Review: Chumby

MORE: Click here to read our full review of the Chumby

The Chumby may have a silly name and look like a cheap toy, but it’s actually quite clever.

In essence, it’s an information display – it’s effectively a tiny computer with a touch-sensitive screen and a wireless internet connection.

Once it’s set up you can use it to display all sorts of things, from current and forecast weather, to whether the trains are running on time, or watch a webcam of local traffic.

It can also play music and video, such as film trailers. If you have a Flickr account, you can treat it like a digital photo frame and make it display a slideshow of your snaps.

Those are all things you can do already using any computer or even many phones, but the Chumby does combine them all into one friendly and easy-to-use unit.

We did have a little trouble setting it up as it refused to recognise our wireless network, but after a bit of tinkering it worked.

Users can set themselves up with an account at the Chumby website and from there choose what information is displayed on their unit’s screen.

Many of the applications from which you can choose are written by users, so it’s likely that there will be more to come.

The up-front cost of the unit is quite high, but there are no ongoing charges, and if you don’t want to fire up a computer every time you want to check the weather or traffic, it might be ideal.

MORE: Click here to read our full review of the Chumby