Chumby
2008-06-06 20:22:27.027042+02 by
Dan Lyke
5 comments
As research for some products I may be working on I've ended up with a Chumby. It's a little touch screen 320x240 stand-alone WiFi flash player. It's quite hackable, runs Linux, you can SSH into it or run a Flash movie off a USB drive, but they even provide Gerber files and schematics, so you can do things like build smart daughter-boards or hack a big display on to it. But it sure doesn't need any technical sophistication to just use.
I think the best way to think about this is that it's a soft squeezable clock radio combination news scroll that you can solder on.
Right now I have it rotating between a couple of weather widgets, a clock, and a photo application that pulls images off my in-house web server, while it plays an interview with The Chapin Sisters off of KCRW.
[ related topics:
Hardware Hackery Photography Weblogs Open Source Embedded Devices Embedded Devices - Linux
]
comments in descending chronological order (reverse):
#Comment Re: made: 2008-06-07 04:12:46.98656+02 by:
Dan Lyke
Meuon, call me (new land line is 707-765-1321, cell phone also works) or email. 10k units is a pretty small order to amortize engineering over, and it won't be running Linux, but that sort of thing is kinda what I do now...
I could probably even line up manufacturing.
#Comment Re: made: 2008-06-07 03:26:14.725792+02 by:
meuon
I need a brain dead $30 Chumby clone. About 10,000 of them.
#Comment Re: made: 2008-06-06 21:44:58.002608+02 by:
Dan Lyke
Okay, now I've got it playing via Slim Server. It doesn't have a radio receiver, but with a little work you may even be able to have it stream from your home server, if your upstream is fast enough...
#Comment Re: chumby made: 2008-06-06 21:40:15.85009+02 by:
ghasty
Yeah, when I saw one of these I had the same reaction...I want one...not sure why...(or my justification to Lisa)...but I still want one.
#Comment Re: made: 2008-06-06 21:11:36.392078+02 by:
ebwolf
It's been a while since I saw a new electronic gadget that immediately made me say "I want one!"
My new job necessitates more travel than I've ever done (about a week every-other-month) and this would help me bring a little bit of home with me where ever I go. Have it display some photos from Flickr, tune it to a local radio station, and use it as my alarm clock - always beside the bed.
Cool! It even has an accelerometer! You could make it play hot potato!
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