chumby, the application *platform*

Those of you who follow this blog know that chumby isn’t just a device company.  Yes, we’re proud to have invented what, we understand, is becoming known as the “Internet Media Display” category with the original chumby classic and the chumby one. But the important thing to understand from us is that chumby is a capability rather than simply a product.  With chumby, any connected screen can automatically broadcast to you your weather, your news, photos of your friends and family, your favorite Pandora Radio stations, the latest from your Facebook news feed or Twitter stream, and can remind you how great Chuck Norris is or how cute baby owls can be.

Sony’s dash was the first big example of chumby working with a top consumer electronics company to bring chumby applications and services to a mainstream retail product available at a store near you.  We worked with Sony to bring certain aspects of the chumby experience, combined with some unique Sony capabilities and content, to a new device with a very compelling form-factor.

Now, with Best Buy’s launch of the Infocast under their private label Insignia brand, we have another example of how chumby works with top consumer electronic companies to create compelling new connected experiences — in this case a product that goes well beyond what anyone else has ever done in the connected digital photo frame space.  Soon we’ll do a separate post on this amazing new device.  As bunnie Huang has revealed, this product has some very special capabilities under the hood (hackers only:  likely to void your warranty).  Because it has so many capabilities and so much power, and priced at $169.99, this isn’t intended to be Granny’s photo frame, but I suspect she’ll love it anyway, and, if she’s a hacker, it will certainly dust her dentures :^)

You will continue to see chumby showing up on a wide range of connected consumer electronic products from top manufacturers and on devices from bedside clock radios, to digital photo frames, to home control and energy monitoring panels (an especially exciting new category), to connected televisions.  chumby is unique among application platforms for these types of devices — we’re both interactive (i.e., you can poke at the screen and make things happen) but we also automatically stream your content (i.e., you don’t *have* to poke at the screen if you’re busy or across the room, it just keeps playing).  With 1500 apps from top content companies and independent developers, written in Flash and designed to look great on screens of all sizes and orientations, there’s always something good to watch and fresh new apps all the time.  And once you create your own personal channel of chumby apps, they’ll happily play on *any* chumby-powered device: nothing to download, no app stores, no fees.

If you’re a consumer, buy a chumby or a dash or an Infocast.  Or buy all three — they all play your chumby apps.

If you’re a consumer electronics manufacturer, contact us to get chumby on your connected products.  We can help you with electronics (we have multiple hardware reference designs that are ready for high-volume manufacturing), software and interface design, as well as a full suite of compelling consumer applications and services.  We’ll even power the chumby app network for your devices from our own servers.

chumby, coming to a connected screen near you.