I got a Chumby over a year or so ago. Internet-connected doohickey! Cute personality! Fun for everyone! I was excited.
- Chumby unwrapped, set up, and put on my nightstand/lamp. Numerous Chumby widgets installed.
- I find myself mostly just waiting for either Chuck Norris Facts or the current time, each of which comes around every five minutes.
- Chumby upgrade includes Pandora as an alarm! Excitement builds again.
- Pare down widgets to clock, weather, and news photos.
- Captions on news photos are so truncated that they just become pictures of random strangers I feel like I should recognize.
- Waking to Pandora becomes problematic, since if I don’t like the song I’ll turn it off and go back to sleep.
- Decide to switch alarm over to NPR! I like NPR. Choose local NPR station.
- Internet-connected doohickey reduced to functionality of a clock radio that I could poke for the weather / random strangers.
- iPad becomes source of weather information.
- Changing the time on the alarm is such a painful, multi-screen process that I leave it off and just use my iPhone.
- Internet-connected doohickey reduced to functionality of a clock.
- Chumby is crowding out nightstand / lamp room that I’d rather use for a tea mug. Chumby moved up one shelf level.
- Chumby’s limited viewing angle renders its “Night Mode” unreadable from eight inches below, such as where my head is when I’m in bed.
- Internet-connected doohickey reduced to functionality of a smooth piece of slate with a little rubber cloud hanging off of it.
