No returns/refunds. WARNING - To run as the manufacturer intended requires the Chumby network, which no longer exists. However many people have hacked these and used them for other projects. WARNING - THIS WILL NOT WORK AS MANUFACTURER INTENDED OUT OF THE BOX. BUY AT YOUR OWN RISK.
Chumby takes your favorite parts of the Internet and delivers them to you in a friendly, always on, always-fresh format. It's a window into your internet life that lives outside your desktop, so content like weather, news, celebrity gossip, podcasts, music, and more has a place to play away from your world of documents and spreadsheets. Just plug in your chumby, connect to your network, and use your computer to create a lineup of favorites from over 1,500 apps in more than 30 categories, with new ones arriving all the time. Then let your chumby do its thing streaming everything you like, from sports scores to stock quotes, from video clips to interactive games, from photos to trivia.
Fall asleep to music or nature sounds Music from iPod and memory sticks FM radio It's Chumby - Create custom channels with 1,500+ apps; Wide variety of news, weather, sports, gossip, games, clocks, and much more; Facebook photos and friend updates; Your photos from Photobucket and Flickr; Twitter tweets; Play YouTube and TV clips, movie trailers, sports highlights, and other video; Send customized e-card greetings; New content added all the time Where does it belong - By your bed - Fall asleep to a favorite internet music station; wake up to a Zen gong, a news podcast, or Pandora Radio; In the kitchen - Consult your Google Calendar in the morning, check the weather, and cook to streaming internet music; On your desk - Watch your photos stream by, follow your friends on Facebook or Twitter, or get alerted to that craigslist find you've been waiting for It's simple to use - Intuitive touchscreen operation; Step-by-step Wi-Fi setup; Connects to your home wireless network; Manage content directly on the Chumby One or from the website;
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Customers like the functionality, ease of setup, and connectivity of the product. They mention it works without a blink, is very useful, and easy to use. Some appreciate the wireless internet and graceful alarms. Overall, customers find the experience delightful, fun, and thoughtful.
Customers are satisfied with the functionality of the product. They mention it's useful and better than expected. Some say it has great connectivity and no problems.
"...bought an Insignia to replace it and it was MUCH cheaper and works just a bit better -- not so susceptible to RFI.)" Read more
"This liitle guy is fun and useful, lots of apps. Great .for in the kitchen as Internet radio too.....enjoy..." Read more
"...with interference on other devices, but so far, the Chumby has worked without a blink...." Read more
"I have two Chumby One devices and find them very useful. I have one next to my bed as an alarm clock and one in the office...." Read more
4 customers mention "Ease of setup"4 positive0 negative
Customers find the product easy to set up and use. They mention the volume makes the music player much easier to use.
"...Setup was amazingly straightforward and everything other than the FM tuner works as advertised (if the aux antenna works, I'll update the review)...." Read more
"...which can be used to adjust the volume, which makes the music player much easier to use...." Read more
"...I thought it was very easy to set up and it gives you step by step instructions when you turn it on...." Read more
"Very easy to set up and use. You can add a lot of different widgets and use this in different ways...." Read more
Customers are satisfied with the connectivity of the product. They mention the wireless internet is strong and there's no interference. Some also like the graceful alarms, Internet radio, and other features.
"...Wireless internet is strong, no interference" Read more
"...Like I said, the wifi has not been a problem although we've only had it about a week and I'm comfortable saying that b/c although we have several..." Read more
"I like the graceful alarms, Internet radio, etc...." Read more
Customers find the experience delightful, fun, and useful. They say it's a thoughtful way to start their day.
"This liitle guy is fun and useful, lots of apps. Great .for in the kitchen as Internet radio too.....enjoy..." Read more
"...All in all from start to finish the experience is delightful and considering the price we love it - like I said, so much we wanted a few more for..." Read more
"Chumby is a thoughtful way to start your day...." Read more
Customers are satisfied with the volume control of the product. They mention it has plenty of volume and clarity for a large room.
"...This Chumby has a knob which can be used to adjust the volume, which makes the music player much easier to use...." Read more
"...Music sounds pretty good for the bedroom next to your bed. Your not going to be waking up the neighbors with the music but its good for what it is...." Read more
"...Chumby one receives all over our house, the speaker has plenty of volume and clarity for a large room...." Read more
We really enjoyed our Chumby. Then, it died and we learned -- SURPRISE -- that the company had gone outta business. THANKS, guyz!!! :<[ (We bought an Insignia to replace it and it was MUCH cheaper and works just a bit better -- not so susceptible to RFI.)
It's OK, has some nice features and some major shortcomings. It works well as an alarm clock as you can customize alarms as much you want and offers a variety of sounds. The available widgets vary greatly in their usefulness. It can be pretty handy to wake up to the weather.
On the other hand, as a previous reviewer pointed out, the wifi reception is poor and the Chumby is very frustrating to use as an internet radio. At times it can stream music such as Pandora without problems but other times it constantly skips and freezes. The customer service responded very promptly to complaints but tried to blame the problem on interference. There are a number of complaints on the Chumby forums about weak wifi. The FM radio is worthless. I can't get a single station.
The speaker is decent. It is fine for alarms and spoken broadcasts, not so much for music. The touchscreen is also rather mediocre and I occasionally have to touch the screen a few or even several times for it to register.
My wife was thinking of getting me a Sony Dash for my birthday but then heard me say "Why would anyone want something like that - why not just buy a netbook" in passing, so she opted not to get it. She let me know afterward she was looking at the Dash and Chumby (which I hadn't heard of even though they make the Dash). After looking at it, I thought it was really cool and got the Chumby One to surprise her.
Whether we want to admit it or not, we vote with our wallets. Two days after we received it, I ordered two more. It's not perfect but it's great.
