Disclaimer: I was an employee at chumby I agree that chumby eventually didn't really have much reason to exist, but it's important to look at the timeline. ch

Disclaimer: I was an employee at chumby I agree that chumby eventually didn't really have much reason to exist, but it's important to look at the timeline. chumby devices first started rolling out in 2007. Raspberry Pis didn't exist until 2012 and from what I understand projects like the chumby hacker board (2010) played a big part in influencing the creation of the Raspberry Pi and other similar "maker"-centric SoC boards. Prior to the chumby hacker board similar devices were generally only sold as super expensive devkit devices not really meant for semi-mass-market maker use. But it's really the introduction of the iPhone that kind of doomed the device within its intended market, IMO. The iPhone came out the same year as the chumby started rolling out so in a way it was doomed from the start, but while the chumby was in development it was very unclear that rapid mass adoption of capacitive screen mobile devices would be such a sure thing. I mean it seems super obvious now, but even post iPhone release there was a ton of skepticism. And while the chumby and iPhone (and subsequent Android phones) weren't exactly apple to apple devices, mobile devices did the subset of things that chumby did better than the chumby itself did for the most part, why bother having a separate device acting as an Internet-connected radio and alarm clock when your mobile device can do that (plus a lot of other stuff) while its sitting on your desk charging.