Chumby Gets $12.5M...Here's Why It's Taking Off
Chumby Industries, makers of the Wi-Fi video and widget displaying device, the Chumby, have just announced $12.5 million in Series B funding today. The company notes that this new financing is going to be used to "accelerate growth of the company, and expand and broaden the Chumby Network to other screen-based Internet connected devices." How did this little gadget get so popular? And why would you want one? Read on to find out.
What's a Chumby?
For those of you who don't know, the Chumby Touchscreen Internet gadget is a popular...and darned cute...gadget that can be customized with various channels that feature widgets, videos, feeds, games, and more.
To use your Chumby, you plug it in and configure it to work with your Wi-Fi network. Once that's done, you log on to Chumby.com and customize yours with the widgets of your choosing.
These widgets can be anything - web clips, RSS feeds, games, videos, Tweets, news, weather, a clock, photos, or a million other things. Some of the widgets come from deals made with content providers, like the widgets available from CBS, MTV Networks, MySpace, The Weather Channel Interactive, AOL's SHOUTcast and Scripps Networks.
The Chumby also has speakers, so you can hook up the Chumby to your iPod via the USB connector in the back and play your iTunes playlists with it.
Made for Hackers
However, what's really great about the Chumby is that the device is designed for customization. Want to hack, mod, extend, or improve Chumby? Have at it!
The Chumby lets you upgrade your Chumby in four different ways: developers customize the software, build Flash widgets, or even hack the hardware. Arts-and-crafts types can also mess around with the Chumby in their own way, decorating it or putting in a case of their own design.
Software: The Chumby is a Linux-based, open-source platform which means developers can do nearly anything with it. A quick glance on the Chumby forum shows posts about Python & Ruby for Chumby, Java for Chumby, Perl for Chumby, MTASC for Chumby, and much more.
Widgets: For Flash animators, the Chumby can be a showcase for your talents. Artists can upload widgets to the Chumby site and share them with the community so others can add them to their own Chumbys. These widgets are the bread-and-butter of Chumby, bringing most of the cool stuff like news feeds, videos, games, viewers, utilities, and other fun and/or useful tools to the device.
Hardware: The Chumby is made for tinkerers. You can open up the Chumby, take it apart, upgrade it, add to it, and mod it. They even tell you how and provide extensive documentation.
Crafts: You don't have to be a computer nerd to enjoy modding your Chumby, though. Even artistic types can enjoy making Chumby their own. The Chumby is designed so that the core electronics can be easily removed from its casing, letting you create your own look for Chumby without having to write code. See?
Modded Chumby on Chumby's flickr Group
You can even embed a Chumby gadget on your own web site to show people what your Chumby looks like:
Virtual Chumby
Now, don't you want one?
Author's Note: I have a Chumby and I love it.
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I was going to get one but held back because the exterior is made of leather, I wish that they'd change that.
Uh-huh. A $200 alarm clock that connects to the Internet?
From Las Vegas: The Masked Millionaire Speaks
I think I can live without one.
But good luck to the company.
Here is the one reason why it isn't going to take off:
Mobile Phones. Seriously, imagine having a device in your pocket, always with you, always connected, always getting the latest information you need and it can also service as an alarm clock.
Fantastic because I've just named about every cellphone on the market to cost more than $200 to be released in the past few years and most notably the iPhone.
Biggest waste of VC funding I've ever seen.
I would LOVE to have a Chumby, but with a price tag of $180, you need to have a lot of disposable income to be picking one up. It doesn't do anything you can't do at your computer, it's just a nifty gadget to use in addition to your computer.
You folks need to keep in mind that if the Chumby was mass manufactured that the price would come down quite a bit. If they could get it under $100 and had a ton of interesting software (like the early days of Palm) they could gain some ground.
i do want one
I'm not a tinkerer. Tell me why this is better than a smart phone?
I'm a little surprised (read: no, I'm not) that it's being compared to a mobile phone and not an internet picture frame. But internet commenters don't think like that. The phone or the computer is the replacement for everything.
THAT said, it's interesting to see the Chumby operate as (hackable) device running widget-only OS. In looking at clock radios recently in a retail store, I've noticed how a couple manufacturers are starting to include picture frame-style functionality into the devices-- something that we should be able to easily visualize the scale of how/what an alarm clock is/could be.
I'm interested in the Chumby for the widgets, maybe I'll hack it one day, but its life went like this: It was off-to the side on my desktop to display email, foreign language word of the day, weather etc. Later, it went to my in-laws place to be a flickr-only photo viewer that sat in their kitchen when we were away on vacation. Now it sits on my nightstand, and with two USB ports, I can plug in my phone or DS or ipod or any USB-chargeable device into my 'alarm clock'-ish thing. Plus, having a touchscreen shoutcast radio that charges my DS is rather nice. SomaFM in a beanbag, I don't care, that is kinda fun.
Is it overpriced? For now, I agree with the manufacturing comment; but my concern is that appliance-like devices that aren't phones or computers (overkill) will proliferate and the appliance model will creep into alarm clarks, picture frames and other things yet to come.
Now, a Nazbatag? Different story. ;)
Actually, I don't see this as a phone wannabee or replacement. It is much more consumer oriented and as one commenter mentioned is an aggregation and improvement on things like a clock, digital picture frame, getting weather, news snippets etc. without having to go through the hassle of logging on. Its a perfect bedside accessory. Its aimed for passive interaction versus active.
Don't know about the whether the VC funding was wise but I would buy one if it was less than $100.
I have one and I LOVE it. Shipped in 3 days from the factory. I wake up each day to internet radio, countdown clocks, a calendar, and the news headlines - along with a number of cool displays, pictures and webcams...If I am inclined I can even interact with the games. I think it is worth every penny. I just want someone to work on the voice recognition interface. A laptop in the bedroom is just so unappealing but the chumby - a different story....
When I can unplug it from the wall without it turning into a doorstop, I'll consider it.
Chumby is awesome, I remember when I first started hearing about it last year, and now you can finally buy one. Now I just need the money to buy it :(.
I'm doing a masters project on Human-Computer Interaction and more specifically Ambient and Glanceable devices. The Chumby, WidgetStation, Ambient Devices Orb, etc. are all ambient/glanceable devices. Everything I've seen so far shows that this technology is going to blow up over the next 2 years. Gartners 2007 Hype Cycle shows that this is still on the upward hype curve so it's the neatest cool thing to come out. That trend will subside for a bit, but in about 5 years the market for these kinds of devices will level off and you'll see them in dorm rooms and corporate offices around the world. IMO.
All I really know is that I want one. It would be a great to replace my alarm clock/CD player, and doesn't require me to sit in front of my PC to get my morning info before heading to work. That and it's kinda cute.