Why blog about Chumby?

If you don’t know much about the whole Chumby thing, you might wonder why blog about “just a device”. A good question, but Chumby is not just a device. Chumby is a low end electronic consumer device, but it’s also the first (to my knowledge) “always-on” wi-fi enabled Internet based device to be used as a household or office appliance.

The thing that makes Chumby so interesting is the “openness” supported by the people at Chumby Industries. You can get the source code that runs the device, as well as the schematics for the hardware. The people at Chumby Industries have even blogged and shot video showing much of their journey from concept to production.

There is already a growing community around Chumby, and for a device that has not even been publicly released yet, it’s unprecedented.

We’re always hearing about ambient and ubiquitous computing, and we’re now seeing applications (which are your typical widget or gadget) designed for use not just outside the browser, but outside the desktop altogether. Being the first device of it’s kind in this space is interesting in itself, but that combined with the openness I mention above makes Chumby not only extremely interesting but truly fascinating.

I think we will see many other Chumby blogs in the future, after all Chumby is already a celebrity in the blogosphere.