambient. It lives on the wall like a thermometer or a clock. You glance at it. No unlock, no notifications, no scroll.
How is Wavepane different from an analog tide clock?
Traditional analog tide clocks use one rotating hand on a fixed 12-hour-25-minute cycle and model only a single tidal harmonic. They drift by hours over a year and need manual resetting. They don't know your location. Wavepane uses real NOAA predictions for your specific station, refreshed automatically, accurate to the minute. See the comparison.
Does it work offline?
If WiFi or the tide data service is briefly unavailable, Wavepane keeps displaying the most recent predictions it received and shows a small "OFFLINE" indicator. The cached data is usable for several hours before staleness becomes a problem — well past most network outages. Once WiFi comes back, hourly updates resume automatically.
What if I move?
Hold the button on the back of the device for 10 seconds. Wavepane factory-resets, shows the welcome screen, and walks you through setup again at the new location — picking up the new tide station automatically.

Get in touch

Questions, ideas, or want to be notified when Wavepane ships? Drop a note.