Upgrading my old Chumby 8 Linux kernel
downtowndougbrown.com
downtowndougbrown.com
Like... you could just make one, sure but it is quite a bit of work compared to just "buy a hackable box.
Oh, and some kind of supercap probably so powering it off is not crashing your FS... or build your OS to run off readonly image and only save some settings.
That is my experience from building a prototype of that
after years and years of using nearly every revision of RPi for a huge variety of things, I can safely say that the accusation of needing a supercap to prevent an 'FS crash' is absolute nonsense.
If you're talking about the degradation that accompanies any heavy use of flash NAND then i'm not sure what to tell you other than it can be mostly mitigated in software, and that it's a universal trait; RPis are by no means the only system to suffer from those issues.
I will, however, wholeheartedly agree that an RPi with a bunch of crap stapled to it is by no means equivalent to a Chumby. There is a lot to be said about the friction that is alleviated by having a standard set of hardware to program applets against, the ecosystem provided by Chumby was the whole point.
>If you're talking about the degradation that accompanies any heavy use of flash NAND then i'm not sure what to tell you other than it can be mostly mitigated in software, and that it's a universal trait; RPis are by no means the only system to suffer from those issues.
I'm not but any brand of SD card to recommend ? I was using some samsung EVO (bought off a store, not random e-bay seller) and my cluster pretty much self-destroyed even tho I severly limited writes in the first place.
They also failed in weird way where writes were confirmed but never landed on flash so the system worked till it had to remove latest writes from buffer memory... then it said FS is corrupted and after reboot it was back to previous state...1
You mean the name-brand RPi one?
You mean like an Android tablet?
I think the sibling's suggestion of a Raspberry Pi with touchscreen is much better from that perspective, but then you're on your own for building a polished "product" around it, which is unfortunately more involved than just 3D-printing a case for it.
Or just hackable. The Lenovo Smart Clock 2 is a 4 inch touchscreen Google Home clock, microphone, decent little speakers, for $20.
Apparently it is hackable and fully rooted: https://github.com/untocodes/lenovo-cube-hacking
I don't see anybody doing anything cool with it though. I wouldn't mind just forcing it to always display a webpage to display blood glucose levels with nightscout. I'd give them to all my diabetic relatives.
($20 clock https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/smart-devices/smart-home/smar...)
Doesn't show my Google calendar reminders
Getting it to play a morning routine failed, and when it worked the volume levels were all over the place - sometimes the news it played me would be super loud, sometimes I couldn't here the radio or music it played next.
It can't play a youtube video
It didn't have loads of basic controls when listening to podcasts (speed, skip back 30 seconds etc)
Can't display a custom home screen, I'd love to see more weather detail, or a tide chart, or local traffic news.
As I say, really wanted to like it, but never found a use for it yet.
One could 3D print a different frame in order to mount speakers and a web camera, but that isn't really off the shelf any more at that point.
[1] https://www.seeedstudio.com/raspberry-pi-ips-hdmi-display is an example.
On Android, Advanced Charging Controller App (AccA) can tell you that, and help define profiles to avoid that spicy pillow issue.
Some phones additionally support running without battery, or you can connect a power supply in place of the battery.
They are a great tool for this kind of project because learning about building embedded Linux systems is easier with something that has all the parts already put together for you (it's just software at that point).
It also shows how fleeting in time technology is. Building an equivalent today is certainly possible, but the parts you would use for it would be out of date/obsolete in a couple of years so no real "durability" to the existence of the tool.
The biggest challenge is of course display tech. Displays are all custom made these days for products that have runs in the millions, there hasn't really existed a "standardized" parts eco-system for them. I had hoped the phone business might provide that but nope.
There's a 9-volt style battery connector hiding inside the little kangaroo pouch underneath the old chumby that is capable of powering the device but it was never officially supported and a standard 9-volt battery would not power the device for long enough to be useful in any realistic capacity.
I do remember users hacking up their own battery packs with enough juice to keep it powered overnight but they tended to involve bulky external battery systems that kind of wrecked the overall vibe of the little leather ball.
Helpful links to making your dash useable again: https://forum.chumby.com/viewtopic.php?id=9843 https://forum.chumby.com/viewtopic.php?id=9752
"it has the WiFi's!!"
So you purchased (or stole) a chumby
The official Quick Start Guide
(for those who oppose starting slowly)