Topic: Chumby 8 Vs Infocast 8

Now that this many years have passed since the Chumby 8 and the Insignia Infocast 8 were released, would one be better than the other to buy used? What I want to do is use one of them to display 24 hour time simultaneously in BOTH my local time (CDT/Romeo) and UTC (Zulu). I assume that either one of them could do that.

Re: Chumby 8 Vs Infocast 8

I don't recall any similar devices that were available at the time.

They did sell a number of networked digital picture frames that physically resembled the I8.

Re: Chumby 8 Vs Infocast 8

Hearing about the Chumby when it was released it seemed too costly.  When Best Buy discounted their last inventory of Infocasts in about 2009 I purchased two (3.5 and 8 for about $100 combined) and use them just about every day.  It was easy to load the Chumby software onto the Infocasts when Chumby failed, so they operate as Chumbies; the hardware is a bit different but the user experience isn't significantly different.

Last winter the Infocast 3.5 we use as an alarm clock failed.  I couldn't find another Chumby or Infocast for what seemed a fair price, but $30 got me a Sony Dash on Amazon.  Different hardware, can be converted to the same Chumby software for the same Chumby experience.  The Dash screen seems a bit better, than the Infocast, but it's not a glaring difference.

It's going to be harder and harder to justify the purchase price if, as seems inevitable, the apps continue to fail over time.  Only a few in each category still work.  But Pandora still works on the Infocast, there are various clock apps, one or two weather apps, and a game or two, which is all I'm expecting at this point so I'm happy.

Re: Chumby 8 Vs Infocast 8

kimtoufectis wrote:

Last winter the Infocast 3.5 we use as an alarm clock failed.

Do you still have this device?  The I3.5 suffers from the same power supply issue as the C1 (Best Buy used the same supplier as Chumby at the time).  If it simply doesn't power on, then that's likely the culprit.