[dstaley]

Everytime I'm reminded of the Chumby, I'm saddened that there isn't a modern version with an open development SDK. While Nest Hubs and Echo Shows are now available dirt cheap, they're all just e-waste waiting to happen. I wish there was a cheap, highly available device with similar specs (WiFi, Bluetooth, nice displays, microphone, maybe cameras) that it was trivially easy to put your own software onto.

[sliken]

You mean like a RPi 4 with one of the RPi touchscreens?

[ilyt]

And then you need a case, and then you need to slap audio amplifier for speakers too, and find that one magical USB power supply that won't crash rPi under load.

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

[serf]

>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.

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.

[ilyt]

I guess for just a dashboard it doesn't matter either way, it's just running a screen; I added it coz I was worried that say background package upgrade would be stopped midway and in worst scenario, midway to upgrading kernel.

>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

[ThePowerOfFuet]

> and find that one magical USB power supply that won't crash rPi under load

You mean the name-brand RPi one?

[ilyt]

Yes the one that's sold out here...

[duskwuff]

> I wish there was a cheap, highly available device with similar specs (WiFi, Bluetooth, nice displays, microphone, maybe cameras) that it was trivially easy to put your own software onto.

You mean like an Android tablet?

[kelnos]

I guess the Android SDKs are "open", but if you want to do anything lower-level, or be able to upgrade the Android version later (at least for more than just a few years), you need it to be a lot more open than pretty much all Android tablets.

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.

[dstaley]

No, something more akin to a smart display without a battery and a chassis that works well for being on a shelf or nightstand.

[KVFinn]

>No, something more akin to a smart display without a battery and a chassis that works well for being on a shelf or nightstand.

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...)

[ljf]

I have one of the gen one and wanted to love it. But so many things just weren't right.

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.

[CharlesW]

Like this? https://www.adafruit.com/product/5290

[dstaley]

Yup, basically that idea, but a bit higher spec (Linux-capable CPU instead of a microcontroller, larger and higher-resolution touchscreen). But it's definitely on the right track! Ideally we'd have something in line spec-wise with the Amazon Echo Show 5.

[zem]

that one does look beautiful! thanks for the pointer.

[ChuckMcM]

That does kind of describe the modern "cheap" android infrastructure. (caveat the battery, which after a bunch of years is useless anyway :-)) The other "modern" alternative to this is an HDMI display with a Raspberry Pi mounted to the back[1].

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.

[spankalee]

Now that the Nest Hubs are running Fuchsia, I wonder how feasible it would be to keep the kernel and boot other userland modules to run your own code.

[MayeulC]

wouldn't most old smartphones fit the bill? With either stock Android or postmarketos.

[KVFinn]

This is what I use now. After leaving them plugged for years the batteries often start expanding though, so it's not ideal right next to my head all night...

[MayeulC]

You need a charging controller that can disconnect the battery. IIRC my Xperia T3 was capable of that.

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.