Howard Miller is a company that makes, distributes, and sells all kinds of clocks including antique, classic and modern clocks. The Howard Miller Company was first established as a subsidiary of the Herman Miller Furniture Company in 1926, Herman Miller being the father of Howard Miller. After ten years, the two companies went their separate ways and Howard Miller Clock Company became independent.
Man invented the clock to tell him what the time is. The clock's exact inventor has not been fully documented but some say it was the Ancient Greeks, others claim it was the Egyptians, and other sources say it was the Hindus. The concept of early mechanical clocks to the modern mechanical clocks and its variation of today all came from and taken after from the first ever form of timepiece, the sundial.
Sundials are simply and commonly flat round plates, or any circular object, which indicates the time by being placed in the open by casting a shadow on the sundial's marked face plate that moves in accordance to the sun's position, determined by the earth's rotation, of course. Gnomon is the name for that thing that sits on top or the center of the sundial's face plate. The sundial, however, does not serve its purpose very well at night, unless there's a bright light of a full moon. When the moon is not full, or is not as bright, ancient civilization has another means of telling time with use of the stars.
Several forms of mechanical clocks have become available. In 1510, a German craftsman named Peter Henlein was said to be the inventor of the first mechanical clock. Henlein made a spring powered clock but it never caught up with people due to its unreliability to tell what the correct time is. The next form of mechanical clock was made in 1577. Known as the minute hand clock, with a man called Jost Burgi as its inventor, the clock was also plagued with certain mechanical problems and also did not caught up with the crowd just like the spring powered clock. Half a century later, a man named Christian Huygens invented the revolutionary, more accurate and more reliable pendulum clock.
Even though the pendulum clock's mechanical components are more complex, the pendulum clock had a simpler concept of moving the gears and wheels that moves and turns the hour hand and the minute hand. The pendulum clock, however, still had its share of problem such as having to be restarted and rearranged after stopping for no reason. In spite of this obstacle, it has been the most widely and longest used mechanical clock for over 300 years.
The Grandfather Clock is one example of a pendulum clock. Howard Miller Grandfather Clock Collection comes in a wide array of intricate shapes and designs made with best quality materials. Coming in several shapes and themes such as Broadmur, Furniture Trend, Presidential and Ambassador, Traditional, Urban, and the J.H. Miller Limited Edition Designs.
Nowadays, clocks have evolved from a simple mechanical device which was painstakingly and meticulously hand-crafted such as pendulum clocks and locket timepieces, to the factory made and manufactured from the assembly line mechanical and digital clocks such as wrist watches, digital alarm clocks and so forth. The means of powering these little instruments of marvel have also evolved from its humble beginning from just basing it on the sun's position or by the movement of a pendulum.
Due to the technological evolution of the past and present century, different energy sources were born to run the hands of time. One being the most popular is the battery, other common source is the quartz, and others are even powered by the wearer's movement more popularly known as kinetic powered watches, and solar energy is even being used (again) to power clocks and watches.
Howard Miller Clocks are truly a marvel of chronological engineering.