• Registered: 2007-10-24
  • Posts: 52

Topic: Using Chumby as a photo frame - what are you using?

There are a couple old threads around using Chumby as a dedicated photo frame but most are fairly old so I'm starting a new thread.

I bought a second Chumby 8 and want to use it primarily as a photo frame grabbing photos from the web.

With the 200 photo limit for the Yahoo! Flickr widget and the apparently broken Google Picasa widget (not updated to handled Google+ pictures?), I'm wondering what people are using for displaying their larger photo collections from the web?

  • Registered: 2008-03-03
  • Posts: 18

Re: Using Chumby as a photo frame - what are you using?

I use Facebook. Facebook has a pretty small limit on the number of pictures in a folder, but I just divide my pictures among multiple folders. On the Chumby side, I have a channel with multiple instances of the Facebook picture viewer. Each instance points to a different folder on Facebook, and Chumby just cycles through the multiple instances.

  • Registered: 2012-02-07
  • Posts: 535

Re: Using Chumby as a photo frame - what are you using?

I'm looking into writing my own app for this for the Chumby, but it will use an arbitrary URL for the feed instead of one of the major services (since I have server space up the wazoo).  If you've got web hosting available with PHP scripting and a couple hundred megs of space free (for the photos), stay tuned wink

Currently I'm still in the "discovery" phase, trying to figure out whether I should keep this as a flash app/widget, or if I should just go low-level and use a series of cron jobs and shell scripts to make it happen.  I have a pretty good idea of how to successfully implement the latter already using wget, imgtool, and the like, but am thinking the flash app would be more elegant (and more user-friendly).

  • Registered: 2011-03-20
  • Posts: 50

Re: Using Chumby as a photo frame - what are you using?

Is there a mechanism to report broken Chumby apps?  Would really like to see the instagr.am and Picasa apps running again.

Mike_TV et al - Thanks for the info on using the Chumby as a photo frame.  This is what I came to the forum today to find out.

5 Reply by Doktor Jones (edited by Doktor Jones 2012-02-10 10:28:39)

  • Registered: 2012-02-07
  • Posts: 535

Re: Using Chumby as a photo frame - what are you using?

I'm leaning towards the "back door" method of running this as a photo frame, but powering it with a python script instead of cron/shell.  By using python, I should be able to make this into a bootable flash drive, so if you plug it in, you get net-based photo frame functionality, and if you unplug it you have Chumby.

Once I'm done with it, I'll see about making a gzipped image of the flash drive available.

  • Registered: 2011-03-20
  • Posts: 50

Re: Using Chumby as a photo frame - what are you using?

Would really love to see more input on this topic.  Seems like the Picasa Photo widget can be touchy.  Which is the better choice of all the photo sharing sites that have widgets?

  • Registered: 2010-05-10
  • Posts: 222

Re: Using Chumby as a photo frame - what are you using?

theres a decent photo frame presentation widget in my offline firmware but it is not available on chumby.com for online chumbies ... it has no picture limits and you can do it any way you want to present the pictures, either from usb stick or remote web server (as long as the pictures are not located on chumby.com which is blocked by default).

  • Registered: 2011-03-20
  • Posts: 50

Re: Using Chumby as a photo frame - what are you using?

Bump.  Still have multiple Chumby devices in boxes and hoping to use them as networked photo frames.

  • From: Somewhere on or near Earth
  • Registered: 2009-12-16
  • Posts: 774

Re: Using Chumby as a photo frame - what are you using?

How about Photobucket?

http://www.chumby.com/guide/widget/Photobucket

Tar, feathers, congress. Some assembly required.

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  • Registered: 2011-03-20
  • Posts: 50

Re: Using Chumby as a photo frame - what are you using?

BoloMKXXVIII wrote:

How about Photobucket?

http://www.chumby.com/guide/widget/Photobucket

Hmmm...Have you given it a try, personally?

  • From: Somewhere on or near Earth
  • Registered: 2009-12-16
  • Posts: 774

Re: Using Chumby as a photo frame - what are you using?

Kurtois wrote:
BoloMKXXVIII wrote:

How about Photobucket?

http://www.chumby.com/guide/widget/Photobucket

Hmmm...Have you given it a try, personally?


Yes, but not recently. I never loaded enough photos to see what the uppper limit was though.

Tar, feathers, congress. Some assembly required.

BoloMKXXVIII's Website