Why I am a Chumby convert
Adam Turner's favourite internet alarm clock finally gets its passport and a firmware update.
MTV's ''Pimp My Ride'' features a team of rev-heads converting a viewer's stock-standard car into a customised beast on wheels, but if you gave them a boring old clock radio you'd get back something like the Chumby.
The Chumby is basically a tiny, internet-enabled widget player roughly the size of a tub of margarine tipped on its side.
It costs $US180 and features a 3.5 inch LCD touch screen embedded in a plush bean bag-like casing, along with a wifi adapter for connecting to your wireless network.
You can program it over the internet via the Chumby website, configuring it to run a range of applications such as photo slide shows, internet radio stations, podcasts, news and weather reports, games and RSS feeds. Social networkers are also catered for with MySpace and FaceBook widgets.
I've had a Chumby on my bedside table for about three months, although it would also make a great deskside companion. I use it as an alarm clock that also shows me the weather forecast and the day's calendar events, which means I can quickly make an informed decision as to whether it's worth getting out of bed.
The rest of the time it scrolls photos from a Flickr account, which can amuse my young children for hours.
Unfortunately the Chumby's makers only deliver within the US (mine was brought back by a friend), so the widgets are very US-centric.
The Chumby is finally spreading its wings, with plans to launch in Japan in October. Plans are also afoot to spread to Europe, Australia and Hong Kong. A decent widget scraping data from Australia's Bureau of Meteorology, such as the animated rain radar, would be fantastic.
The Chumby also got a firmware update this week, adding a few small changes such as alarm improvements and a wifi signal strength indicator.
The cool thing about the Chumby is that it runs on Linux and is specifically designed to be modified.
So there's nothing stopping you tinkering under the bonnet and there's an active community of Chumby modders to assist you in your endeavours.
Ultimately your opinion of the Chumby depends on whether or not you find a good use for it. What would you do with a Chumby?
Other Blog Entries written by Adam Turner:
Thoughts on this article? Add a comment below.
Be the first to comment on this article.