chumby and iPad

Now that the much-anticipated Apple iPad has been announced, we’re getting the obvious and unavoidable question:  so what does this mean for chumby?

First of all, it’s hardly a surprise that the internet is becoming embedded in more and more products that we use every day.  Apple didn’t invent this trend, but they certainly popularized it with the iPhone.  So the iPad is, essentially, a bigger and perhaps better version of something they already developed: a gorgeous piece of multi-touch glass connected wirelessly to the internet and to their various “iStores.”  It sure looks cool and is likely to be a big hit for those who can afford it and who want a transportable “tablet computer.” As for the other e-book makers?  Well, I agree with the pundits who believe they will be iToast.

But the iPad, or the iPod, or the iPhone, or the G-Phone aren’t chumbys and they don’t do what chumbys do.  Not better, not worse, just not chumby.

Why not?

1)  chumby streams

When you turn on a chumby-powered device, it plays your internet life – your chumby simply and automatically streams one application after the next.  Perhaps your Flickr photos, then your friends’ Facebook status, then the headlines from The New York Times, then a wacky animated clock, then the weather, then whatever else you’ve chosen – and all with Pandora or podcasts playing in the background, so I guess it “multitasks.”  It’s closer to turning on your TV or radio than booting up a computer and launching separate applications — chumby “just plays” your internet.  As far as we know, no other device really does this.

2) chumby is “glanceable”

Related to 1) above, with chumby you don’t have to touch, tap, poke, stretch, flick, push or pull to get your information, you simply look at it.  Sure, you can interact with chumby applications: flick photos, slide news headlines or blog feeds up and down, tap to see more, drag to share content with friends, tap to launch rockets, or whatever.  But you don’t have to.  As Chance the Gardener in Being There would say, “I like to watch.”  With chumby, you watch your internet life go by.  With other products, unless you interrupt what you’re doing to play with them, you stare at an “app dock” or a “desktop.”  So I guess it’s sort of like the difference between watching your life on TV and watching your desk.

3) chumby is a capability, not a product

At chumby, we have always been about embedding your internet life into consumer electronics products that you already understand — and just making them better and your internet more convenient.  We make your clock radio better, we make your photo frame better, we’ll make your home phone and your TV better ;^)  And we partner with big consumer electronic brands to make their products better.  We believe that the things you already use every day should simply become internet-connected and more useful.  The chumby one is the best “clock radio” in the world – and you probably already understand what a clock radio is and how to use it: we just reinvented it.

So those are the big differences.  Oh, and chumby products are also several times cheaper than the iPad.  And chumby products are open and hackable so that you can do with them what you like or what clever developers can enable them to do.  And chumby content is free — you don’t go to our App Store and buy anything: chumby is a free app buffet, so load up, take two plates.  How is it free?  Some chumby apps have a commercial rationale, say a new movie trailer or an app that is “brought to you by” someone — but that’s how free media works and is why this is the most broadly accepted media business model in the world.  No purchases, no downloads, no data plans (please, no more of those!), just free streaming personalized content where you’re in charge.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Apple products.  I’m typing this on my Mac.  And I have two iPod touches at home — but they’re sitting on my desk, with black screens, waiting for me to want to play with them, which I’m generally too busy to do, or they need to be charged.  There they sit.  I can’t decide whether I want an iPad or not.  But if I did, I suspect it would quickly end up right there on my desk, sitting next to my iPods with blank screens, and not really doing much for me.  Meanwhile, I just glanced at my chumby classic on my desk (of course it’s on, it’s always on) and caught an interesting tweet about the iPad not supporting Adobe’s Flash technology that is a key part of most multimedia web sites (if so, how is that going to work?) — fascinating ;^)

And I can’t let you go without alerting you that you can now get the original iconic Italian-leather chumby classic, with all the bling and trimmings (even the coveted chumby charms and linen carrying bag!), for only $149.95, a $50 savings — but probably only through February.  So you can wait for an iPad, or act quickly and buy 4 chumby classics for the same price!  Or get the chumby one for only $119.95:  our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelievable price.  ;^)

chumbonanza! get the chumby classic for $149.95

As popular as our new chumby one has turned out to be, many of you love the chumby classic, our original iconic bundle of always-on hand-sewn Italian leather stereo goodness.  There is nothing else like it, and there may never be.  It’s what I choose for my own bedside table.

So now, but only through February and only while supplies last, you can get the original “classic” chumby for an amazing price of $149.95…and we’ll even throw in free ground shipping.  https://store.chumby.com/

Welcome to chumbonanza days!  But act fast :^)

Sony, with a dash of chumby; or chumby, with a dash of Sony…whatever

Sony dash announcement today at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show:  here.

