When I opened up the FedEx box holding a Chumby, the offices of The D were full of inquisitive faces with perplexed expressions.
"What the heck is it?" asked one editor.
"What's the point of it?" wondered a news writer.
"Is it like a Furby?" questioned another.
Unfortunately for me, it can be quite difficult to describe the essence of a Chumby. From a physical standpoint, it is a squishy, bean-filled, Italian leather-covered WiFi-enabled alarm clock with a touchscreen. You can even dress it up with Chumby charms; my favorite one is the two-headed planaria (which biology majors should also appreciate).
Underneath this cuddly exterior, it has a lot of additional functionality: You can use it as an iPod stereo, internet radio player, motion-activated game device, and the list never ends. Behind the scenes, Chumby is actually an inexpensive Linux computer.
The Chumby gives the user most of the functionality of a computer sans computer; its purpose on this earth is to be precisely what it is not. The Chumby is set up with widgets that can connect to the internet. Vista and Mac users are familiar with widgets, those mini-applications dedicated to delivering very specific information. Having a weather widget on your laptop is nice, but is bypassing the couple mouse clicks it takes to get a weather forecast on your internet browser really that much more convenient? The Chumby takes widgets off the computer and puts them on its touchscreen, where they make more sense.
As I played with the Chumby for two weeks, other people's reactions were divided between love and hate, depending on whether or not they bought in to the Chumby Concept. The point of the Chumby is "glance-ability." It simplifies the Internet and delivers constant access to its content, and you don't have to do anything. Just give it a gander when you want the weather, news or whatever. There is no longer any reason to fire up a computer just to get the weather before you step outside. This makes sense for people who live in a house and don't have a computer in the bedroom -- in a college dorm room, maybe not so much.
That being said, I will concede one point to Chumby-haters: at $180, the Chumby is quite expensive. Although, considering all its functionality, the price doesn't seem too bad (for comparison, an iHome is around $100), it is still a large sum of money for a glorified alarm clock/internet appliance.
The other major thing that is holding the Chumby back is that it needs to be plugged into an outlet. If it had a rechargeable battery, making it portable, a much more compelling argument could be made to justify its price, if only so one could carry it around and show it off.
I was sad to send the Chumby back at the end of the trial period. I think the Chumby is a great idea and a great first-generation device, but right now only a small niche of the market will deem it a necessary addition to their gadget arsenal. With a few changes and a few more features, like a web browser, the Chumby could get very chummy with a lot of households.
Luofei is a staff writer for The Mirror. See what he did in that last sentence? Very clever.
