A hobbyist mounted a cesium atomic clock on his Raspberry Pi
A hobbyist known as Chip Overclock upgraded his timekeeping setup by integrating a cesium atomic clock with a Raspberry Pi to maintain precise time without relying on GPS signals. The cesium oscillator, originally developed with DARPA funding for military use, provides long-term stability even when GPS is unavailable. The project, part of a series named after historical clockmaker John Harrison, cost thousands and resulted in multiple high-precision time servers in his home.
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A hobbyist mounted a cesium atomic clock on his Raspberry Pi Ellsworth Toohey 5:11 pm Thu Apr 30, 2026 TonelloPhotography/shutterstock.com A hobbyist who blogs as Chip Overclock wasn't satisfied with his GPS-disciplined desk clock. The Raspberry Pi inside it kept time within microseconds of UTC, but only when GPS satellites were available. Lose the signal during bad weather or an antenna glitch, and the Pi's standard quartz oscillator would start drifting. He wanted something that wouldn't. He needed an atomic clock. He named his projects after the 18th-century British carpenter John Harrison, whose H-1 through H-5 chronometers chased the Board of Longitude prize (the story Dava Sobel told in Longitude).
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