Updated - Just how good is WiFi Chumby alarm clock?
Everyone wants to love this cute little thing. Chumby is a fun little alarm clock that features more things than my smartphone: touchscreen, WiFi, accelerometer, active user/developer community and lots more. Does it live up to our wide-eyed expectations?
No. No one wants to come out and say it, but you can always trust Gadgetell to give it to you straight. It isn’t ready. This isn’t the model you want. These are not the droids you are looking for
Yes, it cute, cuddly, bean-bag armored and can be almost anything. Here is what everyone agrees: the concept is awesome. The product falls short. If you read the reviews (and I have) here is what everyone complains about:
- Networking is cumbersome
- touchscreen is tough to use
- it’s powercord is not optional, no batteries
- no way to avoid the advertisements (some of us would pay a higher premium for that)
- bringing up the control panel isn’t easy, especially to quiet the thing down
- screen is too bright at night.
Again, we all love the concept of a connected alarm clock and to be sure, the Chumby blows away even its closest competitor. But it could be so much more and be much better. I am thrilled that products like this exist and can’t wait to see the 2nd offering.
**Update: Chumby founder and VP of Software Dev addresses the common concerns below**. I’ll give credit to him for getting out and and mixing it up with us. It is great to see a company actually care enough to leave a comment. Kudos.
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I’m confused - did you actually look at one yourself, or did you “give it to us straight” based entirely on the opinions of others?
on February 29, 2008 at 01:21 PM - LINKDuane (who is the VP of Software Dev. and a Chumby founder), thanks for the comment. My post gathered the thoughts and sentiments from several reviews I found. My post aimed to bridge the disconnect between the issues raised and the reviewers satisfaction; as many loved the product but seemingly couldn’t live with it as an alarm clock replacement or otherwise.
The issues listed seem to be common themes. Would you care to address these issues?
I’d be delighted to review one if you’d like to post one this way. I am all for being proven wrong and happy to admit so.
on February 29, 2008 at 03:38 PM - LINKMany of these issues are addressed ad nauseum directly by Chumby personnel in our forums.
While the “no battery” thing seems like an obvious omission, you’d be hard pressed to find an always-on wifi device that lasts more than a couple of hours, which is completely unacceptable for a device with our usage model - on top of that the sheer number of battery recalls (millions over the last couple of years) makes us wary of getting into something that could easily take us out of business. The forum has information about some workable third-party solutions for those willing to invest the additional money.
The touchscreen is a PDA-style resistive touchscreen - it responds best with small touch areas, such as a fingernail or point of the finger. This is the opposite behavior of the iPhone, which is capacitive, and completely unresponsive to a stylus or fingernail and works best with the pad of the finger. We went with the resistive because it is more common and less expensive, and better choice for a primarily passive device. If we wanted to raise the price well past the $200 mark, then a capacitive solution might be workable - but we’re trying to drive the costs down, not up.
I don’t actually have too many complaints about the networking being cumbersome - it works great in typical home wifi network environments - it is *not* designed to be run against enterprise-level wireless.
Everyone complains about these alleged ads - nobody remembers actually seeing one. This is being positioned, in the absence of actually being exposed to these ads, as being something like TV ads. While we reserve the right to make these types of ads, in general we’re encouraging advertisers to sponsor widgets. In any case, you won’t see an ad blaring out audio or video without the user specifically playing the ad.
We have bandwidth bills to pay - the device is sold at cost. We’ve chosen to go initially with a free-for-the-user advertising model to pay for the ongoing operation of the company.
You can avoid the ads - run your own software on the device. We publish all the tools, for free, to do so - if you’re not using our bandwidth or our servers, then we don’t care if you don’t see ads because you’re not costing us anything.
You bring up the Control Panel by tapping the top button. On the resulting screen, there’s a mute button. Some people think there should be a physical volume knob on the device itself. We disagree - we think it should be under control of software, so we can do stuff like make loud alarms even if you turn the music level down.
The “screen too bright at night” is subjective, but we are considering addressing this issue in future hardware releases if we can make it reliable. These types of displays are designed to be bright by definition - working at low light levels is often not something the designers consider.
I think that’s your list - all of this info can be found in the forums.
You are welcome to contact the company to request access to a review unit - that’s not my department.
on February 29, 2008 at 04:37 PM - LINKDuane, I appreciate you taking the time to respond.
I’ve added a small update so readers can drill down to the comments for your response.
You know, the wired “problem” seems to me to be ripe for a power dock, one you can lift the unit out to play with, then dock back up for power. But I am sure that would raise the price and I appreciate the goal.
At any rate, I appreciate you adding to the discussion.
on February 29, 2008 at 05:05 PM - LINKXbox 360 Free,This is good stuff. I use it realy and it is very useful. it is very cheap one with the market
on March 7, 2008 at 10:38 PM - LINK