The FM Reception is non-existent as another commenter noted. I'm going to try using a 'real' antenna today to see if that makes a difference, but if not, I really won't be too bothered. If it's a feature it should work, but FM clock radios have been around for years and FM stations aren't why I bought it.
We've only had it about a week but we have experienced none of the reception problems others mentioned. We have a ton of wireless devices in the house and have had a lot of problems with interference on other devices, but so far, the Chumby has worked without a blink. Although we have several repeaters throughout the house, I connected it to the primary link which is on the far side of the house (which has a moderately weak signal in our bedroom) and we still didn't have any problem. Full disclosure on that - I just did it as a test and let it run for about two hours but if a problem was going to surface, i'm quite sure it would have by then. Suffice to say - at least so far, we've had great connectivity and no problems.
The setup process was very simple. I wished I had a real keyboard when setting up the wifi b/c our Wifi keys are insanely long, but that's not the fault of the Chumby. The sync between the web site and the unit during registration was one of the coolest things I've seen in a while (basically, you fill in a bunch of circles on what looks like a giant tic tac toe - the pattern is then used to transmit the unit id to the web site so you don't have to). The whole process took about 10 minutes but much of that was b/c my wife and I were talking about how cool each aspect was. [Make sure however that when you align the screen, you use your fingernail as instructed. It's easy to just use your whole finger but if you do that - the sync will be off slightly. We goofed the first time around and had trouble using the keyboard - until we went into settings and re-adujusted everything. After we read the manual and did it the way we were supposed to - all was fine. But it's an easy thing to overlook. It's also easy to think the thing is your iPhone or Android and try using the screen according - your mileage will vary)
Once it was loaded, she spent about 30 minutes getting rid of default apps she didn't want (like ESPN, which is why I ordered two more - b/c I like a few of them) then adding new ones. Facebook, check. Twitter, check. Gmail check. Craigslist, check. We hadn't found an app to check Exchange or SMTP email but what she did was create a Gmail account and had her other accounts forward to it. While having email invade the bedroom might sound like insanity - it can actually be really helpful - you can glance over at the email list and quickly determine if it's ok to sleep in for a bit or if you need to rush to work early to put out a fire.
There are a ton of apps and b/c the API is open, you can build your own if you want something that isnt' there. I've taken a stab at two such apps and will be giving the upload process a try later this week. While most people aren't going to take advantage of that b/c it requirest some specific development experience, it's a great touch.
She's found an app for pretty much everythign she's wanted including a great backlight app, some amazingly cool wake up applications and the standard stuff you'd expect. Setup was amazingly straightforward and everything other than the FM tuner works as advertised (if the aux antenna works, I'll update the review). All in all from start to finish the experience is delightful and considering the price we love it - like I said, so much we wanted a few more for the rest of our house. I also ordered a pair of Beats by Dre just to make the whole thing perfect and it's a great combination (although being my wife's present, I feel guilty using it too much that's one reason for the other ones). That brings up one issue though - these aren't as generic as we thought. What I mean is, this is the type of thing that becomes "Mine" and the customizations are what makes it so cool. We have different facebook, twitter, pandora settings even though they're mostly similar and we're married. So one generic one for the family probably won't do for most folks especially if you have kids - get one kid a Chumby and I promise you the ohter will scream bloody murder until he/she gets her own. However that's the nature of anything cool and useful so it's not a knock.
Additionally, this will make one heck of a Christmas present. It's quite easy to spend $100.00 on a gift card which will partially go to waste or a similar present that will just get regifted or sit in the garage - this is guaranteed to be loved by anyone but hard core luddites.
Like I said, the wifi has not been a problem although we've only had it about a week and I'm comfortable saying that b/c although we have several repeaters , we've connected to links that have moderately weak signals and didn't appear to have any issue. I'd still be loving it if it was twice as much - if it was much over $250.00 I'd have my second thoughts just b/c a netbook really would be in order there, but for the price, it's an amazing value and packs a lot of bang for the buck. It's right in the gift price range and pretty much everyone has wifi these days so I don't think you can go wrong with it.
Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2010
First off I purchased my Chumby in December 2009. It died in February. Before it stopped functioning, I kind of enjoyed it, but then the software updates came in automatically and it started crashing every few hours. It made me late to work on several occasions. So I decided to troubleshoot the issue. I contacted Chumby customer service by email since they do not have a telephone based customer service line. They sent me a file to download and upload to their device. After attempting to fix the device myself I had requested an RMA. I haven't received any response from their customer service team since. I'm an Information Technology Engineer so I have the experience to fix issues like these, but this device has unacceptable flaws and should not be sold with the warranty that they imply you will receive.
Other issues. Wifi reception almost non-existent. Wifi security compatibility - buggy usage time with battery <2 hours. Alarm clock feature, if the device doesn't reset itself in a booting loop then its great. screen quality, lacking. sound quality - mono yep that's one speaker. Not that great. customer service - forget about it.
I do not recommend this product. By a nice alarm clock and get yourself an iPad if you want to play with apps.
The Chumby is a fine Device, but the software from Chumby Industries is outdated. After the development for the Dash for Sony, Chumby doe's not make further progress in there Basic function.
Pros: Best Alarm Clock
Negative: Wifi recpeition FM Radio No international Support, for German, French, Portuguese and Spanish Language. If you use Widgets / Apps for Twitter, Facebook, RSS Feeds or the E-Mail reader you will only to be able to read US English Text without any special characters. If there are special characters parts off the text will be missing and this makes it unreadable. MP3 Support without ID4 Tags. Chumbis own Internet Radio and Podcast Support is very basic and frustrating. Chumby officially doe's not support Youtube.
