Dator 60 is Solari’s calendar flip clock, introduced in 1965 as the first direct-reading calendar clock: split flaps for the hours and minutes, the day of the week, and the date, with a perpetual calendar that handles leap years on its own. Made in Udine, Italy, it belongs to the same Solari design lineage as the Cifra clocks that helped define the company’s place in twentieth-century Italian design. Solari Lineadesign reintroduced the Dator 60 in 2015 and renewed it in 2026, keeping the mechanism and adding an app and a rechargeable battery.
HOW IT WORKS
A stepper motor turns the flap rollers, and each minute the next flap drops into place; at midnight the day and date advance with it. The 2-inch digits are white on black and read from across a large room; the day and month, in 1-inch letters, read from a little closer. The time and date are set from the Solari Lineadesign app over Bluetooth, or by hand with a keypad concealed on the side of the clock. A rechargeable lithium battery, charged through a USB-C cable, runs the clock for about six months per charge, and the quartz timekeeping holds to within about a minute a year. A wall bracket is included.
CHOOSING YOURS
The Dator 60 comes in two orientations and two colors. Horizontal puts everything on one line, 26 inches wide and 4.5 inches tall. Vertical stacks the date, the day of the week, and the time from top to bottom, 13 inches tall and 9.5 wide. Both stand on a table or shelf or hang on the wall. The case is PC-ABS in black or white, behind a clear polycarbonate cover, with the same white-on-black flaps in either color. The clock is built in Italian or in English; the choice sets every word on the flaps, the days as well as the months.
DEALER’S NOTES
We prefer the Italian version; to us, the language is part of the object’s character. It is a heritage piece from Udine, the Italian reads as design rather than translation, and you will know what MERCOLEDÌ and OTTOBRE mean by the second day. The 2026 changes are both good ones. The app is for setup and the occasional adjustment rather than daily use; the Bluetooth connection can take a moment to find the clock, and the first time it does is unexpectedly satisfying. The keypad is there as another option, and the battery charges from a USB-C cable with no fuss. The mechanism is audible from a room or two away. We like the sound, but we would not recommend the Dator 60 for a bedroom: the more flaps that change at once, the louder it is, so the hour is loud and midnight, when the day and date turn over with it, is the loudest moment of the day. Before long you stop hearing it as noise and start hearing it as the hour. Between the two orientations and the two colors there is no better or worse; it comes down to your wall, your shelf, and your taste.
