Topic: homebrew mini-chumby blends 3d printing, esp8266 and a touchscreen

http://hackaday.com/2015/09/11/homebrew … /#comments

Duane are you seeing this? ;-)

Re: homebrew mini-chumby blends 3d printing, esp8266 and a touchscreen

Yeah, I saw it - if we call any small standalone device with Wifi and touchscreen a "chumby", then I suppose it qualifies, however this particular device is woefully underpowered compared to an actual chumby (it's basically just a Wifi controller with a little processor on it). I would also argue that audio is a pretty essential part of being a chumby.

Kudos to the guy though, it's a nice little device and he did a nice job on the 3D printed case.

3 (edited by infocastme 2015-09-11 10:50:55)

Re: homebrew mini-chumby blends 3d printing, esp8266 and a touchscreen

If you read the fine print of the article, you find out he has $45 invested not including his time which is more than an actual Chumby or I3 now.
  I think the term "Chumby" has now become synonymous with any touchscreen style clock regardless of the options.
 
  You can not beat the "Real Thing"!

Re: homebrew mini-chumby blends 3d printing, esp8266 and a touchscreen

I actually had an IP attorney call me a few years back warning us about the potential commoditization of the word "chumby" if we weren't careful with our use of the term.  He pointed to various articles, much like this one, that would refer to things that were at best superficially like a chumby as "chumby", and insisted that we should try to put a stop to it.

His concern was that we'd effectively lose the trademark (ala "aspirin", "kleenex" etc), but I felt at the time was that was a great problem to potentially have.

Apple almost had this issue with "iPod".  For a while, iPod became almost synonymous with "MP3 player", no matter the actual manufacturer.