• rex
  • New member
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  • Registered: 2008-03-02
  • Posts: 1

Topic: what can Chumby do without a WiFi connection?

I am interested user of Chumby and have read your website extensively and some online searches.  So far, I've been impressed with the powerful features enabled by Chumby, many of which is triggered by the Internet capability Chumby can associate with (e.g. youtube, facebook, flickr, weather channel, etc...) 

However, I have a question.  WiFi connectivity can sometimes be spotty at various places around the home, e.g. due to dead zones, interferences, etc...
And I've read that Chumby is not meant for enterprise WiFi connectivity which may undergo further authentication/security mechanism beyond wep/wpa/wpa2 verification.

My question is, given an environment where the Chumby device is in an area without WiFi connectivity (perhaps the user is carrying Chumby while on travel as an alarm clock, iPod boombox, etc..), what "feature" capabilities are still possible to operate on the Chumby device itself?

From what I've read, it seems the alarm clock widget also requires WiFi connectivity.  Besides a music player, what else can the Chumby device do w/o WiFi.  Or to re-phrase the question, if I were to plug in a 4 GB usb storage drive on the Chumby and without any WiFi in current location, what can I do with it?  Can I run a widget and see photo slideshow locallly, watch videos locally, view documents, or other possible interactions via the usb?  Also, the Chumby has 2 usb ports, 1 can be used to connect an external storage?  What can the other usb ports be used for besides a usb-to-ethernet connector, e.g. connect chumby to laptop via usb for customization (is the WiFi built-in to the chipset or plug-in via usb?)?

I'd appreciate if anyone can provide some insights to the questions above.  Thanks!

  • Duane
  • Duane
  • Blue Octy
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  • From: San Diego, CA
  • Registered: 2006-08-24
  • Posts: 8,202

Re: what can Chumby do without a WiFi connection?

You can certainly create such software with Flash pretty easily, but in the current firmware and default Control Panel, the use is pretty limited without a wifi connection.

To run your own stuff locally, you simply create it in Flash, and use a startup script to run your software.  Actually, if you call your Flash movie "controlpanel.swf", then it will run yours *instead* of ours, in which case you can do anything you want, including showing local photos from USB, or playing music from USB.

We include USB drivers for mass storage, wired & wifi ethernet and keyboards.

Duane's Website

  • Registered: 2008-03-27
  • Posts: 7

Re: what can Chumby do without a WiFi connection?

Not sure if this helps or not, but without a wifi connection, it seems like you can't do much at all with the Chumby.  Wired connection doesn't work out of the box -- I have tried the Netgear FA120 and Trendnet UT-ET100C with the special debugchumby file and it doesn't connect to the internet.  After setting the clock to today's date, it consistently changes the day and the time, but not the month (it's always January).  So right now at the office, I can't do anything with the chumby.  If I bring it home to do the setup on my wireless connection there, I wonder if it'll save the settings when I bring it back to work (even if on batteries) -- the reason I say this is that I have to set the time every time I power cycle the chumby, even when it's still plugged into the wall.