Topic: Hello! My Chumby is awesometastic!

Wow, I can't wait to show my buds at tech... just, so many possibilties!

I wanted to report one thing. During use, my lcd screen flickers a lot. Is this something all Chumby users face, or do I have a damaged chumby? This only really happens during the wifi connecting process, so I'm thinking it may just be that the usb stick is draining more power.

Thank you so much!

Andrew Stone

Re: Hello! My Chumby is awesometastic!

Hi there, sorry to hear that your display is flickering. There is an ambient light sensor in the chumby that tries to adjust the brightness of your screen when the room light level is low. Two possible causes for your problem are either that the light sensor is slightly noisy (this could be caused by shadows moving across the sensor), or your display's dimmed backlight threshold is set too low for the display's backlight to perform in a stable fashion. This is a known bug in the current run of chumbys. Thus, one possible workaround is to go to your control panel, go to the screen icon (near the top left of the control panel), and swing the display brightness slider toward the right. Try going all the way first and seeing if it fixes your problem and then you can try finding a lower threshold that does some display dimming.

Re: Hello! My Chumby is awesometastic!

The way this currently works is that there's a light level threshold value - when the light sensor is below this value, the display dims, if above, it brightens.  In actuality, the driver understands sixteen thresholds and levels, but we're currently only using two.

When you enter the "screen" control panel, it captures the current light sensor value and the brightness slider will be adjusting the value for that level.

In certain low ambient light conditions, putting your hand near the display is often enough for the chumby to thinks it's in a dark room.  Conversely, I've walked near it with a light T-shirt that reflects enough light from a light source that the chumby thinks the room is light.

Re: Hello! My Chumby is awesometastic!

I want a chumby sooo badly.... sad

Re: Hello! My Chumby is awesometastic!

Warpling wrote:

I want a chumby sooo badly.... sad

Maybe someday, when you grow another two legs.

Re: Hello! My Chumby is awesometastic!

>:(

Re: Hello! My Chumby is awesometastic!

Warpling wrote:

I want a chumby sooo badly.... sad

I think everyone here feels the same way. I'd love to get my hands on this thing and start working with it... it's almost like a fulfillment of a dream (I was dreaming of a wifi-remote device where I could view information about my computer from anywhere in the house) but this device is so much more flexible than the one I imagined.

Re: Hello! My Chumby is awesometastic!

Yes Me Too

Re: Hello! My Chumby is awesometastic!

Wow, stumbled across this chumby madness, and I have to admit I'm impressed. Who do I have to sleep with to get one of these? I'm gearing up to start a post-grad project in ubiquitous computing and interactivity design down here at QUT on the gold coast of Australia, and a chumby would make me the coolest kid on campus. And opensourcing everything is genius. Seriously, genius big_smile

Re: Hello! My Chumby is awesometastic!

Warpling wrote:

I want a chumby sooo badly.... sad

me too, when can I preorder?

Re: Hello! My Chumby is awesometastic!

Computer_Kid wrote:
Warpling wrote:

I want a chumby sooo badly.... sad

me too, when can I preorder?

Considering that is still in the prototype phase, and it's nowhere near finished, and that the expected release is Spring '07, it is FAR from preorder.

Last edited by Aremith (2006-08-27 18:47:14)

Re: Hello! My Chumby is awesometastic!

Aremith wrote:
Computer_Kid wrote:
Warpling wrote:

I want a chumby sooo badly.... sad

me too, when can I preorder?

Considering that is still in the prototype phase, and it's nowhere near finished, and that the expected release is Spring '07, it is FAR from preorder.

It makes you even more jealous of the ppk at FOO who got one eh? wink

Re: Hello! My Chumby is awesometastic!

Aremith wrote:
Computer_Kid wrote:
Warpling wrote:

I want a chumby sooo badly.... sad

me too, when can I preorder?

Considering that is still in the prototype phase, and it's nowhere near finished, and that the expected release is Spring '07, it is FAR from preorder.

AUGH!  I guess I will have to build my own using a mini-itx mobo!

Re: Hello! My Chumby is awesometastic!

Aremith wrote:
Computer_Kid wrote:
Warpling wrote:

I want a chumby sooo badly.... sad

me too, when can I preorder?

Considering that is still in the prototype phase, and it's nowhere near finished, and that the expected release is Spring '07, it is FAR from preorder.

Spring 07 isn't that far away at all.  I would be very impressed if the product was available by then.  That's a diggworthy story on it's own!

Re: Hello! My Chumby is awesometastic!

That flicker... are you sure it isn't feedback?  Well, I guess not, it should be positive, and that would probably prevent oscillations.
Hmmm... I would like to interface a GPS receiver to this.  The light sensor would tell the map program whether to use nighttime colors (light roads on a dark background) or daytime colors (dark roads on light background).

Man, I sure would like a Chumby.

Re: Hello! My Chumby is awesometastic!

If The Chumby is SQEEZE(lol) Senstive then is it bouncing?Or When you SQEEZE It(lol again) does it brake?Hmm....The Chumby Is Seeming Like A Joke.Although I have one it seems like it is just a little..............
Its Just A $200.00 Clock Now!Make Some Improvments And Make It A Real Clock/Computer........Sorry

Re: Hello! My Chumby is awesometastic!

Well if you don't like it, you're welcome to send it back and we can give it to someone that would.

Where did you get one?

Re: Hello! My Chumby is awesometastic!

PocketBrain wrote:

70.80868%: Geek God. (www.innergeek.us)

Now THAT is a nice fast loading web page smile

Re: Hello! My Chumby is awesometastic!

@zlnetworks
Seriously, Id do anything to have one so stop complaining.

Re: Hello! My Chumby is awesometastic!

Besides the people who did FOO, how many have gotten a prototype?

Re: Hello! My Chumby is awesometastic!

zachninme wrote:

Besides the people who did FOO, how many have gotten a prototype?

Probably a dozen or so people outside of friends and family.

Re: Hello! My Chumby is awesometastic!

We might have some contests or other methods of obtaining an early chumby for those who weren't at FOO Camp, so stay tuned... smile

Joe

Re: Hello! My Chumby is awesometastic!

im deffo interested. it would be a unique feature for my site, delivering videos to your bedside.

Re: Hello! My Chumby is awesometastic!

I would kill for a chumby... I take an electronics engineering class, where we learn how to build MP3 players, and computers, so this would be a treat to bring in to class to fiddle with... But I don't have the money for when it does come out D:

Re: Hello! My Chumby is awesometastic!

I so want one of these smile it would be fun. I can't wait smile

I would use it for running some small animatronics possibly smile interface a serial servo controller to it. smile  I have a animatronic costume, and this might make a good animatronic plushie