Finally! We have just recieved a Chumby for the office. (But I couldn’t help buying one for myself as well). We haven’t had much time to experiment with it yet, but more about that later. For now, I thought I’d share a few thoughts on why I believe Chumby is the future of products.

Well then, what exactly is a Chumby? It’s a bit hard to explain since it’s almost inventing a completely new product category. However, Chumby is a kind of internet-connected clock radio that embodies two of the hottest trends at the moment: “Long tailed” services and Co-creation. The device itself is rather small and consists of a textile housing with a built-in touch screen. The wifi connection connects you to the internet and makes it possible to share pictures and videos with friends, and fetch news, gossip, animations and weather reports. This content is delivered and provided by “widgets”. These are little add-on software “packages” that allow users to easily customize their product to function in the way they want.

There is a set of predefined widgets made by the Chumby crew – but just about one month after the pre-release, more than 150 are available. Most popular ones include: Digital Clock, Google News, Flickr photo viewer, Weather Channel, Moon Phase, Stock quotes and YouTube video viewer. The value of the device is in the service of delivering new net-connected widgets, not in the hardware, or even the software. This is also where the co-creation comes into place, since the point is that the community helps develop new widgets for all to download.

The reason why I think the Chumby is the future of products and product development is its nature of openness. The device is 100% hackable and designed to be, right from open source hardware and software to open craft.

Open source hardware: “The easiest way to open your chumby is to break the glue seal around the screen and the rubber frame that surrounds it. ” It’s hard to believe and an absolute no go in terms of conventional household electronic warranties, but the quote is actually from Chumby’s official developer forum. Anyone can tinker with the Chumby hardware and all specifications are freely available. It is strongly encouraged to share all the tips, tricks and hacks on the forum. This is very much aligned with LEGO’s Mindstorm robots which is also based on the open mindset. (Read the memorable article from Wired about LEGO Mindstorms.)

Open source software: Just as it says “Permission to hack” in the Mindstorm robot’s souce code, the Chumby’s software is also open source. It’s built on Linux and have a GNU license. Another example of how to think about future product development is putting up a wiki page, where anyone can contribute to and learn about the product – Check out the Chumby wiki here. I am looking forward to see the first applications that make use of the bend sensor for squeeze-based user interface features and the sudden motion sensor (accelerometer).

Open craft: I know, “open craft” is not really the best way to describe it, but I think it is really impressive how thoughtful and accomplished it is to make the housing customizable and hackable as well. The CEO Steve Tomlin has said the Chumby is a device that you can “hack with a seam ripper”. The bean bag housing is very easy to peal off and then it’s just a matter of dusting off the sewing machine and mod away. I am especially fond of the football Chumby. But there are many more examples of craftmanship here.

All together it’s a great product and inspirational too on every level. I think the tangible interface that makes the intangible internet physical and touchable, is one of the things we see much more in the coming years. The very open and holistic approach to innovation and product development is something most companies can learn from. No doubt it’s very intimidating and probably also provocative to many, but nevertheless I have a feeling this is a valid business and innovation model.

As a consumer I feel empowered and taken serious when I buy a product that I can change and adapt to my needs and expectations. A product that lives and develops over time, is so far only known from the cell phone and laptop. Also, the Chumby’s built-in sociability where friends can send pictures and videos to my Chumby, is something I predict a great future. When we advise about product development, we always recommend building continual experiences into the product that leverage the combined product experience. Something the Chumby does very well. Tim O’Reilly talks about the “Open Source Paradigm Shift” and I think this is the physical dawning of that shift.