• Registered: 2009-12-01
  • Posts: 25

Topic: Old topic, new whine - reliable alarm

I'm relatively new to the chumby, but it is currently on my nightstand and I have to decide if it is staying or not.

I know there has been some discussion of the reliability of the alarm, but I was astounded to learn that a $40 battery (if you buy "genuine") would not guarantee that my chumby would have enough power to sound even a beep alarm if the power went out more than an hour before the wake time.  Before you ask - I'm not that rural, but we do have frequent power outages - usually due to weather.

I've had multiple alarm clocks that with a 9-volt battery would at least sound some sort of alarm even if the power went off right after I went to sleep.  One of them would even turn on the radio and play it if that was my alarm choice.

What needs to happen is that if a wake alarm is set, and the power goes off, the screen blanks, and all other activity is suspended, until the alarm goes off or the power returns.  I have seen some discussion of hardware limitations, but I don't see that this is necessarily hardware governed.  Does the Chumby One (which I have) have no way to detect which power source is in use?

I think the reason there is so much interest in this is that you can't buy an internet radio alarm clock for this price.

In any case, I will have to decide soon if Chumby stays or not, and some of the comments are so old they must relate to the earlier model.

While I'm at it, I too think there needs to be a way for the time to be displayed on any widget.  I don't need another device on my nightstand just for that.

  • Registered: 2008-06-27
  • Posts: 518

Re: Old topic, new whine - reliable alarm

To answer your second question first, there's an easter egg available that overlays a clock on top of every widget.  You have to connect to it through SSH and create a file somewhere, or use a USB drive to add the file.  Its use is mentioned on the chumby tricks page on the wiki.

Regarding the first -- There is a way for the controlpanel to determine if it's on battery, and there's even an "alarm" feature that will turn the chumby one on at a given time.  It's actually a script that gets run when you unplug it that dims the screen.  I think there are plans to put these two together to do what you're talking about.  The problem comes because there's no easy way to know if it's a power outage or just someone picking it up to take it across the room.

  • Registered: 2009-12-01
  • Posts: 25

Re: Old topic, new whine - reliable alarm

Thanks for the info!

As far as not knowing whether it is a power outage or a deliberate unplug - either or both of these:

1. Option checkbox in alarm feature to assume power loss is due to outage.

2. When unplugged, present screen asking if it was deliberately unplugged with a short response time to indicate the affirmative, otherwise assume it is power outage.

  • Registered: 2009-12-01
  • Posts: 25

Re: Old topic, new whine - reliable alarm

Turns out the easter egg for the time display does not work on the Chumby One - there's another thread where they say this, and say they have the fix but it is not yet deployed.

So how about a widget that will sound an alarm if the power goes out?  I'd prefer that to oversleeping in the morning.  I also looked into the cheapest possible UPS.  You can get an APC or CyberPower for $45-$47.  If you had nothing but the Chumby plugged in, I'm guessing it would last all night.  Since if you buy the true OEM battery (how many people do?) it goes for $30-40, that might be a deal.