Often at home I use different devices and media to get different info at different times. Some examples:

I cycle to the train station as part of my commute so I often want to check the weather. I may either look on my imac downstairs before bed in the evening or sometimes I may have forgotten and so I use the mobile BBC weather site on my Sony Ericsson k800i if I am upstairs already.

I often listen to music in different parts of the home as well. In the kitchen we use the iMac, in the lounge I plug my iPod into the surround sound system and elsewhere in the house I use the iPod with a set of portable battery powered speakers. (I have thought about wireless speakers but never found the reason compelling enough to justify the financial outlay).

Now there are gaps in my consumption of media. How to get a decent weather forecast wherever I am without having to boot up the iMac? How to have an alarm clock that plays more than just radio or “beep-beep”?

So along comes chumby! I will leave you to go and look at the site for more info but it is basically a clever little blob thing that does loads of stuff like show photos and get info from the Internet and play music etc. On the surface it may be a bit scary - a Linux mini computer. Not the best spec for normal people to latch onto. However, if you think of it as a media device in the home then it feels very different. Also they have done a clever thing in the aesthetic design in that it is like a little beanbag. This probably helps for all the times you will drop it but it also makes it look nice in the home - very important to my wife this bit. I can imagine it looking nice on my bedside table as it wakes me up with some rocky music and then shows me the weather report for today. I can equally imagine it in the kitchen with some recipes widget, or on top of the TV in the lounge to play music and show photos.

The other point is the price - a device like this has to be cheap otherwise you might as well buy a laptop or a big iPod.
It costs $179.95 which is great as that is only £90 by current exchange rates!!! This is less expensive than the posh remote from Logitech! What a bargain. Let’s just hope the interface isn’t horrendous!

I will leave it there but I would be interested what other people think of it. Add your comments below.