• Registered: 2007-10-18
  • Posts: 3

Topic: Bandwidth Usage by default ?

Hi,
I know there are widgets on the all mighty chumby and it depends on them how much bandwidth they use. Such as streaming radio widget would use lot more then a RSS widget. can anyone tell me what widgets the chumby comes with as default / installed widgets and how much bandwidth do they use? Is the bandwidth use configurable?

The reason i ask is because i want to send a chumby to my parents and they have a pay per use internet connection and i dont want chumby to use all the bandwidth. I want to send them the chumby so that i can remotely update pictures to it of my son, which they keep asking me for all the time smile
Grandparents what can you do smile So a widget which updates at a specific interval like once a day would be nice. I don't have a chumby yet to build and test but I expect to get the insider offer soon.  smile

any answers appreciated.

TIA

--mbashirz

  • Duane
  • Duane
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Re: Bandwidth Usage by default ?

It's really very hard to say - it's all about which widgets you use.  Some are massive bandwidth pigs, others don't use any at all.

The chumby has an HTTP cache which holds about 4MB of data, and will thus hold a *lot* of widgets, which are typically in the 20-50K regions.  However, any widget that pulls an external feed, such as photos, audio, or video, is going to fill the cache as well.

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3 Reply by mbashirz (edited by mbashirz 2007-10-18 15:32:43)

  • Registered: 2007-10-18
  • Posts: 3

Re: Bandwidth Usage by default ?

Can the cache be increased by adding a USB flash disk to one of the ports on the back. i.e. allowing for more photos smile

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Re: Bandwidth Usage by default ?

Not at the moment - perhaps in the future.

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  • Registered: 2007-10-18
  • Posts: 3

Re: Bandwidth Usage by default ?

Thanks for feedback, i will love to add something like http://www.meritline.com/116-133-with-119-093.html microsd to chumby to increase the mem for cache pics or other media. One more question can chumby use USB storage, i know ipod with work but i would like to use the above mentioned usb storage. smile

TIA

  • Registered: 2007-10-13
  • Posts: 41

Re: Bandwidth Usage by default ?

Is there any reason that a Flash widget couldn't read and write to an attached USB drive?

It seems like it would be trivial, but the security features in Flash always seem to be a hurdle.

  • Duane
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Re: Bandwidth Usage by default ?

A widget running entirely locally could, but a widget coming from the network cannot, for security reasons as you mentioned.

Flash's security model does sometimes seem to be a PITA, however, it ultimately makes a lot of sense if one is to avoid the malware disaster we see in the desktop OS world.

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8 Reply by LEWISR (edited by LEWISR 2007-10-25 14:40:26)

  • Registered: 2007-10-25
  • Posts: 3

Re: Bandwidth Usage by default ?

I am a bit of a paranoiac when it comes to bandwidth (I stopped using Skype for this reason), and was wondering how much bandwidth my new little Chumby will suck down when left on 24/7.

Was wondering if anyone has any real-world data or best guesses about average bandwidth usage when using the "lighter" widgets.. e.g. weather, top news, clock, and of course LOLCATS. smile

Would it be fair to say that Chumby does not use any more bandwidth than its on-desktop counterparts, like Mac OS dashboard, Vista widgets, etc?

Thanks in advance, and I love this product!

Best,
lewis

P.S. At the risk of sounding naieve, Chumby doesn't do any kind of P2P funknyess, right? Just a straight connection to Chumby's data providers and back?

  • Registered: 2007-10-25
  • Posts: 3

Re: Bandwidth Usage by default ?

Sorry to bump this topic but... can anyone give me a guesstimate of approximate bandwidth Chumby uses? Perhaps the way to get closer to that answer is to ask if Chumby re-fetches widget data from the server during every re-fresh, or if some or all of it is cached for a time?

Finally, is it fair to say that chumby does not operate at all in a P2P way?

Thanks again,
Lewis

  • Duane
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Re: Bandwidth Usage by default ?

There's absolutely no way for us to measure that from here, because all of the data except for the actual widgets comes directly from third-party servers, not from or through Chumby's servers.  Those servers are responsible for setting the caching behavior for their content, which the chumby device honors - in other words, if some photo site sets headers that indicate the images should be cached for an hour, then the chumby will attempt to cache them for an hour, if the required space is available.  If the cache header is not provided, then the chumby will cache data for around 5 minutes.  If you add lots of widgets that load lots of large data sets, then the cache behavior will be poor.

However, if you have a chumby, you can get network statistics for that individual unit by bringing up a console (over ssh) and using the command "ifconfig rausb0", which will report the total amount of transmitted and received data through the network interface since the most recent power-up.

If by "P2P", you mean chumby-to-chumby, it only does that during a firmware update (using BitTorrent), and only if the chumby is on a publicly accessible IP (unlikely if you're running on cable or DSL behind a router).

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