Stay tuned, more to come :^)

chumby one shipping update

We’re getting a few questions, and some anxiety, about shipping times of chumby one orders for U.S. delivery.  So here’s the status.

Orders for chumby one placed November 16 to 23 have already shipped.  Orders placed on or after November 24 will ship by December 17.  We’re working like hyper-caffeinated elves to get these orders out right now.  For these orders, we will ensure a timely delivery in the United States by Christmas, even if it means that we upgrade these orders to 2-day shipping if necessary, and at no additional cost to you.  Faster, Rudolph, faster!

For any orders placed on or after December 12 (today), we promise to do our best but *please* do not count on chumby ones placed on or after this date to arrive by Christmas:  you’re entering the “risky reindeer zone.”  We’d be cutting it too close for us to be confident of a Christmas arrival, even with expedited shipping.

Warm regards,

Your Friends, the wickedly stressed-out elves, at chumby industries

chumby one shipping dates and new pricing with free shipping

On Wednesday of this week (12/2), as we previously announced, our special chumby insider price of $99.95 will expire — and the price of chumby one will be $119.95.  Still an amazing price for the newest chumby.  And we’ll even throw in free domestic ground shipping: that’s a $9.95 savings.

So you have one more day to get in at the $99.95 special price — what are you waiting for?  And you better tell your friends.

Also please note that while we originally expected to be able to continue to price multiple unit orders at $99.95 per chumby, we’re unfortunately no longer going to be able to do that — so our pants are on fire, at least for now.   Here’s why.  The demand for the new chumby one has, we confess, exceeded our expectations.  It now looks like it’s going to be tough to get enough chumby ones manufactured and shipped to everyone who is likely to want one in time for the Holidays.  For those of you who have already ordered chumby ones, don’t worry, you’ll be getting them — we’re only worried about running out in a couple of weeks if demand continues at its current pace and we can’t get more produced faster.  Correspondingly, we can’t really afford to offer discounted multiple unit sales now.  But, again, we are offering free shipping with the new price — we figure it’s the least we can do.

Some of you are grumpy (and rightly so!) that we slipped the ship date for the chumby ones you ordered.  Again, the issue is our getting sufficient chumby ones fast enough to keep up with demand.  If you ordered your chumby one on or before November 15, your chumby is expected to ship by December 3 — yes, *this* week.  If you ordered after November 15, we’re planning on shipping your chumby ones out to you by December 11th.  While having more demand than we can handle is supposed to be one of those “good problems” for a company like ours, and especially in this economy, we recognize that we’re disappointing some of you with these shipping delays — so thanks for your patience in bearing with us.  We hope you’ll be pleased enough with your new chumby one that you’ll forgive us.

chumby one available *now* for $99.95

This special pricing will only last through the end of November.  It’s our way of thanking our chumby friends who are paying attention :^)  And also a way to thank those of you willing to wait a bit and live with our current inventory situation where we’re selling chumby ones faster than we’re making them.  Sorry for the queue, but more chumby ones are on the way!

coming soon, chumby one

Yes, the rumors are true.  In October, chumby industries will be launching the new chumby one.  It is every bit a chumby, but still a little different from the chumby classic that you know and love.  Obviously a different look and some other differences that we will soon tell you about, for example an optional battery capability.  The chumby one will only be available on chumby’s web site at www.chumby.com.  The price will be $99.95 during a brief pre-order period (you heard it here first), and after we start shipping (planned for end of October), the price will be $119.95 for single orders and $99.95 each for orders of 2 or more.  But don’t worry, chumby classic will not be going away, it will soon be back in stock in many colors.

So stay tuned here for more info about a new way to wake up to your internet life.

buy chumby kits

One of our favorite publications/tech blogs is MAKE Magazine.  And I don’t just say this because the owner of Make, O’Reilly Media, through their involvement in OATV, is also an investor in chumby industries (but at least I got that disclosure out of the way).  We like MAKE because they advocate what we advocate, i.e., for people to get more directly involved in the creation, adaptation and enhancement of their own stuff and not to be just mindless consumers of it.  The original premise, still in effect, of chumby was that a chumby product should allow its owner to completely personalize it, and in every way:  not just change the content on it, but even, with the tools and the talent, to alter the enabling software and modify the housing and the electronics.  The marching song was “warranties are for wusses!”  And some people did some amazing things.  But we really didn’t make this easy for our hardware hacking and “case mod” friends:  they had to purchase a chumby at full price and then deconstruct it, likely ruining parts of it in the process, in order to get to the electronics and other components needed to turn it into something else.  You had to want to do this pretty badly in order to pay for the parts you didn’t want and then destroy a lot of things in the process.

