how can the chumby content be free?

The content that you can play on your chumby is all free no subscriptions to pay, no plans to sign up for. It's paid for by chumby industries and by sponsor companies who will be sending you content such as music, games, movie previews, and special offers for products. chumby industries is 100% dedicated to keeping your content new, intriguing, fun and FREE.

Overview

So, what's chumby anyway?

chumby takes your favorite parts of the internet and delivers them to you in a friendly, always-on, always-fresh format. It's a window into your internet life that lives outside your desktop, so content like weather, news, celebrity gossip, podcasts, music, and more has a place to play away from your world of documents and spreadsheets. Just plug in your chumby, connect to your wireless network, and use your computer to create a lineup of favorites from over 1,500 apps in more than 30 categories, with new ones arriving all the time. Then let your chumby do its thing streaming everything you like, from sports scores to stock quotes, from video clips to interactive games, from photos to trivia.

where does a chumby belong?

• By your bed: Fall asleep to a favorite internet music station; wake up to a zen gong, a news podcast, or Pandora Radio.
• In the kitchen: Consult your Google Calendar in the morning, check the weather, and cook to streaming internet music.
• On your desk: Watch your photos stream by, follow your friends on Facebook or Twitter, or get alerted to that craigslist find you've been waiting for.

Features

• free chumby content
  What is FREE chumby content? It's a collection of over 1,500 widgets in more than 30 categories, such as weather, social networks, photos, sports, news, entertainment, videos and much more. chumby content is always evolving we're constantly bringing the most interesting information on the web right to your chumby so you don't have to search for it yourself. And the best thing about all this chumby content is that it's FREE!
• news & entertainment
  Stay informed your chumby can keep you up-to-date with popular local, national, and international news sources like The New York Times, Reuters and NPR. Need your fix of celebrity news? We've got plenty of ways to keep you in the gossip loop, with dish from sites like MTV, VH1 and ET. The chumby RSS Reader also lets you follow the RSS feeds of your choice.
• music & podcasts
  Tune into one of our many internet radio options. Pandora Radio builds personalized music playlists based on artists or songs you like. SHOUTcast streams thousands of free online radios stations from around the world. The New York Times, CBS, and Mediafly offer podcasts on a ton of topics, like news, sports, comedy, fitness, science, travel, languages, entertainment, and much more. Radio Free chumby has a dozen stations you can quickly tune into. Own a Squeezebox device? You can stream your music collection over the chumby. Want even more internet radio options? You can enter a URL for any stream in MP3, M3U, OGG or PLS formats.
• photo viewing & sharing
  Got an account on Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket, or Facebook? Perfect! Use the chumby as a digital photo frame to show off your favorite photos (or your friend's photos). You can view public or private photos, or search for specific photos using tags. It's also easy to share your photos with chumby friends surprise them by sending pictures straight to their chumbys of your latest get-together!
• social networking
  Stay connected view the latest activity on your social network accounts like Facebook and Twitter. See who sent you a friends request, check messages, and keep in touch without being a slave to your computer. If you have "chums" (friends with a real or virtual chumby), you can even surprise them by sending a widget you've customized to their chumbys.
• games
  Take a break every once in a while! Play classic games like Blackjack, Reversi, and Sudoku, as well as offbeat originals. Select a two-player game to play with a friend who has a chumby. Take advantage of the chumby's motion sensor and play great new games like Chumball.
• weather
  Want to see the weather forecast as soon as you wake up? It's easy with any of chumby's many weather widgets. Personalize your chumby to show you weather wherever in your hometown, vacation spots, family favorites anywhere in the world. Get the current weather, forecasts, and even radar images.
• videos
  View and share popular video clips, off-beat animations, anime, vintage cartoons and media mashups from YouTube, VH1, CBS, and more. Enjoy videos from sites like YouTube and VH1, or build your own using the Animoto widget.
• Sports
  chumby is perfect for the sports fanatic. Get the latest scores right on your chumby, or keep track of headlines through sources like CBS Sports and ESPN News Wire. You can even customize the information to only give you the scoop on the teams you care about.
• auctions & classifieds
  Tracking the progress on any eBay auction is as simple as entering the item number. Got an eBay account? Your chumby makes it easy to keep tabs on the items you've placed in your Watch List. If you're a craigslist follower, you can check local classifieds and forums for 450 cities worldwide. Select your location, category, and search terms and see the results on your chumby. Or, enter a URL on the Advanced customization screen to include any location or search term. Email search results to yourself straight from your chumby!
• personalized alarm clock
  With a chumby, wake up exactly when and how you'd like: to the adrenaline rush of rock music, The New York Times headlines, weather, sports, stock updates any audio or visual content you choose.
• messaging
  Waiting for an email message? Use the Email Notifier to see the latest messages in any POP or Gmail account. Or use the Flashcan ecard tool to create a unique message to send to a friend's real or virtual chumby.

Full Specifications

chumby one

• 3.5" LCD color touchscreen
• Uses rechargeable lithium ion battery (not included); about one hour on a full charge
• 4" wide x 4" tall x 3.5" deep
• 1 USB 2.0 high-speed port
• 454 MHz ARM processor
• 64 MB DDR SDRAM
• Internal microSD card firmware
• 2W mono speaker
• Stereo headphone output
• Volume knob
• FM radio tuner
• Accelerometer (motion sensor)
• ABS plastic housing
• AC adapter included
• Wi-fi connectivity (802.11 b/g)
• USB ethernet compatible
• Dimmable backlight
• One-click control panel access
• Access to free chumby content
• Over-the-air software updates

Requirements

What you must provide to make the chumby work

• Broadband internet connection. The internet connection needs to be highspeed, such as cable or DSL. chumby will not work with a dial-up connection.
• Wireless router or wired ethernet connection. Wireless: chumby is compatible with most wireless routers with the settings of 802.11g/802.11b (or mixed). Most routers currently sold offer these settings. Routers that mention 802.11n may work with the chumby as long as they properly support 802.11g or 802.11b. Wired ethernet: chumby works with most USB ethernet adapters.
• Computer. You need access to a computer to activate your chumby as well as set up the apps you want to show on it. Once your chumby is set up, you only need occasional access to a computer if you want to change the apps that play on your chumby.

You don't have to buy a subscription or membership or anything else

Warranty

One-Year Limited Warranty on chumbys