[dstaley]

Everytime I'm reminded of the Chumby, I'm saddened that there isn't a modern version with an open development SDK. While Nest Hubs and Echo Shows are now available dirt cheap, they're all just e-waste waiting to happen. I wish there was a cheap, highly available device with similar specs (WiFi, Bluetooth, nice displays, microphone, maybe cameras) that it was trivially easy to put your own software onto.

[sliken]

You mean like a RPi 4 with one of the RPi touchscreens?

[ilyt]

And then you need a case, and then you need to slap audio amplifier for speakers too, and find that one magical USB power supply that won't crash rPi under load.

Like... you could just make one, sure but it is quite a bit of work compared to just "buy a hackable box.

Oh, and some kind of supercap probably so powering it off is not crashing your FS... or build your OS to run off readonly image and only save some settings.

That is my experience from building a prototype of that

[duskwuff]

> I wish there was a cheap, highly available device with similar specs (WiFi, Bluetooth, nice displays, microphone, maybe cameras) that it was trivially easy to put your own software onto.

You mean like an Android tablet?

[kelnos]

I guess the Android SDKs are "open", but if you want to do anything lower-level, or be able to upgrade the Android version later (at least for more than just a few years), you need it to be a lot more open than pretty much all Android tablets.

I think the sibling's suggestion of a Raspberry Pi with touchscreen is much better from that perspective, but then you're on your own for building a polished "product" around it, which is unfortunately more involved than just 3D-printing a case for it.

[dstaley]

No, something more akin to a smart display without a battery and a chassis that works well for being on a shelf or nightstand.

[spankalee]

Now that the Nest Hubs are running Fuchsia, I wonder how feasible it would be to keep the kernel and boot other userland modules to run your own code.

[MayeulC]

wouldn't most old smartphones fit the bill? With either stock Android or postmarketos.

[KVFinn]

This is what I use now. After leaving them plugged for years the batteries often start expanding though, so it's not ideal right next to my head all night...