It's not "broken", so there's nothing to "fix".

I guess I'm not making this clear enough, so I'll try again - the device is simply not designed for this sort of change after manufacture.  It is what it is - at *best* we could make a change in the production line for *new* chumbys, but there's simply nothing we can do for the ones already built.

Do not pretend to lecture me.  I read the thread and there was a point where the initial units had power-on by default, it was likewise insinuated this is possible with the current hardware, just not by not by a field upgrade.  I'm not venting about it, but it's clear Duane's been a bit frustrated with the whole power/clock situation, that's fine.

As for how much it costs, why do you make assumptions about what I'd be willing to pay for it?  What business of this is yours?  Had such a thing not been mentioned as possible I wouldn't have continued the conversation, that's not venting pointlessly.  Spare me.   I'm not one of the "but it's a CLOOOOOOOOOCK complainers".  I get what it can do.  I'm simply less than pleased it can't keep itself powered up.   Everything else is pretty great.

I could care less about what youd be willing to pay for it.... Its how much it would cost Chumby Inc to provide the service...
Even with the end user footing the bill... Some of the cost will probably be absorbed because of the time/labor/staff required to perform this service.. Its no different than having a rework repair done on a board assembly... the labor is MORE difficult than production..  Youve gone on multiple threads with similar rhetoric... If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck.. ITS A DUCK..
You *ARE* one of the ITS A CLOOOCK people, but just out of pride, cannot admit it. And we know your displeased.. But as I said.. mention it to the powers that be, dont just go trolling the forums looking for *me too* backup... Your trying to find an audience for your dissatisfaction so you can pressure Duane and the other moderators to do something when its kind of obvious they can't make that decision.. Youve already threatened to stop development on the chumby and basically want a boycott of developers ... You know. id find it quite amusing if Chumby turned around, and went to a propriatary solution and locked out developers... then what could you do? Its back to the problem of what its designed to do, and what people want/expect it to do...

And as to the pressuring moderators.. do i have to do a search for boycott and/or your userid on the forums to show an example of what I'm talking about. or is your selective memory blocking that prior artwork for you?

wkearney: Perhaps if you had a better picture of what youve done in the past and didnt see your own drivel/rhetoric with rose tinted glasses. I wouldn't need to point out your clues for you. Do something constructive and send some emails touting why this is a good idea to the powers that be and perhaps they could explain the costs to you...

Please feel free to drop me an email if you need further clarification

Actually I did make a slight mistake.. I confused the boycott thing with another user. Scratch that part

Ok, that makes sense.  The only widgets I've really been using have been rss feeds or interactive ones, so being near the device to switch it on isn't an issue.

I also think some people take regular, reliable electricity for granted, so it's hard to imagine what a pain it really can be.  Perhaps one solution might be to hardwire a remote on/off switch somehow.  There have been quite a few hardware mods already, and I get the impression that there may not be a solution that doesn't void your warranty.

Hold on there. I love my Chumby and everything, but not only is the press reporting Chumby as an Internet-capable alarm clock, but Chumby Industries promoted it that way for a long time too, even if they don't anymore.

Consider this quotation from Chumby.com on 30 Aug 2006, back at the Dawn of Chumby: "Introducing chumby, a compact device that can act like a clock radio, but is way more flexible and fun." You can see that page here in the Internet Archive:

http://web.archive.org/web/200608301739 … /corporate

So it strikes me that saying "The chumby was not designed to be an alarm clock" is either a little disingenuous or a little ignorant of Chumby corporate history.

Not trolling; just want the facts to be known.

@rwhe - I think the distinction is that "can act like a clock radio, but is way more flexible and fun" isn't the same as "designed specifically to be an alarm clock". The Chumby _can_ act like a clock radio - it has clocks on it, and an internet radio function you can program to come on at a certain time. But it wasn't designed _specifically_ to be a clock radio; it was designed to have more general functionality, hence certain decisions were made that make it (to some) lacking as an alarm clock.

I don't think anyone is claiming that they've never advertised it as having alarm clock functionality. In fact they still advertise it as having alarm clock functionality, because it does.

Duane of Chumby Industries wrote, "The chumby was not designed to be an alarm clock - it was designed to be a widget player." This is not true. The Chumby was not designed to be an alarm clock and an alarm clock only, but it was designed to be an alarm clock -- among other things.

As one of the actual designers, I can tell you that *nobody* here thought "let's build the best alarm clock and also have it do other things too".  Anyone familiar with the history of the product, especially the prototypes and early releases of the software could see that alarm stuff was secondary *at best*.  The prototypes supported a single daily "quick alarm" with no snooze, and the early Control Panels in the production units only supported two "quick" alarms.

The Foo/Katamari prototype units would have made better alarm clocks than the Ironforge production units - they had a hard power switch, so they'd turn back on after an outage, they had variable screen brightness, and an ambient light sensor.  We actively moved *away* from alarm-clocky features.

I guess for us, "clock radio" meant "clock" and (Internet) "radio", not so much the alarm stuff.

I don't think we intended that the term "clock radio" was to mean that we'd faithfully reproduce *all* of the functionality of a clock radio (for instance, we don't have an AM/FM radio), any more than our video feature implies that we do everything a television does, or that our music functionality implies you can get rid of your iPod and stereo system.

I'm glad that your chumby is "acting" well as an alarm clock for you.

We do indeed know that people do want to use the chumby as an alarm clock, and at this point, I think we're getting pretty close to as far as we can go with the current hardware offering.  To be the "best (alarm) clock radio", we have to have different hardware.

Actually, to properly reproduce the typical "clock radio" alarm experience, we would have to make the device ridiculously difficult to set.

Duane, how much of a price difference is there between the Chumby as it is now and the hardware design used in the Foo/Katamari units? Since so many people are coming in with the expectation of an Alarm Clock+ with the Chumby, why not release a lower priced unit (with perhaps a higher profit margin) that is closer specwise to the Foo/Katamari units? I know it might take awhile, but it could definitely help if you had an Alarm Clock+ model, and a more Widget oriented device (the Chumby classic).