Everytime I'm reminded of the Chumby, I'm saddened that there isn't a modern version with an open development SDK. While Nest Hubs and Echo Shows are now available dirt cheap, they're all just e-waste waiting to happen. I wish there was a cheap, highly available device with similar specs (WiFi, Bluetooth, nice displays, microphone, maybe cameras) that it was trivially easy to put your own software onto.
And then you need a case, and then you need to slap audio amplifier for speakers too, and find that one magical USB power supply that won't crash rPi under load.
Like... you could just make one, sure but it is quite a bit of work compared to just "buy a hackable box.
Oh, and some kind of supercap probably so powering it off is not crashing your FS... or build your OS to run off readonly image and only save some settings.
That is my experience from building a prototype of that
>Oh, and some kind of supercap probably so powering it off is not crashing your FS... or build your OS to run off readonly image and only save some settings.
after years and years of using nearly every revision of RPi for a huge variety of things, I can safely say that the accusation of needing a supercap to prevent an 'FS crash' is absolute nonsense.
If you're talking about the degradation that accompanies any heavy use of flash NAND then i'm not sure what to tell you other than it can be mostly mitigated in software, and that it's a universal trait; RPis are by no means the only system to suffer from those issues.
I will, however, wholeheartedly agree that an RPi with a bunch of crap stapled to it is by no means equivalent to a Chumby. There is a lot to be said about the friction that is alleviated by having a standard set of hardware to program applets against, the ecosystem provided by Chumby was the whole point.
I guess for just a dashboard it doesn't matter either way, it's just running a screen; I added it coz I was worried that say background package upgrade would be stopped midway and in worst scenario, midway to upgrading kernel.
>If you're talking about the degradation that accompanies any heavy use of flash NAND then i'm not sure what to tell you other than it can be mostly mitigated in software, and that it's a universal trait; RPis are by no means the only system to suffer from those issues.
I'm not but any brand of SD card to recommend ? I was using some samsung EVO (bought off a store, not random e-bay seller) and my cluster pretty much self-destroyed even tho I severly limited writes in the first place.
They also failed in weird way where writes were confirmed but never landed on flash so the system worked till it had to remove latest writes from buffer memory... then it said FS is corrupted and after reboot it was back to previous state...1
> I wish there was a cheap, highly available device with similar specs (WiFi, Bluetooth, nice displays, microphone, maybe cameras) that it was trivially easy to put your own software onto.
I guess the Android SDKs are "open", but if you want to do anything lower-level, or be able to upgrade the Android version later (at least for more than just a few years), you need it to be a lot more open than pretty much all Android tablets.
I think the sibling's suggestion of a Raspberry Pi with touchscreen is much better from that perspective, but then you're on your own for building a polished "product" around it, which is unfortunately more involved than just 3D-printing a case for it.
I don't see anybody doing anything cool with it though. I wouldn't mind just forcing it to always display a webpage to display blood glucose levels with nightscout. I'd give them to all my diabetic relatives.
I have one of the gen one and wanted to love it. But so many things just weren't right.
Doesn't show my Google calendar reminders
Getting it to play a morning routine failed, and when it worked the volume levels were all over the place - sometimes the news it played me would be super loud, sometimes I couldn't here the radio or music it played next.
It can't play a youtube video
It didn't have loads of basic controls when listening to podcasts (speed, skip back 30 seconds etc)
Can't display a custom home screen, I'd love to see more weather detail, or a tide chart, or local traffic news.
As I say, really wanted to like it, but never found a use for it yet.
Yup, basically that idea, but a bit higher spec (Linux-capable CPU instead of a microcontroller, larger and higher-resolution touchscreen). But it's definitely on the right track! Ideally we'd have something in line spec-wise with the Amazon Echo Show 5.
That does kind of describe the modern "cheap" android infrastructure. (caveat the battery, which after a bunch of years is useless anyway :-)) The other "modern" alternative to this is an HDMI display with a Raspberry Pi mounted to the back[1].
One could 3D print a different frame in order to mount speakers and a web camera, but that isn't really off the shelf any more at that point.
This is what I use now. After leaving them plugged for years the batteries often start expanding though, so it's not ideal right next to my head all night...
This is such a trip, I've got a number of Chumbies (Chumbys?) of the original OMAP processor variety. I even have a "Chumby Guts" kit that I got from Adafruit back in the day which has all the parts, minus the squishy case!
They are a great tool for this kind of project because learning about building embedded Linux systems is easier with something that has all the parts already put together for you (it's just software at that point).
It also shows how fleeting in time technology is. Building an equivalent today is certainly possible, but the parts you would use for it would be out of date/obsolete in a couple of years so no real "durability" to the existence of the tool.
The biggest challenge is of course display tech. Displays are all custom made these days for products that have runs in the millions, there hasn't really existed a "standardized" parts eco-system for them. I had hoped the phone business might provide that but nope.
Wow, I thought I misread but this is really about Chumby! I still have an original one. Used it for weather and stuff at the time. Not very useful now, but did not know they had several follow up versions, cool! Still like the idea.
My original (Leather covered) Chumby is still my alarm clock. The display is no longer as good as it once was, but it keeps working! Of course, it never had power fail recovery (or battery backup), so if you lose power in the middle of the night, then your alarm doesn't work in the morning.
> Of course, it never had power fail recovery (or battery backup)
There's a 9-volt style battery connector hiding inside the little kangaroo pouch underneath the old chumby that is capable of powering the device but it was never officially supported and a standard 9-volt battery would not power the device for long enough to be useful in any realistic capacity.
I do remember users hacking up their own battery packs with enough juice to keep it powered overnight but they tended to involve bulky external battery systems that kind of wrecked the overall vibe of the little leather ball.
Interestingly enough technically rPi4 can boot off internet using nothing but builtin eeprom settings. So the modern clone could just boot off fully diskless off "cloud" or the web server in local network.
Ahh, there's a familiar username! I was actually amazed at how long it had been when I finally built up the motivation to pick the project back up earlier this year. My GitHub linux repository is still forked from your silvermoon-linux repository with those original patches. Glad you stumbled upon this so you could see where it eventually got to!
Ahead of its time with absurdist packaging and documentation. I wish it had caught on more, and not only in niche products. Though, I suppose it would get old if every product was presented that way.
