OK. Wouldn't allowing people to choose their time server Like time.nist.gov
ease the traffic crunch on the chumby servers in general?
My question actually did not have anything to do with site reliability.
It had more to do with having  accurate time on the chumby. I have noticed my chumby being OFF by between 20 and 30 seconds at times.
Being a clock/time freak I go to what ever lengths necessary to keep the clocks in my house as close to perfect as possible.
Recently the Chumby has been right on. I would still like the option to choose another time server.
Is there some reason why time.chumby.com absolutely has to be used?
Just curious.
Yaesumofo

I can understand both points.
I still like the idea of using other publicly accessible NTP servers if as an end user I choose to.
I don't understand the resistance to this. But will fall into step if there is no possibility of offering this option.

Yaesumofo

Even Microsoft allows you to select a time server in Windows, although time.microsoft.com is the default.

NO this was prior to the receint firmware change.
Strange because for a while my chumby was off and It wouldn't correct. Now I understand why.
All is well on that front.
I would still like to select the NTP server though.
Yaesumofo

if possible, add a host entry on your chumby (if possible) for time.chumby.com or set it up in your dns. yea it isnt the same as being able to set it, but it will get the job done. but i do agree that chumby should be providing the devices time, but i also agree that ppl should be able to choose their provider. after all this is a democracy (at least where i am located), not a chumocracy. (c) me on the chumocracy

Same!

Things have changed a bit since this post was made.  Chumby now uses NTP, rather than rdate, and actually issues an "ntpdate" request as part of its connection process.

It actually does an ntpdate to pool.ntp.org, which you could override in /psp/hosts.  One thing you can do is figure out the IP address of your corporate network and then log in to your Chumby and add it to /psp/hosts overwriting the name for pool.ntp.org, like this:

echo "12.34.56.78 pool.ntp.org" >> /psp/hosts

The thing is I'm not sure if that file gets regenerated as part of the startup script.  I don't think it does, so this should persist across reboots.  Another pitfall that you'll encounter is if you try to take it out of your corporate network, it'll be looking at the wrong server.  Of course, if that were the case, you could come up with a debugchumby script to overwrite it.