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The Playdate is a handheld device primarily designed with gaming in mind, but that hasn't stopped developers from putting it to work for all sorts of different use cases.
Since its release back in 2022, we've seen people take advantage of Panic's little yellow handheld for productivity software (pocket planners), music applications, and even a camera, showing not just the creativity of the Playdate community but also the adaptability of the crank-based machine.
Out of all the different uses of the machine, though, I'd argue Andrew Strangeway, the clock mechanic at the Houses of Parliament, has probably found the coolest application for the handheld yet: keeping Big Ben's bongs on time.
As spotted by Playdate itself, Strangeway was featured in episode 4 of the 2026 National Geographic show Best of the World with Antoni Porowski. During this, he was asked by Porowski how he measures the timing of the bongs to ensure Big Ben is on time, to which Strangeway responded, taking out a Playdate from his pocket:
"I actually programmed my games console, so that I could time the clock. It's just got a running clock, so as soon as I press this button, it stops. So I just want to make sure that time is exactly on the hour."
How cool is that?!
Worth noting is that this isn't the first time someone has pointed out Strangeway's novel use of the console. A couple of years ago, a video was posted on Reddit showing Strangeway and one of his colleagues, Ian Westworth, discussing their preparations for the New Year. During this, you can see Strangeway holding the Playdate in hand, with the mechanic saying that if any irregularities are found when timing the bell, they simply "adjust the speed of the pendulum to account for any changes needed."
Reacting to the news on social media, the official Playdate Bluesky account, wrote, "This is the kind of surprising magic that happens when you make hardware that's easy to program for, sideloadable, and with a nice SDK!)," with Panic's Cabel Sasser adding, "[This is] just not the kind of thing you visualise at the start of a project"
For us, it's always cool to see handhelds being used in unconventional ways. If you have any other examples you've come across over the years that you'd like to share, be sure to leave them in the comments.