I'm of two minds about this.   From a traditional use of technology standpoint I wouldn't mind having a clock constantly visible on the screen.   But that would also interfere with how many widgets display their data. 

On the other hand there's the 'chumby as a passive display device' perspective.  It's nice to have the unit rolling through several different widgets.  I like to intersperse a clock widget in-between all the others.  I use several different clocks for this purpose.  It's nice to have a variety of clocks, just as it's nice to have a variety of widgets. 

I don't 'get' the idea of using the chumby as a device I'd hold in my hands to use.  Maybe in the days before smart phones it would have been a clever idea.  But these are not those days. 

I continue to be a bit disappointed there's not a more direct way to jump from the rolling widgets to a focused set of "do it now" widgets.  I'd *really* like to have a way to jump right to about 6 key widgets.  The existing control panel does not do this effectively.  It's even worse on the infocast (among it's many limitations).

So my suggestion is you put in a few clock widgets and fine tune the amount of time you have each widget being shown.  It took me a bit of time to learn which widgets I wanted to have remain on screen longer than others.  Some widgets, like quote of the day only need 15 seconds.  Clocks get the same, 15 seconds.  Some RSS-based feeds get as long as a minute.  Even the order of the widgets benefits from fine-tuning over time.  I've learned I like to have a couple of particular widgets running in sequence because they're worth keeping my attention.  Others are just background noise, nice to have but not things I find myself stopping to read. 

Note, when you use a widget (by touching the screen) you halt the countdown clock for it.  This is really handy for the news widgets.  When an interesting item comes across the screen I like knowing I can halt the progress for a bit to read more of it. 

If you want to have a clock constantly visible then, well, do what I did.... get a wall clock.  Seriously.

Wow, thanks. I am technically challenged, but will give this a go. The wall clock I can handle, the overlay is a great idea and am going to try that first. Thanks again. ;-)