The Chumby
This will be the last 2023 entry in my “Zscaler Logo on a Weird, Old or Obsolete Device” series, so I present to you… the Chumby!
While not the oldest device in my collection, the Chumby is both weird and obsolete. The Chumby began back in 2006, and the basic concept was to build a hacker-friendly platform for creating simple Internet-connected apps: streaming radio, RSS feeds, weather updates, etc.
The Chumby is a Linux-based computer, roughly the size of a coffee mug, with a 3.5" display, USB, and WiFi. The Chumby is a bit like a Raspberry Pi, but the Chumby predates the first Raspberry Pi’s by nearly 6 years. The Chumby also offers some oddball hardware capabilities: an accelerometer, a big chunky button on top + a knob on the side, and an FM radio receiver.
Along with the quirky hardware, the Chumby is defined by a very odd software experience. Rather than installing “apps” as on a modern device, the Chumby boots up, joins your WiFi, and then attempts to load “Channels” - collections of small apps which are pulled down from Chumby’s website at boot. For reason, getting the Zscaler logo to display was actually more complicated than I initially expected. Rather than just copying the pic onto the Chumby via USB, I had to allow for the fact that the Chumby wants to display dynamic content pulled down over WiFi.
I ultimately got the logo displayed by signing up for a ($3/month!) membership on the very old, very outdated Chumby website. On the website, I was able to create a “channel” for photos, and sync a small “PhotoFrame” app to the Chumby. However, the PhotoFrame app needed to pull the pics down via the Internet, but no longer supports any form of modern SSL encryption - necessary for accessing content on any reputable website today. To work around this, I used a spare laptop to set up a very simple website containing only a list of pics, and pointed the Chumby to that address. Happily, it worked!
As a gadget from the mid-2000's, the Chumby is an extremely “of its time” device, and most of its apps now seem very dated. For example, most Chumby apps were created with Adobe Flash, and no significant new apps or updates have been released since 2012. Even more “of its time” are the most popular Chumby apps, many of which feature outdated memes, with names like “Chuck Norris Facts,” “More Chuck Norris Facts,” and multiple “Domo Kun” games.
The Chumby is a delightfully quirky and odd device. It arrived years before platforms like the hashtag#RaspberryPi made this kind of hashtag#hacker-friendly hardware popular, and it died so quickly that the handful of apps still available now look like artifacts from an entirely different Internet age. Sooner or later, the Chumby app catalog is going to go offline forever, and the Chumby will finish its long, slow fade into total obscurity. Until then though, I’ll continue enjoying my weird little Internet-connected buddy.
That’s it for 2023 - see you all in the new year!
