The trend seems to be for the "green", "environment friendly" devices. Stuff that can be recycled, that does not contain harmful elements such as lead or mercury. Here is my chess clock, a silicon powered hourglass. No batteries needed. Quiet. Stylish. Designed to last for decades. This is the way forward, IMO.
I actually have a ZMF although I bought it for ease of setting, not for its LEDs. ZMF warns that it is not a good choice in bright sunlight, and a previous poster savaged the display as being near impossible to read even indoors. It seems fine to me but if LEDs are not suitable for outdoor use, then that is certainly going to limit their appeal. I don't know enough about the technology to judge but when I was researching the ZMF I read something on the ZMF website that LEDs are inherently less bright than LCDs. I just don't know if that is true or not.
I can see the technology spreading though whether it will replace LCDs seems doubtful. Probably companies will try to sell "indoor" and "outdoor" versions of their clocks and try to convince us we all need more than 1 clock.
What about chess pieces made from bio-plastics, too?
I actually have a ZMF although I bought it for ease of setting, not for its LEDs. ZMF warns that it is not a good choice in bright sunlight, and a previous poster savaged the display as being near impossible to read even indoors. It seems fine to me but if LEDs are not suitable for outdoor use, then that is certainly going to limit their appeal. I don't know enough about the technology to judge but when I was researching the ZMF I read something on the ZMF website that LEDs are inherently less bright than LCDs. I just don't know if that is true or not.
I can see the technology spreading though whether it will replace LCDs seems doubtful. Probably companies will try to sell "indoor" and "outdoor" versions of their clocks and try to convince us we all need more than 1 clock.
... LCDs however are not great in sunlight either, and tend to break down in direct sunlight (heat build up), so I doubt your expensive Chronos would -- or should -- be used out side. And if it RAINS?!? Let's not think that!!
Let's assume that you will be playing indoors. If you are going to be outdoors let's assume you will be using a trusty anlog clock.
Bill Smythe wrote an intersting article Digital Clock Standards . ZMF seems to be following some of these suggestions. Their clock is rather crude, but a step in the right direction. Their clocks are directed at the Scholatic crowd, who like BRIGHT COLORS, but who want the reliability of a Chronos. The ZMF II is no Chronos, but costs half what a Chronos costs, which would appeal to the Father / Mother who might not want to spend $100+ on a chess clock.
The Saitek is a very popular alternative to the Chronos, and also costs about half what a Chronos costs. Between a ZMF II and Saitek, I'd pick the Saitek since it uses push buttons, not "Touch Sensors" but many scholastic players perfer Touch Sensors over push buttons. ZMF has thrown down the gauntlet to Saitek. This is a head to head match up vying for the huge scholastic market whose parents may not want to spring for Chronos. The QUESTION is does anyone believe Saitek will up the ante by coming out with a better LED clock that competes with the ZMF II, or will they stay with their LCD clock?? If Saitek does come out with a 2nd Generation LED clock will it lead to an "arms race" as 2nd Generation clocks are introduced?
Fish-Killer The other big Scholastic player of course is Saitek . Do you think they will move to an LED display or not?!? ZMF right now is the ONLY player in the LED market, and it is no coincidense that the ZMF II is almost a direct copy of the Chronos GX Touch Sensor, at about 1/2 the cost of a Chronos. Can Saitek NOT afford to enter the LED market, and cede it to ZMF unchallenged?!? My guess?!? Saitek's bread and butter is the scholastic crowd. They are *probably* going to wait 1 year to see a) how popular the ZMF II becomes b) what their own bottom line is year-over-year. The can't afford to wait too much more than a year and allow ZMF to become THE established player. If their analysis shows either falling sales, or steady sales, I would expect Saitek to introduce their own LED clock with improvements over those of ZMF. I expect Chronos and DGT to be the last major players to convert since Chronos is the defacto U.S. standard, and the DGT 2010 has the blessing of FIDE in Europe. Like you, however, we'll see.
