This Kinetic Sculpture Can Bring You the Latest Weather Report

The way we check the weather forecast has changed with technology. A few decades ago, everyone tuned into the news on TV, and now, we have an app on our phones to let us know if it’s going to rain. Now, it seems like the future of weather reports may be—of all places—in the realm of art. Designer Gustav Rosén and firm KLONG have come together to design Skymill, a retro-futuristic kinetic sculpture that literally changes with the weather to bring you the latest forecast.

Made of metal, Skymill has a handful of brass, copper, and steel arms with nine icons that shift and move to let you know what’s happening outside. The sun icon rises in the morning, and slowly sets throughout the day. If wind, fog, clouds, or rain come your way, the corresponding icons will come out, blocking the metal sun according to how much cloud coverage there is. There’s also a moon symbol that rises at night and sets in the morning.

“We built Skymill out of a shared longing for something more tangible,” writes the designing team. “As our lives become increasingly digital, we move further away from the physical rhythms of the world around us. The weather—once something we watched and really felt—has been reduced to a swipeable forecast on a screen. Convenient, yes. But also a little…empty.” That’s why they’ve bet on a piece with a “calm exterior” that hides an “intricate mechanical system, carefully engineered to transform data into movement.”

Skymill works with real-time data, which it gets via Wi-Fi. The device also allows users to view the forecast for the next three, six, nine, or 24 hours. All you have to do is turn the dial on the lower part of the sculpture to signify which time period you’d like to check. In addition to the moving icons, Skymill also shows the temperature in numbers that light up on the device. Whether you want it to be in Celsius or Fahrenheit is up to you.

Aware of the fact that we spend most of our time inside, the designers equipped Skymill to also read the conditions indoors. By pushing the knob twice, the display will show you the temperature and humidity of your home. The device can also check for carbon dioxide (CO₂), airborne chemicals (VOCs), and dust (PM2.5). If Skymill detects the values of these are above the recommended levels for more than 10 minutes, a bird icon will pop out—a nod to a canary in a coal mine—to let you know. “It’s not an alarm. Just a quiet nudge to let in some fresh air,” the designers explain.

Skymill also doubles as a cozy night light, as a touch of the knob lights up the metallic arms in a soft glow. Powered by USB-C, it consumes a minimal amount of energy. For all its state-of-the-art tech, Skymill remains a work of art. At its heart, it is a love letter to the elements—both their beauty and the chaos—and serves as a reminder of how connected we are to our environment, even when we’re not actively engaging with it. All in all, it’s like bringing a piece of the sky into your home.

You can preorder your own Skymill via Kickstarter.