That “Inception” Spinning Top Exists: Limbo Can Spin for 4+ Hours

In the 2010 blockbuster, Leonardo DiCaprio’s Dom Cobb used a spinning top to be able to tell whether he was still in a dream or back in the real world. If the top continued spinning, he was still trapped inside the dream; when it dropped, he was awake.

The movie, as you must know, ended with an extended shot of the top spinning on the table of his family home, after he was reunited with his kids. Nolan deliberately left the ending open to interpretation, so that each viewer choose the version they liked best.

With Limbo, you don’t have to choose. Because the top never stops spinning. Well, it does eventually stop, but after spinning for hours on end, depending on how much battery life it has.

Even the name is reminiscent of “Inception,” as Limbo was where Cobb and Mal were trapped for years, after he hid the spinning top so she wouldn’t be able to tell they were dreaming. As imaginative as Nolan’s film was, Limbo is equally so.

It’s a metal spinning top with a hidden mechanism that acts as a gyro powered by a rechargeable battery. It also includes a motion sensor and a system-on-a-chip that monitors the top’s stability. Both serve to make Limbo spin on practically any surface, be it a flat one like a desk, the palm of your hand or even a tomato.

Just recently, Limbo was recognized by the World Guinness Book of Records as the world’s longest mechanical spinning top, having spun for an impressive 27 hours, 9 minutes and 24 seconds.

Limbo is just like Cobb’s spinning top, only much cooler. And you don’t even have to be asleep to get to play with it: it was up for crowdfunding on KickStarter but has achieved the goal. Delivery is tentatively scheduled for December.