Anyone else?!? We are, after all, crystal ball gazing trying to gaze into the future. Had anyone told me in the late '80's that by 2009 I'd be buying a *digital* clock over the tried and true BHB Special analog clock I'd have said "Sure. And what have *YOU* been smoking"?? Or even that a *digital* clock would displace the tried and true analog clock, as indeed has occurred. So please chime in and let's see how good we are with predicting the future.
Please check out this link to my article about modern digital chess clocks:
http://www.chesspdx.com/blog/digital-chess-clocks-history/
And I sell chess clocks on my website:
Thanks for your time and consideration!
Well, I went to my first tournament last night and there wasn't a single analog clock! 19 person tournament, so a decent size sample.
There were mostly ZMF-II, but there were a couple of Chronos II.
Something I miss in tournament halls: All you hear is the sounds of pieces moving and the ticking of clocks.
Analogue clocks and descriptive notation, both better, but gone 
I must say I agree that the ZMF is very easy to set. I am good at most clocks but lately I had to set a clock for 40/90 followed by G/30 both with 30s increment. I had to pull out manuals for Chronos, DGT and Saitek but the ZMF was totally easy. For the simple stuff like G/40 with 5 sec delay they are all fairly easy but when you want to get to more unique settings the ZMF seems to be the winner in my eyes.
For the record though I do really like buttons over sensors as it just feels satisfying to me to hit an actual button. I also prefer LCD over LED as I feel they just simply look nicer.
Laser
I also prefer LCD over LED as I feel they just simply look nicer.
Laser
Hmm, LCD displays are ugly when compared to LEDs.
You should consider The GT 960 by omcorchess. Its a sturdy clock with a variety of functions. Its available from House of Staunton.
http://www.uscfsales.com/chess-clocks/digital-chess-clocks/omcor-game-timer-960-chess-clock.html
I also prefer LEDs and they are more energy efficient.
Time to peer into our magical crystal balls.
Digital clocks, love them or hate them, will become synonymous the concept of a "chess clock". The BEST digital chess clock on the market -- IMMHO -- today is the Chronos, be it the Chronos II or the GX; push button or "touch sensor". That said there are a lot of "pretenders" out there who would like to dethrone the Chronos.
Probably the biggest single problem with ALL digital chess clocks out there is that they ALL use LCD (liquid crystal display), and LCDs are notoriously buggy. If you haved a digital chess clock, and something goes wrong 90% of the time it will have to do with the LCD display.
Within the past year a pretender to throne showed up on Chronos' doorstep. Their name: ZMF-II. To make matters worse it is a cheap knock off the Chronos GX Touch Sensor, that sells for about half of what a genuine Chronos GX Touch Sensor sells for, and performs about half the functions of a Genuine Chronos Touch Sensor. There is however one place that the ZMF II does distinguish itself above every other clock on the market: It uses LED's in place of LCD's. LED displays are very stable and long lasting. The ZMF displays are however rather crude -- some people think they are either too bright, or too hard to see; that said I think they may have stumbled over something, and that designers of 2nd Generation Digital Clocks will abandon the LCD in favor of LED displays.
Looking into our Crystal Balls does anyone see this also happening, and if so when? Who do you think will be early adaptors of LED displays (other than ZMF of course).
Here is what I see: I expect that the march to LED displays to occur within the next three (3) years, as 2nd generation digital clocks are rolled out. Early adaptors are lkely to be Saitek, a popular scholastic clock maker who's market share ZMF has set it sights on by creating a clock that combines two features: The Chronos GX Touch Sensor clock at about half the cost of a Genuine Chronos GX Touch Sensor, and BRIGHT COLORS: RED, GREEN, and BLUE, and cases that are either matching or in BLACK. I expect Setek to Leap Frog ZMF by Updating their Setek Competition Games Clocks by incoporating LED displays while leaving their LED lit push buttons in place. The display may have two color numbers maybe a GREEN number to show time, and a RED number for either the number of moves made -- or -- more likely -- delay seconds.
Another early adaptor of LED screen techology I would expect to be Escalibur. The clocks are the worse on the market, and horrible. They might want to adapt to LED screen technology to get a leg up and claim a share of the scholastic market before heavy weights like DGT and Chronos switch to LED technology.
Now it is your turn: Do you see LED displays in near future or not?? Why or Why NOT???