# Bathyal: Spiral Water Clock — Ambient deep sea time & glow

> Ambient deep sea time & glow (iPhone/iPad app by Stephen Zinn.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/bathyal-spiral-water-clock/id6779757057 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Stephen Zinn](https://appshunter.io/developer/1883747143)
- Category: Utilities, Lifestyle
- Price: Free with in-app purchases
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 16.0 · 4 MB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2026-06-19
- Data updated: 2026-08-23
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/bathyal-spiral-water-clock/id6779757057/reviews.md

## What is Bathyal?

Bathyal is a clepsydra — an ancient water clock — rebuilt for the deep sea.

In the bathyal zone there is no day or night. No sunrise, no shadow, nothing to set a clock by. The only light is made by living things. Bathyal is the instrument that keeps time down there: a face of glowing concentric channels where every drop is a second, and time is material.

Watch it work:
• Each second forms as a drop at the heartbeat and joins the ring
• A full ring of seconds distills into one minute — and pours, visibly, down into the next channel
• Minutes pour into hours, hours into the day's two halves, days into months — at midnight the whole cascade runs at once
• Once a year, the last drop of December sinks past the digits into the abyss, unmeasured

Make it yours:
• Solid bands or beaded drops, sweeping or pulsing motion
• 24-hour or 12-hour time — 12-hour splits the hours at the meridian into a morning ring and an afternoon ring
• Calendar rings for the month and year, or a Monday-first week ring whose weeks are spent, not kept
• Run the midnight cascade demo any time from the settings

On your wrist:
• A full-screen water clock for Apple Watch — seconds, minutes, and hours in the same adjacent channels
• Add Bathyal as a complication; the live rings sit on any face and rewrite themselves as the day moves. No two times look the same — that is the instrument, not a hand on a circle
• Hold the Watch face for settings. Pulse or sweep, 12- or 24-hour time, and an optional Monday-first weekday ring. Hours, motion, and the week calendar also travel from the gear on iPhone

On the Lock Screen:
• Add Bathyal as a Lock Screen widget — live rings, a different pattern for every minute, the same figure as the Watch complication
• Hours, motion, and the weekday ring follow from the gear

Quiet by design:
• Completely free, no accounts, no ads, no tracking — it never connects to anything
• Works fully offline
• Keeps the screen awake on a desk or bedside table

If the instrument keeps good time for you, you can send a drop — a small tip — and the face answers with the benefactor tinctures: other colors of bioluminescence, and a single grain of sand set on the seabed of the dial.

Drops become months.

## Pricing and in-app purchases

Base price: Free.

**One-time purchases**

| Purchase | Price | Type |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Drop: The Benefactor's Drop | $2.99 | one-time |
| Tip Small | $1.99 | one-time |
| Large: A Current | $9.99 | one-time |



## Version history (last 4 releases)

### 1.3 — 2026-08-19

Lock Screen
• The live rings sit on the Lock Screen now — the same instrument as the Watch complication
• Each time is a unique pattern. No two minutes look the same — you are watching the figure of that moment, not a hand on a circle
• Hours, motion, and the weekday ring follow from the gear

### 1.2 — 2026-08-14

Apple Watch
• Hold the face for settings — the first look says so, and a gear appears if you rest a finger
• Hours, motion, and the weekday ring also follow from the gear on iPhone
• The live complication changes through the day: every time of day has its own pattern

### 1.1 — 2026-08-14

Apple Watch
• Full-screen water clock on the wrist
• A live-ring complication that opens the face
• Pulse or sweep motion, and an optional weekday ring

### 1.0 — 2026-06-19

No release notes.

## More apps by Stephen Zinn

- [OverRun Timer](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/overrun-timer/id6760566041)

All apps by Stephen Zinn: https://appshunter.io/developer/1883747143

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-23.*