

Chumby Industries shuts down - joe_bleau
http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/20/2963003/chumby-broken-up-employees-at-technicolor-technology-sold

======
georgemcbay
I'm pretty surprised this is just getting out now. The company essentially
ceased to exist as anything but a legal entity back in December of last year.

However, most of the team is still working together at a new company as
mentioned in the linked article on theverge. And most of us still even sit at
the same exact desks we sat at while working for chumby.

------
nabilt
I'm interested to know what HN thinks this means for hardware startups. Is
this a case of Chumby not executing well enough or is it too hard to build a
hardware startup? I think it's the former, but many people out there including
investors seem to think otherwise. Some even go as far to say it is not worth
doing a hardware startup because software scales soo much easier.

~~~
rollypolly
Hardware startups can be very risky..

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat>

~~~
paulrademacher
Very risky, but not all failures.

Square, FitBit, MakerBot, Nest, Tesla

~~~
hboon
I don't think Square counts as a hardware startup.

Food for thought, is a bank that only provides internet banking services and
providing a 2-factor auth dongle a hardware company?

~~~
pmjordan
In fairness, I doubt most traditional banks actually _design_ their own
2-factor authentication hardware. But yeah, calling Square a hardware company
is nevertheless a stretch. (particularly as the hardware component is a
freebie/loss-leader IIRC)

------
rektide
Chumby is gone. But it's lead engineer Bunnie has a new company,
BunnieStudios. <http://www.bunniestudios.com/>

BunnieStudios makes the netv device: it's an HDMI pass-through injector, and
it's interface is all web based.

~~~
nabilt
The NeTV is a fascinating device. Until now it wasn't possible to manipulate
video protected by HDCP unless you got an expensive license. Probably not
doable for hobbyists and startups. Bunnie solved this by performing a man-in-
the-middle attack to inject video in the stream. Since he is not decrypting
anything he is not breaking the DMCA. Brilliant! The development platform is
also really nice. They have a virtual machine with the toolchain setup so you
can start developing immediately and push firmware to your device through the
net.

Bunnie gives more details here: <http://youtu.be/37SBMyGoCAU>

Hopefully, he will have more success outside the consumer market.

------
ekianjo
Can't say this is unexpected... I haven't used my chumby for months, but does
it mean the chumby channels are going to shut down as well after this summer,
leaving everyone with a useless box that cannot do anything ?

~~~
chaostheory
Yeah this is what I fear as well. I didn't know everything including the
interface depended on a server. A little annoying once you figure it out after
paying for one.

------
polycom
I still use my Chumby as an alarm clock, and it works really well. I hope that
it will be possible to keep it running without the chumby servers through some
hacks.

Really sad to see that it didn't work out.

------
astrodust
Maybe I'm cynical but this reads as an innovator becomes a zombie, a patent
portfolio that's worth billions in potential lawsuits, or perhaps more fuel
for the arms race.

------
tectonic
I had a chumby. His name was Grumpy. I sold him. Got out in the nick of time.

------
Urgo
Aw sad day. I had one of the original Chumby's right after they went on sale.
Haven't used it in year since the wifi became so flakey but it was nice at the
time.

------
aresant
$17.5m raised and lost for a leather-coated-open-source-widget-powered-alarm-
clock in their early days, to a smart-TV platform in their later days.

Sad story of a multi-pivot failed, hope somebody there takes the time to write
the posthumous, I'd read it.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chumby>