Now, along with our friends at MAKE, we’ve made this process easier for those of you who want just the raw electronics of chumby for your own creations — you know who you are.

You can now go here and, for $99, which is half the price of a fully-built chumby, get yourself all of chumby’s electronic parts, okay, the “guts” of a chumby — btw, no one consulted chumby’s marketing department on that description, but …whatever.  If you’re brave enough to assemble a chumby, this description won’t turn you off.  Move fast, because there aren’t a lot of these kits.  And please let us know what you create.  Maybe you’ll even get a crazy idea like encasing all of these electronics in soft Italian leather and adding a “charm hook” for amusing rubber charms.

Hack on, and don’t forget to write.

chumby breaks free from its Italian leather bonds!

Elizabeth Woyke from Forbes wrote a nice piece about chumby yesterday.  Of course those of you who regularly read this blog have known for some time where chumby has been heading, because we told you back in January:  http://chumby.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/chumby-redefined-at-ces/ .  While I wouldn’t exactly call myself the mastermind (“mwaaah-hah-hah”) behind chumby-as-a-service — fortunately chumby industries has far more masterful minds than the CEO’s doing the real work — this is, and always has been, where we’ve been headed.  We’re looking forward to offering you some of the cool new products we’re working on with many well-known partners.  Those of you who already own a chumby shouldn’t worry — you already know how we keep improving your device, for example adding Pandora, and your chumby will only continue to get better.  In fact I suspect that nothing that we’re working on will make you regret your purchase of a chumby now, so there’s still time to own “the classic,” even though we’re currently a bit thin on some of the colors.  A classic chumby remains the only Italian leather-covered “squishy” personal internet media player you can buy :^)

But there are some exciting new chumby products coming, so stay tuned.

Wake better

I have a confession to make: I have always hated chumby’s three standard alarm tones, i.e., those available to you when you set a “Quick Alarm” on chumby.  As we were hurrying to ship chumbys in early 2008, the standard alarm tones just didn’t receive a lot of thought.  We gave you a standard beep, a bugle reveille, and the most cacophonous and obnoxious klaxon horn you ever heard.  It’s not like this was a horrible product flaw or anything:  the tones work, some people actually like them (particularly those people who require some really loud and annoying sound in order to get out of bed), and not too many people complained.  I let it go at the time because someone who wanted to wake to something nicer from chumby could always choose from thousands of streaming internet radio stations, podcasts, Pandora Radio or a whole bunch of other music choices.  But we could have done better.  And one of the nice things about chumby is that we can get around to improving things that need improving and then update everyone’s chumby automatically over-the-air…voila!

So we finally got around to fixing this — and now I can sleep at night :^)

I spent a bit of time and asked people (it was a fun parlor game) what they thought would be the nicest sound you could possibly wake to.  One suggestion was a sexy voice saying, “Good morning, Honey, you’re so wonderful and desirable,” but I already hear that every morning (uh huh).  Another almost-compelling suggestion was the sound of “frying bacon” but, without the accompanying smell (we’re still working on that), it doesn’t quite do it.  Eventually it became clear.  It’s birds!  But which bird had the most beautiful song?  Consultations with leading ornithologists (I really did have these) weren’t conclusive, but a few favorites emerged.  European Blackbird, Hermit Thrush, Musician Wren.  All nice, really nice.  But, after listening to many of these, I decided to go with the Nightingale — just so lovely, yet still shrill enough to rouse you.

But we didn’t stop there.  No, sir.  There were other opinions and we listened!  Someone suggested the sound of their Granny’s old chiming clock — if you’re a synesthetic, we found “the sound of chintz.”  Then I saw a “zen” alarm clock that would wake you by physically striking a Tibetan gong.  Cool.  A bit “new agey” for my own taste, but interesting.  So if you’re pining for the Lamas rather than the fjords, now there’s a chumby alarm tone for you!  Goes nice with our Zen Garden widget too.  Start the day with a little Samadhi before your chumby flips to the weather forecast and the horrible news headlines.

Try the new tones and let us know what you think.  But if you stick with that damned Klaxon, now you have only yourself to blame.

And of course you can still go the Neil Young and Chopin route too.

And make sure you try out the sleep timer on chumby — you can fall asleep to various waves, rain, or other sleep-inducing sounds and your chumby will turn itself off after a few minutes.  Stand-alone “sleep sound generators” sell for $50-$150 — your chumby throws in this capability for free!  Such a deal, what are you waiting for?