Little useless-useful R functions – QR-Code Clock

Ever wanted to have a clock on the wall or in the office, that is not binary. But it is QR-Code clock Well, now you can have it.

This useless R function generates new QR Code for every given period and tells the time. Run this function:

library(qrcode)

while (Sys.time()+1 > Sys.time()){
  n_o_w <- paste0("Current time is ",as.character(format(Sys.time(), "%X")))
  print(n_o_w)
  qr_code(n_o_w, ecl = "M" ) |>
    plot()
  Sys.sleep(10)
}

The best part would be to get a small screen and a raspberry-pi and have this shown on the screen. Or create your favorite Power BI report with R element and copy paste this code and set to refresh report on given period.

And the QRCodes in the clock are the following time stamps:

[1] "Current time is 18:39:42"
[1] "Current time is 18:39:43"
[1] "Current time is 18:39:44"
[1] "Current time is 18:39:45"
[1] "Current time is 18:39:47"
[1] "Current time is 18:39:48"
[1] "Current time is 18:39:49"
[1] "Current time is 18:39:50"
[1] "Current time is 18:39:51"
[1] "Current time is 18:39:52"

Additional code for creating animation

# creating animation

library(gganimate)

getwd()
setwd("/Users/tomazkastrun/Documents/tomaztk_github/Useless_R_functions/figures")

for (i in 1:10){
   n_o_w <- paste0("Current time is ",as.character(format(Sys.time(), "%X")))
   print(n_o_w)
   qr <- qr_code(n_o_w, ecl = "M" )
   filename <- paste0("QRCode", i, ".png")
   png(filename)
   plot(qr)
   dev.off()
  Sys.sleep(1)
}

library(magick)

files <- c("QRCode1.png", "QRCode2.png", "QRCode3.png", "QRCode4.png", "QRCode5.png", "QRCode6.png", "QRCode7.png", "QRCode8.png", "QRCode9.png", "QRCode10.png")
images <- image_read(files)
animation <- image_animate(images, fps = 1)  
image_write(animation, "QRCode_animation.gif")

As always, the complete code is available on GitHub in  Useless_R_function repository. The sample file in this repository is here (filename: QR-Code_clock.R). Check the repository for future updates.

Carry on with R-coding and stay healthy!