The 1964 Bulova Amazon Echo

I present the world's only 1964 Bulova Amazon Echo (so far...) ;)

It started as a funny idea. "What if there were a Mid-century Modern Amazon Echo device?" Kim and I both adore the MCM aesthetic, and have styled our living room largely in it.

On a lark, I started looking at clocks and clock-radios from the period on eBay. Tangent - my goodness there are a lot of phony / fake "antique" clocks and radios on eBay! Caveat emtpor! Anyhow, I ran across this fairly common "mini clock radio" from the 1960s, made by the New York City based Bulova watch company: The Bulova 130.

There were lots of them on eBay. This particular one was nearby, in seemingly good cosmetic condition, and importantly the clock worked but the AM radio didn't. Perfect! That makes it cheaper, and also makes me feel less guilty about gutting some electronics out of an antique! 🤣

The clock arrived fairly quickly and I confirmed that indeed it was as pictured, and indeed the clock worked just fine. I let it run for 24 hours to make sure that it worked for a full rotation of the hour hand.

It even has that familiar 60 Hz hummm of the old AC motor-driven clocks from the 60s-70s, complete with the smooth sweep seconds hand to match.

For the innards, I ordered the 2025 model Amazon Echo Pop. It's both inexpensive and very small, increasing the likelihood that I'll find a way to transplant its innards to the Bulova. ;)

Ah, nothing like buying a new piece of electronics and immediately voiding the warranty! But before we do that, Miles and I decided the prudent thing to do was to open up the Bulova and see what our chances are. The thin metal cover comes off fairly easily, but it is sort of "shaped" around the edges so you have to very gingerly bend it. Miles got a good lesson in "gently exploratory disassembly".

top down view

In the top down view you can see the clock mechanism (AC motor & gears) on the left side, and the 1960s era AM radio circuitboard on the right side. The tuning and volume knobs are on the far right, and the station indicator dial is at the top center.

Front right

The front right view reveals the AM radio circuitboard at the top and the 8 ohm speaker at the bottom.

Clock face sans plastic lens / cover

Looks doable. But what do we have to fit in there? So next, we set to disassembling the Amazon Echo Pop. Thankfully there's some teardown guides online so we didn't have to guess - you just forcefully pry the front grill off and then you can remove the speaker and motherboard from the shell.

Miles disassembling the brand new Echo Pop

Echo Pop speaker removed

Echo Pop motherboard

Looking at the motherboard, it's hard to miss that the LED indicator is a series of 5 SMT LEDs across the front edge of it. I also immediately noticed that they're the right width, and in about the right place, to align them with the Bulova AM radio dial if I can fit the motherboard in the case against the lid!

Bulova lid, showing the AM radio tuning window with the Echo Dot LEDs behind it!

Okay, time to take the superfluous electronics out of the Bulova and see if I can fit these pieces in there.

Thankfully, the AM radio, tuner, and speaker came out very easily by removing a few screws. The power supply for the AM radio however, which consisted of an ugly AC transformer and a single large diode, were riveted to the bottom of the case. So I had to carefully drill out the rivets.

drilling out the old power supply

Unit with radio completely removed

Now that I have the radio and radio power supply removed, I plugged it back in to make sure I didn't damage anything. Success! The clock still works fine!

We used the dremel to cut that bell housing off the Echo Pop speaker and mounted it to the bottom where the old speaker was.

Echo Pop former speaker housing

Echo Pop Speaker mounted in Bulova case

I tried test fitting the Echo Pop motherboard in there against the lid, but no dice. But it appears that black mechanical switch and mounting plate on the top right corner of the clock movement are the only things in the way! Okay, time to dig deeper!

We removed the transplanted speaker, desoldered the clock motor wires and removed the clock mechanism entirely. Upon doing so I found that the large black mechanical switch for the radio just popped right off. YAY!

In it to win it now!

Isolated clock mechanism, sans radio switch

That metal plate on the back is still too big though. So {holds breath}...

mark the part to remove

Make VERY gently, shallow cuts so as not to damage the gears behind it

Success!

I put it all back together, tested the clock, and it still works. PHEW. Alright, so we don't want two power cords running to this thing, so I add a small 12W 120V -> 12VDC power module and mount it in the case too. Miles gets some more practice with the soldering iron and we make all the necessary connections: AC to power module. Power module DC to Motherboard. Motherboard speaker pads to cannibalized Echo Pop speaker.